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Alumni News and Notes
May 2006
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Lisa Takeuchi Cullen
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Lisa Takeuchi Cullen
Fall 2000 IRP Fellow
Lisa Takeuchi Cullen recently completed a book entitled Remember Me: A Lively Tour of the New American Way of Death, a humorous exploration of American rituals of death and burial. Cullen had this to say about her book:
I trolled an undertakers' convention in Nashville, trekked a forest for 'green' burials in South Carolina, and attended the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival in Colorado. I checked out a lobster-shaped coffin in L.A., interviewed a human taxidermist from Germany, and scattered ashes from a Cessna over the Atlantic....Though I focused on Americans and their weird rituals, I was also interested in foreign rites as practiced by immigrants: what rituals did they insist on bringing with them, and why? To that end, I crashed a Hmong funeral in St. Paul and learned more than I wanted to about animal sacrifice. I also devoted a chapter to my grandfather's elaborate Buddhist funeral in Japan. After all, as an IRP fellow I knew that every global story is in fact an American story.
Cullen's book will be published by Collins in August 2006 and is available at Amazon.com.
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Fall 2003 IRP Fellow Jessie Deeter and Chris Paine, |
Jessie Deeter
Fall 2003 IRP Fellow
Former IRP Fellow Jessie Deeter recently produced a documentary film entitled “Who Killed the Electric Car,” examining the short life of General Motor's revolutionary EV1, an electric car released in 1996 but disappeared by 2002. The film explores some of the reasons why more eco-friendly alternatives to gasoline-powered cars are not readily available when the technology for such cars has already been developed, tested, and sold to many satisfied consumers.
The idea for the film came from from director Chris Paine, who leased the EV1, loved it, and was dumbfounded when GM ordered him to give it back. Deeter had this to say about her film: "People are thinking about, and talking about, the issues we raise. That's my best hope for the film, to kick off a national dialogue about this story of the electric car and what it has to say about who controls the future and our capacity to effect change."
The film will be released later this summer by Sony Pictures Classics, opening in New York and Los Angeles on June 28, 2006.
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O'Neill photographs the staff of the 86th Combat |
Matt O'Neill
Spring 2004 IRP Fellow
Spring 2004 IRP Fellow Matt O'Neill co-directed and produced "Baghdad ER," a new movie from HBO Documentary Films depicting daily life in the Army's premier medical facility in Iraq.
The International Reporting Project is hosting a film screening of "Baghdad ER" and a discussion with O'Neill on Wednesday, September 27, from 5:00-6:30pm at Rome Auditorium, 1619 Massachusetts Avenue, NW in Washington DC. This event is free and open to the public. If you are interested in attending, please RSVP to irp@jhu.edu or 202-663-7726.
O'Neill and co-director Jon Alpert were present at HBO's Washington, DC-area screening this past May, attended by several of the film's heroes - the patients and staff of the 86th Combat Support Hospital (CSH). Several high-ranking Army officials declined to attend the screening, concerned that the film's gruesome surgical scenes would negatively affect soldiers' morale and public opinion of the war.
Bob Herbert of The New York Times praised the film:
This HBO production is reality television with a vengeance - warfare as it really is. And while it is frightening, harrowing and deeply painful to watch, it should be riquired viewing for all but the youngest Americans..."Baghdad ER" is going to tell us right in the comfort of our livings rooms that there is really horrible stuff going on over there in Iraq, and whether we think this is a good war or a bad war, we need to be paying closer attention to the human consequences.
An online interview with the directors is available on HBO.com.
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| Photo by Spring 2001 IRP Fellow Chris Hondros. |
Chris Hondros
Spring 2001 Fellow
Spring 2001 Fellow Chris Hondros recently received the Robert Capa Gold Medal Award from the Overseas Press Club for a series of photographs he took in January 2005 of Iraqi war orphans, shortly after their parents had been killed by U.S. soldiers during a routine foot patrol.
Hondros was embedded with the 25th Infantry Division on the streets of Tal Afar after curfew when a speeding vehicle approached the soldiers. After failed attempts at slowing the vehicle down, the soldiers opened fire on the vehicle, killing driver Hussein Hassan and his wife, Kamila. Six children in the back seat survived the incident, though the Hassan's 12-year-old son, Racan was severely injured.
As a defense against car bombs in many cities in Iraq, it has become standard practice for foot patrols to shoot at oncoming vehicles to stop them, particularly after dark. According to Hondros, who was contacted by the Pentagon about his photographs, there are 5-7 such instances a day in Iraq, and the U.S. military is reasearching and testing alternative means of stopping or slowing down vehicles.
Hondros is a staff photographer for Getty Images News Service.
April 2006
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Aryn Baker |
Aryn Baker
Spring 2005 IRP Fellow
Aryn Baker recently left her post as an editor at TIME Magazine in Hong Kong to work as a correspondent in TIME's New Delhi Bureau. The focus of her work will be business, but she will also cover Afghanistan and Pakistan as she has been doing since her Spring 2005 IRP Fellowship.
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Spring 2003 Fellows Shayla Harris |
Shayla Harris
Spring 2003 IRP Fellow
One of IRP's former Fellows has had a hand in the revamp of The New York Times' website. Spring 2003 Fellow Shayla Harris has been working at the Times' web video division for the past six months, prepping for the launch of the website's redesign and the role that web video will play in the paper's future. To access The New York Times' video visit www.nytimes.com. The "Video" tab at the top of the homepage will take you to a video player with several channels containing more than 300 video pieces, many of which Shayla has produced and narrated.
Alumni news archive: September 2005 - March 2006
Alumni news archive: August 2004 - March 2005
Alumni news archive: April - May 2004
Do you have IRP/Pew alumni news to share? Email us at irp@jhu.edu.
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