January 28, 2005: Headlines: Museums: Libraries: Endangered Peoples: Centre Daily Times: RPCV Helen Sheehy is Exhibit Organizer for "Endangered Peoples: Struggling to Survive in a Global World" at Penn State
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January 28, 2005: Headlines: Museums: Libraries: Endangered Peoples: Centre Daily Times: RPCV Helen Sheehy is Exhibit Organizer for "Endangered Peoples: Struggling to Survive in a Global World" at Penn State
RPCV Helen Sheehy is Exhibit Organizer for "Endangered Peoples: Struggling to Survive in a Global World" at Penn State
RPCV Helen Sheehy is Exhibit Organizer for "Endangered Peoples: Struggling to Survive in a Global World" at Penn State
Exhibit explores globalism's effect on cultures
By Cole Hons
For the CDT
The Diversity Studies Room at Pattee Library on Penn State's University Park campus is hosting an exhibit titled "Endangered Peoples: Struggling to Survive in a Global World." The concept grew out of the university libraries' global studies group's desire to highlight Pattee's resources on endangered peoples.
Featuring several glass cases filled with books, flyers and unique artifacts from around the globe, the exhibit offers a wide variety of vibrant and sometimes jarring imagery. Posted a few feet away from a photograph of a traditionally dressed Mayan Indian woman sitting with her child in front of a huge Coca-Cola sign in Guatemala City, a statement on the wall at the entrance to the room encapsulates the purpose of the exhibit with this quote from the Web site TurningPoint.org: "Every place is becoming everyplace else: monoculture. Get there before it's ruined."
"As globalization accelerates," the statement asks, "are we headed toward a world 'monoculture,' and what are we losing of the world's cultural and biological diversity?"
The United Nations estimates that fewer than 300 million indigenous peoples survive on their native lands, retaining much of the cultural heritage of their ancestors.
Their oral traditions, languages, crafts, music, performing arts, and traditional knowledge of nature and medicine are all at risk.
This exhibit looks at a few of the many cultures at risk of disappearing and prompts viewers to reflect on what that loss would mean to the world's cultural, spiritual and intellectual heritage.
The materials in the exhibit all came from the libraries' collection and the personal collections of faculty and staff.
Books with titles such as "Globalisation," "The Cultural Dimension of Development," "Victims of Progress" and "Cultural and Spiritual Values of Biodiversity" sit alongside a wide variety of photos and objects representing indigenous people from the world's continents.
Figurines, rugs, tapestries, carvings, baskets, pottery, utensils and other fascinating items bear silent testimony to the cultural richness of planetary culture.
Exhibit organizer and international documents librarian Helen Sheehy said that "looking at it holistically in terms of all of the cultures" was the most exciting aspect of putting it all together.
"I think because I've actually lived and worked with some endangered peoples in the Peace Corps," said Sheehy, "I gained a broad perspective of what we're likely to lose culturally."
When this story was posted in January 2005, this was on the front page of PCOL:
| Ask Not As our country prepares for the inauguration of a President, we remember one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century and how his words inspired us. "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." |
| Latest: RPCVs and Peace Corps provide aid Peace Corps made an appeal last week to all Thailand RPCV's to consider serving again through the Crisis Corps and more than 30 RPCVs have responded so far. RPCVs: Read what an RPCV-led NGO is doing about the crisis an how one RPCV is headed for Sri Lanka to help a nation he grew to love. Question: Is Crisis Corps going to send RPCVs to India, Indonesia and nine other countries that need help? |
| The World's Broken Promise to our Children Former Director Carol Bellamy, now head of Unicef, says that the appalling conditions endured today by half the world's children speak to a broken promise. Too many governments are doing worse than neglecting children -- they are making deliberate, informed choices that hurt children. Read her op-ed and Unicef's report on the State of the World's Children 2005. |
| Our debt to Bill Moyers Former Peace Corps Deputy Director Bill Moyers leaves PBS next week to begin writing his memoir of Lyndon Baines Johnson. Read what Moyers says about journalism under fire, the value of a free press, and the yearning for democracy. "We have got to nurture the spirit of independent journalism in this country," he warns, "or we'll not save capitalism from its own excesses, and we'll not save democracy from its own inertia." |
| Is Gaddi Leaving? Rumors are swirling that Peace Corps Director Vasquez may be leaving the administration. We think Director Vasquez has been doing a good job and if he decides to stay to the end of the administration, he could possibly have the same sort of impact as a Loret Ruppe Miller. If Vasquez has decided to leave, then Bob Taft, Peter McPherson, Chris Shays, or Jody Olsen would be good candidates to run the agency. Latest: For the record, Peace Corps has no comment on the rumors. |
| The Birth of the Peace Corps UMBC's Shriver Center and the Maryland Returned Volunteers hosted Scott Stossel, biographer of Sargent Shriver, who spoke on the Birth of the Peace Corps. This is the second annual Peace Corps History series - last year's speaker was Peace Corps Director Jack Vaughn. |
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Story Source: Centre Daily Times
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Museums; Libraries; Endangered Peoples
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