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Faculty and Staff International Activities
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Faculty and Staff International Activities

The office of International Programs encourages all Columbia faculty to submit information about their international activities which can be easily done by filling out the Faculty and Staff International Activities Form.

 

Sandra Allen
Director
PR Studies
 
Profiling the student-customer:  Implications beyond the millennial generation
 
Since the early 1960's, a variety of methods have been developed and numerous criteria proposed to guide curriculum development at U. S. colleges and universities (Kiguwa & Silva, 2003).  Sophisticated academic metrics often overlook marketing intelligence and approaches. This paper will report how current trends in marketing research and retail customer profiling were applied to the academic environment to tailor student learning to behavioral learning patterns of today's student-customer.
 
Paper to be presented by Sandra Allen and Michael Swidler (full-time faculty in Marketing Communication) at the annual conference of the European Institute of Retailing and Services Studies. Conference to be held July 13-15 in Zagreb, Croatia.
 
 

Stephen Asma
Professor
Liberal Education

Asia: Buddhist philosophy and culture
Ongoing

In 2003, Asma was Visiting Professor at the Buddhist Institute in Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia. There, he taught "Buddhist Philosophy" as part of their pilot Graduate Program in Buddhist Studies, and also studied Theravada Buddhism throughout Southeast Asia (Thailand, Laos, Vietnam). After the Khmer Rouge almost eliminated Buddhism in the 1970's, Cambodia has had to excavate its own rich Buddhism tradition.  Asma was part of an international team of scholars that helped train Khmer graduate students how to do research and preserve their own Buddhist heritage.   Asma's work in Cambodia spawned his HarperCollins book, "The Gods Drink Whiskey: Stumbling Toward Enlightenment in the Land of the Tattered Buddha" (2005).

China:
Cambodia is one of Asma's points of research interest in Asia, and more recently he has been focusing on China. Buddhism and Confucianism  (but all the spiritual traditions really) have drawn his attention in Asia, and he has been constructing a comparative understanding of these traditions in East and Southeast Asia. In 2006, he lived and studied in Shanghai China for four months, and traveled around the mainland doing research on contemporary Chinese culture and Mandarin. He plans to return to China for several months in 2008, in order to deepen his understanding of the emerging religious climate there.


www.stephenasma.com

 

Arnold N. Breman
Professor
Arts Entertainment and Media Management
 
International Arts Management
Ongoing

The class focuses on four different cultures and does in-depth study of the arts in each one of the areas. The four cultures include: Ethiopian, Iranian (Persian), Peruvian and Vietnamese. Four of the classes are conducted in ethnic restaurants of the above cultures.

The major component of the class is the International Arts Mentor Program. Each student is assigned to a global mentor. There are 14 students this semester and 14 international mentors. This semester’s mentors are arts professionals from the following countries:  Petion-ville. Haiti; Castries, St. Lucia ; Bogota, Columbia; Sofia, Bulgaria; Brno, Czech Republic; Tallinn, Estonia; Riga, Latvia; Rekjavik, Iceland; Tunis, Tunisia; Zanzibar, Tanzania; Jaipur, India; Khorog, Tajikistan; Tehran, Iran; Damascus, Syria; Sydney, Australia.

The students correspond by e-mail on a weekly basis throughout the semester.  The student and the mentor plan a final project related to the culture of the mentor. At the end of the semester the project is submitted to the mentor for review and then is presented to the class. During the past 5 years we have had more than 75 mentors from all over the globe.

 

Anna Bernadska
Faculty
AEMM

Curriculum Design in Arts Management, Kyiv, Ukraine
Ongoing

The project addresses the need for program development in cultural management in Ukraine. It seeks to involve Ukrainian educators and practitioners in developing cultural management curricula with regards to the current socio-cultural context in Ukraine and the implications of the Bologna process.
The project includes a series of seminars on assessment, advising, pedagogy and training methods, curriculum and resource development, and cooperation and networking. Supported by the European Cultural Foundation, The British Council, Kyiv, Ukraine and the Swiss Cultural Program, Kyiv, Ukraine.

 

Garnett Cohen
Distinguished Artist
English

Presentation of Paper "The Role of the Linked Collection in the Short Story Genre," International Short Story Conference, Cork, Ireland
June 18-21, 2008

Garnett Cohen will be presenting a paper at the International Short Story Conference in Cork, Ireland from June 18-21. This paper will address the role of linked short stories (also called cycles, interrelated stories, and novels-in-stories) in the genre.  Specifically, the paper will discuss the power that discreet stories accrue when read in concert with other stories from a series.  While novels and individual stories can provide varying perspectives and unusual points-of-view, they generally do so by obvious devices: white spaces, transitional sentences and paragraphs, or chapter's which rarely supply enough distance to erase the sense that they are intended to spotlight a particular theme or follow a constructed storyline.  The most successful linked stories result in a more authentic replication of the way we read and tell our own lives in pieces, rather than completed narratives.

 

Cindy Gerstner
Professor of Biology and Ecology
Science & Mathematics

Sustainability of Peruvian Amazon Fisheries
Ongoing

Dr. Gerstner's research focuses on the conservation of tropical fisheries, especially in the Peruvian Amazon.  She received a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Program in Conservation and Sustainable Development in 2003 to continue field work on the home aquarium fish trade in Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve compared to rivers near Iquitos, Peru.  Her research paper on the sustainability of the home aquarium trade in Amazon fishes was first presented at the meeting of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in 2004, and was subsequently published in the internationally known, Journal of Fish Biology in 2007.  An article about her research was written in the Chicago Tribune in July 2003.

She also received a Columbia Faculty Development Grant to study the function of an unusual physical feature in an Amazonian suckermouth catfish.  Her paper published in the internationally known Canadian Journal of Zoology in 2007 established that suckermouth catfishes use mouth suction to avoid swimming in current flow.

Dr. Gerstner was appointed as a member of the Board of Directors, Tahuayo River Amazon Research Center, Rainforest Conservation Fund in 2006.  She is currently working on a project on the Sustainability of Fish Populations in the Area de Conservacion Regional Comunal Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo (ACRCTT), Peru, which is supported by a Columbia Faculty Development Grant (2007).  This area was established for formal protection in May 2007 as Peru's first state-designated regional reserve.  Encompassing more than 420,000 hectares of megadiverse lowland Amazonian rainforest, this area is 60 km SSE of the city of Iquitos, Loreto, Peru, in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon basin.  It will serve as the pilot project in planning for a system of communally-protected regional nature reserves across Loreto.

 

Robert Gordon
Architect/Planner
Art and Design

Book Publications, Lecturing
Ongoing

Gordon's book "Perspective Drawing" has recently been published by Fairchild Books. It includes a series of drawings and historical information of architectural and interior design subjects throughout the world, including France, Tahiti, Morocco, the U.S.

He is currently working on another book about Residential Architecture, which will include sketches and photographs of housing in different parts of the world.

He has lived and worked professionally in France for about 7 years, and am fluent in French. He regularly visit Europe due to my interest in international architecture. He also lectures in France and in the U.S.

 

Terence Hannum
IAM

ScopeBasel
June 3-8, 2008

Terrence Hannum had new paintings and drawings featured in Switzerland for the ScopeBasel art fair June 3-8 with the gallery Light & Sie out of Dallas, TX.

At ScopeBasel Terence Hannum exhibited a series of ink, gouache and enamel on canvas tondo paintings.  These paintings dealt with the formal issues of the drum by using the tondo canvas and in some of the pieces depicting drummers mid-beat.

http://www.scopebasel.com

http://www.lightandsie.com/news_item_35.htm

 

Philip Hartigan
Adjunct Faculty
Fiction Writing

Workshop Presenter: Journal and Sketchbook - Ways of Seeing; National Association of Writers in Education, Manchester, UK
November 14-16, 2008

Visual artist and adjunct faculty member of the Fiction Writing Department, Hartigan was selected to co-direct a workshop for "Reporting Back," the Autumn Conference of the National Association of Writers in Education in the UK.  Hartigan and Fiction Writing Department full-time faculty member, Patricia McNair, will conduct the workshop based on one they designed for Columbia College Chicago called "Journal and Sketchbook: Ways of Seeing."  Hartigan part in the workshop will draw upon his visual arts training and teaching, while McNair's will draw upon her work as a writer and writing teacher.

Kay Hartmann
Professor
Art and Design

My year off + on, Sabbatical 2006-07

 

Ilya Levinson
Lecturer
Music

Keynote Speaker                                                              September 7-8, 2007

Ilya Levinson was a guest keynote speaker at the Schillinger System of Musical Composition 1st International Symposium, September 7-8, 2007 at the University of Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom.  The title of his talk was "Systematic" Gershwin: Evidence for the Schilinger System in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess.

His piece Colors of the Day, song cycle on the texts by Ruth Gembicki-Bragg will be presented on Nov. 3-4 and 10-11, 2008 at Momenta Dance Company in Oak Park, IL.  http://www.momenta-dance.org/index.php?pageID=1

He has written music for the show about comedian Belle Barth: If I embarrass you, tell your friends. It was performed at the benefit for Chicago Writers’ Block on Oct. 1, 2007.

Performance of music
May 8, 2008

Levison's piece Shtetl Scenes was performed by Alt-Hastedter Kammerorchester on May 8th at the 60th anniversary of Israel concert in Bremen, Germany.

http://www.senatspressestelle.bremen.de/detail.php?id=18944

http://www.j-zeit.de/archiv/artikel.1250.html

 

Tim Long
PT teacher
Photography

Daniel Burnham's Enduring Vision for the Philippines
Ongoing

Tim Long is spending the month of June in Manila and Baguio, in the Philippines, photographing the streets and structures built according to plans drawn by Daniel Burnham for those two cities in 1905. Burnham's plans have had a lasting impact on the landscapes of those cities that have endured the devastations of WWII, natural calamities, and the chaos wrought by 30 years of rapid and uncontrolled growth. His project is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Fine Arts.

www.tslong.com

 

Erin McCarthy
Assistant Professor
Liberal Education

WHO CARED? ORAL HISTORY, CARING, HEALTH AND ILLNESS: Marking 60 years of the National Health Service
July 4-5, 2008

To mark 60 years of the National Health Service, the Oral History Society is collaborating with the Medical School, University of Birmingham, to organize a conference aiming to understand health care relationships in the histories of medicine; illness; well-being; disability; and planned environments. The event will be of interest to both new and experienced oral historians in diverse fields of research, with opportunities to discuss and reflect on themes and issues that arise in oral history projects.

For further information contact:
Belinda Waterman, Department of History, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ.

http://www.ohs.org.uk/conferences/2008.php

 

Patricia McNair
Professor
Fiction Writing

Visiting Academic, Creative Writing Program, Bath Spa University, Bath, UK
September 2008 - January 2009

As part of the on-going international exchange program shared by the Fiction Writing Department of Columbia and the Creative Writing Program of Bath Spa University, McNair will teach graduate and undergraduate creative writing students while in residence at Bath, UK.  McNair will also help supervise students from the Fiction Writing Department and from Bath's Creative Writing Program taking part in a brief residential exchange that will culminate in the publication of the second literary anthology edited, written, and produced by students from both programs.

While overseas, McNair will attend the ELIA Conference in Sweden with colleagues from Columbia College Chicago.  She will also visit the beaches at Normandy, France, and Cornwall, UK to do research for two magazine feature articles.


Workshop Presenter: Journal and Sketchbook - Ways of Seeing; National Association of Writers in Education Autumn Conference, Manchester, England
November 14- 16, 2008

With co-presenter Philip Hartigan, McNair was selected to direct a workshop for fellow writing teachers at "Reporting Back," NAWE's Autumn Conference.  The workshop will be comprised of activities and exercises designed for the Fiction Writing Department's class, Journal and Sketchbook: Ways of Seeing, and will be open to all participants in this international gathering of writers and educators.


 

RoseAnna Mueller
Professor
Liberal Education

RoseAnna Mueller recently published a book review "Approaches to Teaching Early Modern Spanish Drama." Ed. Laura Bass and Margaret Greer, New York: MLA, 2006. for the Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association Spring 2007, Vol 40, #1

Machiavelli in the Modern World
2007

RoseAnna Mueller published a chapter, "Machiavelli in the Modern World" in the anthology Seeking Real Truths: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Machiavelli, Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden, Netherlands.

Presentation
March 2007

RoseAnna Mueller presented "Gonzalo Guerrero: la otra cara del mestizaje" at the VI Congreso Internacional de Literatura Hispanica, Mexico, March 2007. In this paper/powerpoint presentation, she explores the visual representation of Gonzalo Guerrero, the Spanish sailor who was shipwrecked on the Yucatan peninsula in 1511 and married a Maya noblewoman. He is the true father of European/ Indian race-mixing and provides an alternative to the idea that the first mixed race children in the Americas were fathered by Hernan Cortes.

Mueller received a Faculty Development Award, Spring 07, which allowed her to travel to Mexico to research archives, visit museums, and take photos.

She is planning a Spring 09 Semester Abroad to the Kukulcan Educational Spanish Community in Cuernavaca, Mexico, for Columbia College Students.

www.kukulcan.com.mx

Presentation
July 11, 2008

Presentation of "Learning Spanish from Mama Blanca: Teresa de la Parra's Novel as Pedagogical Text  at American Association, Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese 90th Annual Conference, San Jose, Costa Rica.

aatsp.org

 

Judy Natal
Professor
Photography

Artist residency in Iceland with SIM: The Association of Icelandic Artists
June 1-July 1, 2008

Building upon the work Natal created at the Springs Preserve, Las Vegas, and the Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona,she will continue the ongoing photographic series Future Perfect in Iceland. This series examines the relationship between humankind and the natural world and our efforts to control it. Natal will photograph the spectacular geothermal features of the Icelandic landscape and the structures that harness and convert it into geothermal energy. She will also examine how these structures have altered the extraordinary landscape of the island.

www.judynatal.com

 

Sarah Odisho
Professor
English

The Yoking of the Arts and Liberal Arts: A Radical Vision
Published by The International Journal of the Humanities

 
The main focus of the article/presentation is to radicalize the vision of the Liberal Arts in higher education. By yoking the arts to the Liberal Arts and Sciences, higher education can help to give students the tools by which to "read" their own times, to inspire their own work, and to solve and resolve the problems their communities face. Art (Writing Arts, Performing Arts, Visual Arts) has been at the forefront of cultural revolution, and Columbia is the largest art and media college in the nation. Some of the interdisciplinary bridging that classes bring to the students' schedules have brought more meaning and opportunity to consider the "impossible" than most institutions of higher learning. Some of the practices of the English department has brought that union to fruition.
 
"The Yoking of the Arts and Liberal Arts: A Radical Vision"
Common Ground Publications: The International Journal of the Humanities, Vol. 5, Issue 1, pp 39-46.
Presentation at Columbia University, New York, New York, February 25, 2007


http://sarahaodishoo.cgpublisher.com

 

Pangratios Papacosta
Faculty
Science & Mathematics

International Conference in Germany
March 6-9, 2008

Pan Papacosta of the Science and Mathematics Department attended an International Conference in Darmstadt Germany (March 6 -9) 2008, organized under the theme "Integrating Engineering and Humanities in Higher Education: The Bologna Process and Beyond." Pan Papacosta opened up the conference with his talk "Reinventing Prometheus: Humanities in the Education of Scientists and Engineers."

http://www.tu-darmstadt.de/fb/mb/tvt/iehhe/

Oxford Round Table
July 9 -15, 2006

In the summer of 2006, Pan Papacosta participated in a week-long session of The Oxford Round Table at Oxford, England. The theme of the session was "C. P. Snow's Two Cultures: The Current Debate." The thirty invited participants, academics, scientists and artists, spoke of the need to narrow the gap between arts and sciences. The title of Pan's presentation was "Humanities and Arts to the Rescue of Science."

http://www.forumonpublicpolicy.com/archive07/papacosta.pdf

 

Valeriu Paraskiv
Adjunct Faculty
Film & Video

The Return of the Banished
1979

Val Paraskiv: playwright, artistic director, actor and Adjunct Faculty at Columbia College in the Film/Video Department, co-star in "The Return of the Banished" directed by Malvina Ursianu in 1979 was screened at the Gene Siskel Film Center as part of the series Romanian Cinema Rising, award-winning Eastern European films on Saturday May 24 at 3:30 and Thursday May 27, at 6:30

http://www.artic.edu/webspaces/siskelfilmcenter/2008/may/2.html

Gene Siskel Film Center
164 North State
(312) 846-2600
http://www.artic.edu/webspaces/siskelfilmcenter/2008/may/2.html

 

Alexis Pride
Professor
Fiction Writing

Memory, Truth and the Imagination in the Autobiographical Novel
July 8-11, 2008

Memory, Truth and Imagination in the Autobiographical Novel, a paper to be presented at the conference, the Novel and its Borders in Aberdeen, Scotland, will discuss the autobiographical fiction writer's process: patterns in subject material many writers choose and the artistic effect of these choices. This essay will argue against the common descriptor of a thinly veiled autobiography, used frequently to denigrate the work of autobiographical fiction writers, with little consideration given to writers for their ability to create art that is imaginative and compelling.

The conference, hosted by the University of Aberdeen, will engage with the novel in all its aspects from the 18th to the 21st century. Plenary speakers include Ian Duncan, Jonathan Lamb and Terry Castle. Over 300 countries will be represented.

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/novelconference/

 

Marilyn Propp
Adjunct faculty
Art & Design

Two Person Exhibition: "David Jones and Marilyn Propp"
October 8 - 28, 2008

In early October, 2008, I will be traveling to Xalapa, Mexico with my husband and studio partner David Jones, Director of Anchor Graphics at Columbia College. We have been invited to present a two-person show of our work, which will be exhibited at the Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, for one month. The University is hosting us for one week so that David can present a printmaking workshop and I can speak with painting students.

www.proppjonesstudio.com

 

Joseph Roberts
Coleman Foundation Professor of Entrepreneurship
Arts Management

International conference presentations as a plenary speaker
Ongoing

As an invited plenary speaker on the topic of Cultural Entrepreneurship Professor Roberts was invited to Taiwan and Shanghai to discuss the changing topography of the cultural and creative industries. Representatives of the education and cultural ministries of China, Taiwan, France, U.K. and the United States cultural exchange program were present to discuss the possible policy issues on a global basis.

There are several such hearings planned for the future.

Roberts is also the founder of an academic division dedicated to the cultural and arts entrepreneurship studies and curriculum design within the United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship. This is a national organization of entrepreneurship educators.

www.colum.edu/ecenter

 

Lisa Schlesinger
Playwright
Fiction Writing Department

Virtual Round Table
May- August 2008

A virtual round table discussion begun at PEN World Voices Conference to be published in UK journal Contemporary Theatre Review.


Global Play Project & the Paul Engle Dinner Party
Fall 2007

Our ( ) Town, a short play was included in the University of Iowa's International Writing Program's Global Play Project, read at the University of Iowa and London, England. The Paul Engle dinner party, a multi-media event commissioned by the International Writing Program and the Iowa Playwrights Workshop will be produced in October 2008 at the University of Iowa's International Writing Program in partnership with the Theatre Arts Department.


Out of Silence:Censorship and Self-censorship in Theatre and Performance
2008

Postcards from Gaza and Other Unspeakable Geographies, an essay on navigating the Ben Gurion Airport, after a trip to the Palestinian Occupied Territories, is included in a collection called Out of Silence,  to be published by University of Manchester Press in 2008.

http://www.lulu.com/content/1729495


Twenty One Positions
January- March 2008

Twenty One Positions is a collaboratively written play, originally commissioned by the Guthrie Theatre's International Play Project. The play was developed in East Jerusalem and Bethlehem with Naomi Wallace (UK) and Abdel Fatteh Abu Srour (Bethlehem) and has been workshopped at the Guthrie in Minneapolis and at Kitchen Dog Theatre in Dallas. It received a mainstage workshop production at Fordham University at Lincoln Center. A panel with Rashid Khalidi, Alissa Solomon and others,  was held to discuss the Israeli/Palestinian conflict on stage.

http://www.fordham.edu/theatre/main_seas_5a.htm


 

Brian Shaw
Associate Chair
Theater

Mr. Shaw presented at the European League of Institutes of the Arts biannual Teacher’s Academy.  The 2007 Teachers' Academy was hosted by the University of Brighton, July 11-14.  The title of his presentation was “The Skeleton.  The Skeleton in Space.  Skeletons meet Skeletons in Space.”

In 2001, Brian developed a faculty exchange program with the Academy of Arts of the University of Novi Sad in Serbia & Montenegro.  In 2003, under his direction, students from the Academy collaborated with Columbia College students to create an original performance titled Scale/Vaga for the International Festival of Alternative and New Theatre in Novi Sad.

 

In 2004, Brian started an exchange program with the University of East London around community arts practice in theater.  Brian is currently on sabbatical (Fall 2007) as a Visiting Research Fellow at UEL in London, researching college/community partnerships and their impact on the curriculum."

 

Louis Silverstein
Professor
Liberal Education

Louis Silverstein will present on the subject of his work in the field of death and dying as reflected in his forthcoming book, Eros & Thanatos: Blessed By Your Presence, Graced By Your Love, at the Worldwide Forum on Education and Culture, Sixth Annual Conference, Rome, Italy, 29-30 November 2007.

Eros & Thanatos: Blessed By Your Presence, Graced By Your Love excerpt.

 

Margaret Sullivan
Chair
Marketing Communication

Ms. Sullivan presented at the European League of Institutes of the Arts biannual Teacher’s Academy.  The 2007 Teachers' Academy was hosted by the University of Brighton, July 11-14.  The title of her presentation was “Content Analysis of Imagery.”

 

Tony Trigilio
Professor
English

New Book:  VISIONS AND DIVISIONS: AMERICAN IMMIGRATION LITERATURE, 1870-1930
Published March 2008

Co-edited with Tim Prchal, this anthology includes short stories, poems, essays, and song lyrics written during the United States's first major wave of immigration.  The works collected in this anthology represent the experiences of immigrants from all over the world, and reflect the controversy and uncertainty that abounded as the meaning of what it meant to be "American" was reconsidered in light of increased global migration.  Writers participated in debates about restriction, assimilation, and whether the idea of the "Melting Pot" was worth preserving. Writers advocated -- and also challenged -- what emerged as a radical new way of understanding the nation's ethnic and racial identity: cultural pluralism. The book also includes an introduction, annotations, a time line, and historical documents that contextualize the literature -- all of which suggest ways in which these early controversies over immigration still shape our discourse in the present.

http://www.amazon.com/Visions-Divisions-Immigration-Multi-Ethnic-Literatures/dp/0813542340/ref=sr_oe_2_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202064458&sr=1-2

 

Margot Wallace
Professor
Marketing Communication

Margot Wallace researches, writes, and talks on museum branding, a field she pioneered, to museums in the U.S. and abroad. Her book, Museum Branding, was published by AltaMira Press in 2006. She has recently spoken at the American Association of Museum national conferences, Midwest Association of Museum conferences, Historic House Museum conference, and programs in Canada, England, and The Netherlands. http://www.museumbranding.com

She also initiated the Marketing Communication Department’s focus on China, and is working with Youming Che, who teaches its China marketing courses, to consult with marketers and museum professionals in Shanghai during her sabbatical in Spring 2008.

 

Stan West
Adjunct Faculty
English

A Personal Geography Examining Why American Expatriate Writers Lived in Paris and Madrid
October 20-22, 2007

For the last 150 years, writers from throughout the United States have written from Spain and France, many of them finding a special home in Paris and Madrid. One could roughly divide them by centuries 19th-century American expatriate writers like Henry James, Edith Wharton and Frederick Douglass; 20th-century writers like Sam Boynes Jr., James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Rose Jourdain, and Barbara Chase-Riboud; and 21st-century writers like Kai El Zabar, Pat Westheimer, Lawrence Schmiel, Miles Marshall, Dr. Tyler Stovall, and Dr. Gerald Honigsblum. The most famous American expatriate writers lived in Madrid or Paris between World War 1 and World War II such as Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Djuna Barnes, Ezra Pound, and Langston Hughes. They were called the "Lost Generation" first by Stein, who coined the phrase, then by literary scholars who sought a way to describe disaffected American writers who fled to Europe between the two world wars seeking a freer  environment. They came from different race, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, and political persuasions. They were rebels with perhaps good cause...Thinking out loud, I wrote about them while writing about myself, my twin sons, and their great uncle, all while researching the expats' stories in Madrid and Paris.

http://b07.cgpublisher.com/index.html