Fall 1988 by Endeavors

effort, and extramural funding to exploit futly the potential of this effort and to sustain it over the long term. The necessary first step,

Cognitive Science. Astronomy. Social Theory, Medievat Studies. Near Eastern Studies. Conservation Tlaining and Sustainable Dwelopment. lf one were awakened in the middle of the night and asked what these have to do with one

however, has been taken.

Our task in relation to cognitive science is rather different. Unlike social theory, there is no single cohesive group of faculty doing research on cognition. Instead. research in different areas of cognitive science is underway

another, a perfectly reasonable answer (apari

from, "ls this a trick question?") might be, "This is obviously a list compiled by Alice's friend, the Mad Hatter, or some equally eccentric character of uncertain intellectual tendencies-and who wants to know anyway?" ln fact, this unlikely collection testifies to one of our chief preoccupations in the 0ffice of the Vice Chancellor for Research, namely, working with faculty to enhance research in areas which cross departmental, disciplinary, and, in some cases, institutional boundaries. One faculty member has dubbed this activity

"fomentinq researchl' To foment research is both a hish art and a fine science. It requires the agility of a gymnast, the doggedness of a bureaucrat, the imagination of a storyteller, the radar of a politician, and the patience of the long-suffering Job. A willingness t0 say "yes" first and work out the details later comes in handy. A sense of humor is indispensable. lf serendipity prevails and faculty, funds, and a research agenda come together,

bolh individual and

collaborative work benefit. 0f course, new research opportunities for laculty mean new opportunities for graduate students as well.

This can be a special boon for students whose research interests do not fit neatly into an established academic track. 0n this campus, the potential for interdisciplinary research is great and, as the Mad Hatter's list indicates, encompasses a wide range of disciplines. No matter how great the poten-

tial, however, it will into being by kind tions. Indeed, in a support in general

not just happen, summoned

thoughts and good intenuniverse in which research is becoming harder to find

in neighborhoods as diverse as anthropology, neurobiology, classics, computer science, and linguistics. The first step toward enhancing the work of this very eclectic group has been Patricia Lewis Poteat, Associate Vice Chancellor for Research

for each project. An impediment of a different kind arises when an area of research is so multifaceted and its boundaries so uncertaincognitive science is a good example-that faculty whose work may bear upon one another's are simply unacquainted, either personally or professionally. 0pportunities must be created

for these faculty to meet, explore common research interests, and determine how their work

might benefit kom formal or informal collab oration. Administrative and financial mechanisms can then be developed t0 supp0rt a variety of

projects under a common rubric. These might include, for instance, support for distinguished visiting leclurers or faculty colloquia, seed money lor publishing working papers, faculty release time, graduate student support, and administrative assistance in preparing grant proposals.

The two areas just alluded to-social theory and cognitive science*will serve t0 indicate more concretely what can and is being done to foment interdisciplinary research at UNC-CH. Briefly, the newly formed Program in Social Theory & Cross-Cultural Studies has as its nucleus faculty

in the humanities and social

who have been meeting informally since 1985 to read and discuss current scholarship in social theory. With support from the Oraduate School and the Institute for Research

and sustain, interdisciplinary work faces some unusual if not unique difficulties. For example, getting extramural funding is particularly arduous since the priorities of any given agency and a particular line of research seldom malch precisely. As one faculty member whose field is social theory observes, putting together even modest support means "going everywhere'

sciences

and routinely submitting multiple proposals

and a newsletter. It will, of course, lake time,

in the Social

Sciences, faculty members are

developing a program which will eventually inelude colloquia, graduate semina$, an annual conference, publication of working papers,

simply to introduce them t0 one another. To this end, our office has provided support for a series of faculty seminars focusing, first, on current, in-house research on cognition and, second, on the question of where we want t0 go with cognitive science on this campus and how we get there. These laculty seminars will be complemented by a graduate seminar offered in spring 1989. This will be open to students in several departments and will include lectures

by a series of distinguished visiting scholars. Together, these activities will help us resolve the complex question of how we can best support cognitive science over time. These and other elforts to enhance interdisciptinary research are bul one part of our commitment to enhance research and graduate education in disciplines across the university. To do that with any degree of success requires a readiness to explore new ideas and to attend careiully to the research needs of lhe faculty. Sometimes, a modest level of assistance can make an enormous difference. Sometimes, a complex array of internal and external resources

must be marshalled to address an existing need or open new avenues for research. In either case, the agenda is the same: Take ad' vantage of research opportunities that exist; create opportunities if they do not exist; attend seriously

t0 any

reasonable proposal; pay at'

tention; find money. [n short, foment research by whatever means available and keep the door open. As Associate Vice Chancellor and Resident Camp Director, I can attest that the door is open and we are fomenting research right and left. We shall'not let the Mad Hatter run

out of material.

*Patricia Lewis

Poteat

AYOR

Keeping the Faith in Moderfr South India

This procession includes the brightly painted and

colofully adorned inage of Mariyanna4 originally goddess of snallpox but now diseases. Parents hoist

face

of all

childhood

their children up near her

lo have them blessed with protection fron

il lness.

s o

During the ten-dav Brahnotsavan t'estival. which the location photographs here and on the cover depicl, long lines of devotees form in advance o/ lhe ratra. a chariot bui]t to resenble the nain tenple. to pull it through the mada slreels uith great ropes (not visible here for the crowd; see front cover). The streets are lined w'ith business establishnents, nant of then open during this and other festivals to sell both religious and secular articles. .4 banner in lhe left of this picture adverlises Evereadt batteries, which are manufactured

in the

area.

Throughout much of this century the views

of scholars of the world's religions have

been

colored by sociologist Max Weber's thesis concerning the relationshrp between a given culture's religious practices and its economics. Made most explicit

Weber's

lile

Protestant

Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalisn 0904-1905),

this thesis draws a connection between Protestantism's "inner worldly asceticisml' with its general lack of religious ritual, and the economic development fostered

western

in particular, according to Weber, allowed for the growth of societies by capitalism. Calvinism

free enterprise insofar as it shifted the emphasis from previously communal reilgious observance (which might be said

to nurture

ritual) to individual worship, which in turn encouraged individualism in other spheres, rncluding that of economics. According to this thesis, then, we should expect to find a level of religious ritual in inverse proportion to a given capitalistic culture's degree of economic

The Lord Kapaleeswara sits in state high upon his silver bull Nandi when he is brought out of the temple for a festival procession. For each occasion he is dressed and adorned anew with garnents of silk and such jewels as rubies and emeralds. Prominent local businessmen consider it a great honor to be allowed to bear the considerable expense of the flowers, usually roses and jasmine, surroundtng the idol

development. However, at least one scholar of Hinduism as it is practiced in modern South India is taking Weber to task on this score. Assistant

professor of religious studies Joanne Punzo Waghorne spent seven months of last year in Madras City, capital of the state of Tamilnadu, supported by a Senior Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies. Her husband Dick Waghorne, a professional photographer, took close to a thousand slides

order

to help her collect evidence that

ritual in modern Hinduism is very much alive and well-as is the city's developing, capitalistic economy. 'As India continues t0 move out of the British colonial periodl' says Joanne find ritualism actually growing, not dyingi' She cites not only the current

Waghorne, "we

renovation underway of numerous older temples

in Madras but also the installation of a half dozen new temples within the last decade.

$ g,

,:i.. ..i

a:r,rw.::

Assistant professor of religious studies Joanne Punzo Waghorne

Adds Waghorne,

= A

'All

such construction and

secration of these temples are expensive, but

facedl' Hindu mythology and history is replete with gods, saints, and gurus whose images continue to be worshipped to the degree that these beings are believed to embody or partake of divinity. Some deities are known for having done something in particular, some for simply having been out-

committees of lay devotees [worshippers] seem to have no trouble raising funds from individuals, small businesses, and larger corporations in the areal' Business is thriving in Madras, and it is considered a wise investment to care for the gods as carefully as for other

quickly as new computer and motorcycle Brahnin priests (flanked by a curious onlooker)

industries, to name a few, expand.

are distinguishable by their white dhotis (pre nounced D}lees) and the slender, sacred thread worn ovu the left shoulder. They may also wear, as the priest on the left does here, a devotional shawl printed with the nanes of gods. The bands

Ihe Many faces of God

on their foreheads nay be worn by any devotee. These Brahnins have been shopping for vegetables, which they carry in their bags; the wistwalch is worth noting, for it illustrates the ashes

point that contempoftry Madras is a confortable blend of the old and the new.

it. Polytheistic Hinduism

multifaceted-literally, "many-

sees divinity as

capital resources. Thus temples are growing

of white

understanding of

the rituals which accompany the proper con-

Most interesting to Waghorne is Hinduism's thriving tradition of worship of the divine image as it is manifested in a variety of icons. This is "idolatry' in fact, though the pejorative connotation which many westerners would attach to the word does not enter the Hindu's

standing people; some are attached to certain qualities, for example, Lakshmi, the goddess

of wealth. Still others, like Sai Baba of Shirdi, are considered incarnations of divinity in its fullness, associated with no particular functions or qualities. This worship of the many faces of God has long been the major feature of Hindu liturgy, and Waghorne finds no abatement of such worship in an environment fast developing a professional class composed of accountants, engineers, computer designers and technicians, government bureaucrats, social workers, jour-

Y.O nalists, university intellectuals, and the like. Such professional types participating in a

liturgical church in the West-American Catholics, for instance, who have been taught to pray to saints or even to "worship" the

Virgin Mary-may often have trouble reconciling spiritual mysticism with the daily exercise of more "practical" or applied intellectual activity. Modern Hindus, however, experience little or no such difficulty. Liturgical religion and the everyday realities of getting one's Iiving

and getting along in the world go hand in hand, to the point that it is not uncommon

to find a temple established squarely on the grounds of an industrial or technological complex.

It is

as though the Research Tliangle

Park of central North Carolina were to erect

in its midst a synagogue or church of some kind, given that most RTP employees professed the same faith. Waghorne points out that the current emphasis on ritual and other activity associated with the temple in southern India has the

tacit approval of the present-day Thmilnadu government, although this has not always been the case. Often the state, 0r even some of its ministers acting on their own, will help to fund temple renovations, and commonly a government official wilt have his own imageeither a photograph or an artistic representation -displayed in the vicinity of religious activity. Not only does any western concept of separation of church and state not apply in this section of India, the idea would stand diametrically opposed to what Hindu culture is primarily about: the integration of spiritual and temporal life. Deeply involving the here and now-not just the hope of life after death -Hinduism takes seriously the very personal, reciprocal relationship of the particular devotee and the particular deity.

A Look at Mylapore, Madras Gity The Waghornes have thus far focused their = a -a

Dick llaghorne, a professional photographer, assrs/s /rrs wife in her research by documenting their uperience of Hindu religious ritual in Mylapore, Madras City.

study on a certain ancient, sacred section of Madras called Mylapore. Four streets, called the mada streets, surround a large, rectangular area in which one finds Temple Kapaleeswara and, next to its western gatg a sizable, sunken, rectangular concrete tank rimmed on all sides

o e

An old widow (left) and her friend patiently await the arrival of tle ratra bearing the deity; throughout the festival the crowd is a nix of devotees praying, singing chants, or just talking anong thenselves.

by steps leading down to the water. Although the temple gates (the east one facing the rising sun is the most significant) are tiered, only the temple's ground floor houses a sanctum and shrines for the primary and lesser deities, respectively. In this case these are the Lord IGpaleeswara and his wife Karpagambal, as well as their sons Muruga and Ganesha, among other gods. Whereas the water tank is the scene of a variety of activities throughout the year, from swimming to the washing of clothes, during religious festivals it is a place for the display and procession of an elaborately decorated float bearing the ornately adorned icons of special deities. In the center of the tank one sees a mandapam, a kind of gazebo. A little farther west of the tank is the temple of Sai

T.ID.E.A.Y.O Baba;

to the south is a Hindu monastery, the

Ramakrishna mati (pronounced MUT). A number of the larious religious groups active in the area use the mada streets for processions on special occasions, with the exception of the Christians, who are nevertheless active only a few blocks away. These streets are also

the site of numerous shops and open-air markets where vendors compete for the rupees of temple-goer and tourist alike, for they offer everything necessary

or desirable for puja,

the chief ritual of Hindu worship, as well consumer goods of

all

kinds.

Professor Waghorne explains that pula translates as "offering" and that it can take a variety of forms, including the presentation of flowers, bananas and coconuts (among other foods), incense, song, or some combination of any of these. After bathing the particular deity for whom puTa is being done with food and

sometimes with a milkbath, the devotees in turn consume these proffered goods and wipe

= o

The kettle drun is manned by a father and his two sons ol a traditional caste comnunity once classified as "untouchables." The keftle drum precedes the ralra by a block to announce the arriual of the deity.

the ashes of the incense across their foreheads. "The understanding is that the icon has consumed the essence of the offeringl' says Waghorne, and that the food and ashes have come t0 represent an opportunity for holy communion between deity and devotee. lndividuals, families, or occasionally whole communities perform puja, and the place varies from home to temple to the float in the water tank, even to the mada streets when a procession is underway. Unlike the Christian

and Jewish custom of observing a holy day once a week, Hindus perform pula according to their liturgical calendar. This calendar includes a round of yearly festivals which celebrate important events in the life of the presiding deity as well as changes in season. Professor Waghorne notes that the specific ritual schedule of the newer temples seems to accommodate the work schedules of modern devotees in order to avoid the old practice of taking time out of the work day or week to observe religious holidays and special celebrations. The older temples, however, still maintain the more orthodox schedule of ritual, which coexists with the schedules of the newer temples.

3 o 9

A priest assists with puja W means of an agama, similar to the Roman Catholic missal or the Anglican Catholic Book of Common Prayer. Agamas are less philosophical texts, more "guidebooks or cookbooksl' says Waghorne, from which the priest selects rites, prayers, chants, and hymns that he feels suit the occasion 0r purposes of the particular devotee

a closed shop and looking on during the procession, one may ln this lanily observe a nix of traditional, dyed-cotton sais and nore nodern, nanufactured clothing, to which nany of daotees, standing beforc

lndians attach a neasure of social prestige.

or devotees in attendance. His choices

will often determine the

language

in which

the parts of puja are conducted, whether ancient Sanskrit or (also very old but still in common use) Tamil. Although the Brahmin priests presidingover puia and allother Hindu rituals are male, Professor Waghorne points out that at many of the more modern or "progressive" temples the role of women in the liturgy is expanding, roughly corresponding to an increasing involvement of the laity in general. Again she stresses that virtually all these devotees are middle class professionals and technocrats. Besides participating in puia, lhe Waghornes photographed seven months of the major festivals of the temples, including the "floating festival" celebrating the end of the inauspicious month of Margalai and the end of the cold season. They also photographed the Brahnotsavam, a ten-day festival (occurring at the beginning of the hot season) culminating in the annual celebration of the marriage of the Lord and Lady of the temple, as well as the

= o

in the procession just ahead of the deity, nusicians provide hin with sacred nusic considered particulaily enortaining. The nagaswaram is a long, flute.like instrunent rarely, if ever, used for secular

Placed

purposes.

installation ceremony of the temple of Sai Baba of Shirdi, in which the newly made icon was consecrated. Professor Waghorne has used these slides for lectures and informal talls; she is currently preparing an article for a volume on the making of the divine image in the history of religions. Whereas Max Weber and most students of religion since him have tended to focus on theological and philosophical texts-Hinduism's Bhagauad Gita, lor instance-Professor Waghorne feels that one best learns what modern Hinduism is about by watching its devotees actually go about their worship. She finds that Hindu practice sometimes departs, in fact, from Hindu doctrine or philosophy. By way of proving her thesis that the religious and economic milieu of modern South India does not conform to the Weberian model or any other that equates ritual with unenlightI 9

.} I such purely sacred shops as this offer prerequisites, such as packages of incense (back wall) and coconuts (front), for all kinds ol worship. Religious artifacts intended nore for hone decoration than for worship are also available, such as the plaster of paris deities hanging fron above. lust visible in the centu is a crucifix, which night be purchased either by Christians or by Hindus who con'

Along the mada slreels

sider Jesus

saint.

enment, Waghorne intends to broaden the definition of religious "textl' in a sense, by taking pictures. Although Waghorne has reason to believe that the situation in Madras City has parallels in other parts of India (by no means

all of it, for it is a nation of

great

diversity), she and her photographer husband hope to maintain their focus 0n the one community a while longer in order to document

fully its religious and secular life-exactly they find it.

-Allison Bulsterbaun

IT.ID

E.A.Y.O

MiEant Farmworker Women and Children Reaching Out

to Them Through Research, Intervention, and Education

Life for most migrant farmworkers in North Carolina means unending manual labor, relentless poverty, and alienation from mainstream society. To them, adequate health care often seems an unattainable luxury. Researchers from the UNC School of Public Health, though, are working to make health care, especially for women and children, more accessible and more effective.

North Garolina's f,arvecterc North Carolina is located in the East Coast migrant stream, the geographical path migrant workers follow to obtain work after leaving their homebase state, usually Florida. Due to the state's long growing season and large agricultural area, North Carolina receives more migrants than any other upstream state-anywhere from 35,000 to 60,000 farmworkers each year. Most are black American, but there are significant populations of Hispanics and Haitians, and a smaller white

Kin

Larson (eft), Elizabeth Watkins, and Chris Harlan discuss the nigrant health project.

population. Each group has its own distinct culture.

Western North Carolina farmers rely on the migrants to pick fruit; farmers in the north central region of the state need help planting

and harvesting tobacco; farmers in eastern North Carolina rely on the workers to pick vegetables. The migrants may come as early as April and stay as late as November, although most work in the state during June and July. While living and working conditions vary from farm to farm, many migrant camps are

not pleasant places. Farmers usually provide shelter, but it can range from relatively com-

fortable structures to converted tobacco barns. Kitchen facilities are often very basic and poorly maintained, which leads to poor nutri-

tional habits. Water is mainly cold and not always easily accessible. Toilet facilities and sewage disposal are often rudimentary. Migrant women, in particular, face a special set of hardships. In addition to the physically grueling work they perform outside the home, they usually shoulder the major responsibility of trying to raise children under these very harsh conditions. These tasks, combined with language barriers, a lack of knowledge about available resources, and feelings of isolation

and loneliness, make obtaining adequate health care for themselves and their children very difficutt.

Improving the f,ealth of Migrant Mothcro and Ghildren Dr. Elizabeth Watkins, acting chairman of the Department of Maternal and Child Heatth, and numerous colleagues have designed and implemented a long-term project aimed at improving the health of these migrant women and children. "lmprovement of the health

status 0f migrant mothers and children will contribute to a reduction in the nation's infant mortality rate and to childhood morbidity and

mortality rates in generall' she explains. "Provision of comprehensive health services which intervene in the physical, nutritional, social, and emotional status of these families may promote a quality of life which encourages a child to complete his education and, so, enable him as an adult to'settle out' of the migrant streaml' The project is the result 0f years of research that began with a request for help in 1983 from Connie Gates, who was then director of TYi-County Community Health Center. TtiCounty is a federally funded health center in Newton Grove, North Carolina, that provides

a e Tri-County Connunity Health Center

in Newton

Grove, North Carolina

health care for migrant farmworkers in Sampson,

Harnett, and Johnston counties. To better serve the needs of the prenatal population, Watkins wanted to learn more about them and their pregnancy outcomes, s0 she launched a pilot study that same year. The study was a chart review of 171 obstetrical patients and 48 infants born to women who delivered in North Carolina in 1982 and returned to lli-County for well-child care. In that year, the pilot study revealed, there was a high incidence of morbidity and mortality among newborn infants, visits by patients were fewer than recommended, and there were too few staff to do adequate outreach, follow-up, and coordination with other health resources in North Carolina and Florida. In order to improve the situation, Watkins

and Gates, together with faculty from other UNC departments, designed an extensive three-year project at TYi-County that would more

clearly determine the key factors associated with the migrant women's poor obstetrical and child care, alter these factors to improve care, and, ultimately, implement change in the health care delivery system serving migrant women and children. The project was funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Bureau of Maternal and Child Health. It was a massive undertaking. First, Watkins sought out and hired bilingual, multidisciplinary staff. Kim Larson, project coordinator, is a public health nurse who speaks Spanish and has worked in the Peace Corps. Chris Harlan,

the project's public health nurse educator, was working on the Tli-County staff when she was recruited into the project. She, too, has worked in the Peace Corps and speaks Haitian (Creole) and Spanish. 0ther staff included a

nutritionist from the UNC School of Public Health, Suzanna Young; social workers Sue Gilbertson and Myrna Ramos-Nunez; statistical clerk Sherry Wenrich; and numerous medical

and faculty consultants. In the beginning, the project staff had to communicate with and gain the trust of the TYi-County

patients-mostly Hispanics, with

smaller population of Haitians. "lt's basically an international, third world phenomenon plunked right down in the middle of eastern North Carolinal' Harlan says. "To me, it's the same as going to South America with the Peace Corpsi' Larson adds: "lt was harder than the Peace Corps. I don't think any of us realized how hard it was going to bel' Another initial task was to gain the acceptance of the lYi-County staff, which usually numbers about 15 but swells to about 35 in the summer. "We all came in with master's degrees and big plans, and it caused some

frictioni' Larson explains. Originally, it

was

intended that the proiect staff would be consultants t0 the clinic staff, but they found that by joining the Tii-County staff in delivery

of services they were more readily accepted. The basic design of the project was to co[lect baseline data, implement interventions designed to improve patient health, then remeasure the baseline variables. The proiect staff measured sociodemographic characteristics of both the maternity and child patients, in-

Travel patterns

of migrant farmworkers. North Carolina is located in the

East Coast migrant strcan

cluding factors in their physical environment, health behaviors, stressors in family relationships, the family's economic situation, and

patterns of utilization of health care and social resources. For the maternity patients, health data was collected on obstetrical history, health status during current pregnancy, and outcome of current pregnancy. The children's health data included information on their current health and nutritional status and follow-up of illnesses

and hospitalization. An important aspect of the project was to increase collaboration between state maternal

and child health resources, so that migrant children can receive the same services as resident children who go to county health centers: free immunizations, referrals to child development centers, consultations with regional public health nurse consultants, and services for children with special health needs. One of the interventions introduced through the pro,ject was an assertive education program to increase breastfeeding, launched by the project nutritionist. Through a series of multilingual group classes, 101 women learned

Black Anerican lay health advisor with her child

about breastfeeding's positive nutritional aspects. The nutritionist also collected unique nutritional data that will allow her to determine the migrant mothers' and children's

social workers interviewed families about their social situation, looking at factors such as

nutritional risk levels. "The data is a valuable contribution, a real plusl' Larson says. "There's very little recent research on the nutrition of migrant workers in the eastern statesl'

marital stress, day care needs, substance abuse, and spouse abuse. They then provided needed services or referred the patients to outside facilities, such as mental health

An active social services program was another effective project intervention. The

centers and women's shelters. They were able to help with several cases of severe wife

abuse.

"0verall, our data show improvement in health status and health behavior of the patientsl' Larson says. But, Watkins adds, because there are s0 many other variables influencing the life of migrants, it is difficutt to know precisely the extent 0f the interventions' effectiveness. In order to complete analysis of the data, the group applied for and has received

funding for an additional year.

Lay f,ealth Advisor Program 0f all the

interventions aimed at improving

maternal and child health during the T]iCounty project, the Lay Health Advisor Program

to be one of the most powerful. Among health professionals, it has also created the most interest. Consequently, the appeared

q -.,'-

researchers have implemented a three-year demonstration project to document the effec-

] =

tiveness of lay health advisors. Begun in October 1987 and scheduled to run through September 1990, the program involves educating migrant women to become health advisors to their peers. "We try to

recruit women who have empathy and the ability to teach and share what they've learnedl' explains Harlan, who is responsible for training the advisors. TYaining consists Chris Harlan (right) talks with the nother of a lay health advisor children and her husband are migrant workers.

in Newbn

Arove. Four of the wonan's six

of a series of health

edu-

cation classes that deal with child heatth, women's health, nutrition, and community

EilDEA resources. As the women travel

within the

migrant stream and talk with other women about what they have learned, they can pro vide a continuity of health care that individual health facilities cannot. Because the women are members of the migrant community, they do not present barriers commonly found between medical personnel and the migrant population: different language, social class, education level, and

life situation. By emphasizing a community perspective, the program also directly involves

the women and their families, a relatively unique situation. "We're giving these women a chance to take control of at least a part of their livesj' Harlan says. ln the words of Sharon Brown, a migrant woman who trained at Tli-County as a lay health

in 1986: "Being a lay health advisor means knowing about things that go on inside, around, and about you and your loved ones. It taught me things I didn't know and things I thought I knew but learned I could know advisor

more aboutl'

The researchers hope t0 demonstrate that lay health advisors can help others to practice better maternal health care, improving both perinatal outcome and infant health status. To test this hypothesis experimentally, they will

compare these factors at five different sites in North Carolina; two sites, Tii-County and the Nash County Health Department,

will

utilize

lay health advisors, and three sites in Duplin and Henderson counties will not utilize lay health advisors. The estimated sample population will be 400 women, 400 newborns, and 250 infants. Larson is responsible for monitoring data collection at these five target sites. Such a comprehensive study requires extensive organization. Thenty bilingual trainers had to be recruited from among health center staff, other health care professionals in the area, and graduate students at the UNC School of Public Health. In addition, the logistical ramifications of the program are tremendous. This yea/s program consists of twelve classes for three different ethnic groups. This situation necessitates recruiting and consulting with

-.f

ie i

.a-

t?f

three sets of trainers, developing three sets of health education materials, procuring three sets of audio visual equipment, finding space

to hold three classes simultaneously, and providing child care and transportation for the participants.

"The Lay Health Advisor Program staff has had to be very creative in developing materials for education and assessmentl'Watkins notes. "This is a fairly new area of research, and

e I

Haitian lay health advisor picking potatoes fields of lohnston County

the

there hasn't been very much to draw on, Most of the data collection tools had to be specially developedi' Atthough the Lay Health Advisor Program, Iike the threeyear project that preceeded it, requires major investments 0f the researchers' time and energy, the staff remains highly motivated and determined. That they can see the changes they are making in some women's lives helps keep them going. One migrant woman in the program, for example, learned how to take her child's temperature and feel the soft spot (anterior fontanelle) on the child's head to check for swelling that indicates illness. A few days later she noticed her son was running a ferrer and the soft spot was swollen, so she brought him to the hospital for eraluation. The boy appeared quite ill, and the doctors, fearing meningitis, kept him for observation. Fortunately, the child did not have meningitis E a

Women leaving a class on infant feeding with layettes, gifts of local church wonen's groups. The class was held at the Tli-County Connunity Health Center, Newton Grove.

and under hospital care his fever subsided. This migrant mother acted quickly on the skills she had learned through the Lay Health Advisor Program-basic diagnostic techniques that will help her keep herself and her children healthier.

-Ilacey J. Matwell

Chapel Hill

Professor Willian Hardy hosts "The Sound

l{riting"

Listening to the Sound of Writing

Caroline Marshall, executive director of the PEN Syndicated Fiction Project, says the program, which reaches an estimated 700,000 people, has been successful. "We love the program and get a great deal of fan mail on itl' she says. "We're discovering from the fan

Sitterson Hall Boasts Stateof-theArt Communications System

mail that some people are more geared to an audio experience. In all cases, I think people have responded because they identify with the teller of the story and though their lives may not be exactly comparable, hearing a story may help them shape their livesl' Audience response warms the hearts of the short story readers, most of whom are members of the Department of Speech Communication faculty. "lt was really exciting to be introducing the stories to our audience through soundj' Assistant Professor Della Pollock says, adding that the series may interest people more in short stories. "l think that sometimes people think novelists write for the public and short story writers write for each other, and that's certainly not true. This is one way of bridging that gapi' Hardy, who hosted the show, says he stressed that readers emphasize the story and its content. "You want an interesting expressive reading without it being dramatizedl' he says.

Sitterson Hall, the new UNC computer science buitding, boasts one of the most sophisticated in-house communications systems in the world. This $2 million system connects 232 offices, laboratories, and teleclassrooms to the department's computing facilities and to each other. The system was designed and implemented by Vernon L. Chi, director of the microelectronic systems laboratory, Norman A. Vogel, communications research director, and Ralph Mason, associate chairman of the department. "We had the opportunity to build this system from the ground upl'Vogel says, with the result that "it serves our current requirements exceptionally well and is adaptable to future

"You don't want the performance to overshadow Listening to stories on the radio has a charm that is absent when watching a television show. Instead of sitting passively in an easy chair, radio listeners have to work their imaginations to picture characters and setting. UNC-CH Professor William Hardy coordinated two series of 13 public radio programs that captivated listeners' imaginations, much like radio dramas broadcast in the heyday of radio. He organized a group of speech performers to read short stories by littleknown fiction writers for "The Sound of Witingl' a 30-minute National Pubtic Radio show which most recently aired on NPR Playhouse from January to April 1988. The stories, recorded at WUNC in Chapel Hill, were selected by a group of distinguished writers for the PEN (Poets, Essayists, Novelists) Syndicated Fiction Project, which encourages the writing of short stories by offering selections for publication

to newspapers around the country. "PEN seemed very pleased with usl' says Hardy, who teaches film and television writing in the Department of Radio, Television, and Motion Pictures. "The best indication was they did the second series and there is some serious talk about doing a third seriesl'

the story itself because it is the story that is importanti' Still, readers got an added boon by participating in "The Sound of Writingl' Hardy says. "This kind of artistic performance is the equivalent of scholarly research [for speech communication] in other fields. In terms of a faculty member's vita, this counts as a scholarly projectl' Pollock says readings are similar to research because they share knowledge. "l would say that performing fiction would be like presenting a short paper or publishing a book reviewl' The radio performances, funded in part by the North Carolina Arts Council, NPR, and the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, offer a contemporary form of storytelling. "l still love radio for things other than musicl' Hardy says. "l think, for example, that listening to a ball game is much more interesting than watching it on TV There's a sense of participationl' Pollock agrees. "Stories engage the

needsl'

The system's nerve center is an InteCom IBX, located within the building. Called a "switch" because of its dynamic interconnecting capability, the IBX supports nearly a thousand internal devices, such as telephones, terminals, workstations, and printers. It is exceedingly fast, providing interconnection between high performance devices at data rates up to 1 million digital bits per second. The IBX is protected from power failure for 30 minutes by an Exide uninterruptible power sptem and from fire by an automatic halon

imagination in a way television doesn't. They make the listener an active participant in the culturel' Vogel nert b the Satellite Earth Station on the rool of Sitterson Hall. The arth station receives conmunications fron 28 satellites in space.

Noman

Reports juries by type and by severity. The results showed that the preventive braces had no effect on frequency of iniury but did reduce severity in one type of injury involving the

gas fire artinguisher. The telephone network the IBX supports is itself unique. Unlike other campus phones,

which are all directly connected to the Southern Bell switch on Franklin Street, the phones in Sitterson Hall connect to an autonomous digital voice/data switch in the lBX. This switch represents voices in digital form rather than the more common analog form and so pro duces the highest quality sound possible. In addition, the switch allows for simultaneous data carriage at speeds 0f up to 57.6 thousand bits per second. The IBX also relays information along several distinct communication networks inside the building. One of these networls is called EtherNet, and it is the workhorse of Sitterson Hall. Because of its speed, EtherNet interconnects the computer mainframes, affectionately named for the seven dwarfs in Snow White, and all high performance worl<stations, such as the admnced Sun and DEC Microyax workstations. The building is wired to maintain six separate EtherNet systems, all utilizing fiber optia, strands of glass the size of human hair that can transport digital data at the rate of billions of bits per second. EtherNet also connects high performance graphic terminals and sources, such as the pixel-planes processor. This machine, designed and built in the department's microelectronic systems laboratory produces dynamic, thre+ dimensional, moving graphics. It is often used to provide doctors with thre*dimensional versions of X-rays. To support such a complex machine, the set of four cables that relay its data had to

be trimmed carefully with an instrument known as a time domain reflectometer. This instrument synchronizes the cables to within forty picoseconds of each other-and one picosecond is one trillionth of a secondl Yet another internal network, a Farallon Appletalk/PhoneNet system, connects the popular Apple Maclntosh workstations and their laser printers into a common system. Because the Appletalk system is slower than EtherNet, it has been specially adapted to connect to the EtherNet network. Each office in the building has two outlets that allow users t0 connect easily to any of these networls. "There is a portfolio of opportunities in the outlet box because different types of terminals have different needsl' Vogel explains. High performance combined with continued on inside back cover

medial-collateral ligament. Because the sample size of this study was very small, Dr. William E. Prentice, Jr., assistant professor of physical education and physical therapy, and former graduate student Dan Szczdrowski surveyed football players at

fifteen major universities, collecting injury reports 0n 209 athletes sustaining knee injury while wearing the preventive brace. These reports indicated similar results. In some cases the braces increased the number of injuries but still reduced their severity. A later study of about 10,000 cases by a Seattle physician confirmed these findings.

Still other studies have focused on whether wearing a brace limits an athletes ability to perform. Former graduate students Todd Toriscelli and Nadine de Freitas have investigated the effects of preventive braces on performance-specifically, on speed, agility, and the ability of the limb to generate force.

Dr. Willian E. Prcntice adjusts a kneebrace he designed to prevent injury from a blow to the out-

Studies of three types of braces showed that decrease the range of motion and

all three

running speed, but only in a forward

side of the knee.

direction.

Evaluating Preventive and Functional Knee Braces

For six years, companies have been marketing protective knee braces that provide lateral support 0n one side of the knee. Promoters of the braces have claimed that they prevent injury to the ligaments and other supporting structures in the joint, but there has been no data to indicate whether these devices were truly effective. This gap in information has sparked a number of UNC studies.

In 1985 Dr. Timothy N. Taft, associate professor of surgery in the UNC-CH School of Medicine, and Stuart "Skip" Hunter, athletic trainer and physical therapist in the Sports Medicine Program, examined the incidence of knee injury on the UNC football team. The team has been using preventive braces in practice and games since 1983. Taft and Hunter compared the number of injuries sustained before the team began using the braces to the number sustained in the same amount of time afterward. They also classified the in-

"lt's still early to tell whether the trade off is worth the benefitl' Prentice comments. "lf were advising high school coaches, based on the information available, I'd say they're probably not worth the money because the braces are expensive. But if they have money to spare, by all means go ahead and use theml' Graduate student John Wawryzniak is now studying the effects of wearing a functional knee brace, one worn after injury and surgery t0 support the knee and allow activity. Using Cybex and Kincom machines, which measure torque, or the amount of force exerted by a limb on the machine, Wawryzniak has found that two of the more popular braces actually increase the average force of the quadriceps but do not significantly affect any other parameters. His research would seem to indicate that the functional braces do not hinder

or reduce performance. Looking toward the future, Prentice is interin the effect of braces on rotation of the tibia. However, a machine t0 measure this rotation has not yet been developed. ested

-Diantha J. Pinner

ETD

herrs Master ilities with New Spatial Tool

G Po,

In elementary school, students in

E, A.Y.O

geography

or social studies are often given U.S. maps to color. Students pick striking colors to highlight individual states 0r particular regions. Young scholars also encounter other visual Iearning aids, such as filmstrips. ln addition, teachers may introduce students to the overhead projector and transparencies. By laying one transparency on top of another, teachers show spatial relationships between the two transparencies. For example, a math instructor teaching set theory could place Set A, a blue circle, on the projector. When Set B, a yellow

circle, is superimposed, any green places show areas common to Set A and B. Stephen J. Walsh, associate professor of geography at UNC-CH, combines color graphics

and transparency-like techniques with hightech computer equipment to explore the character and distribution of geographic phenomena.

Walsh and geography students use a Geo graphic Information System, or GlS, to organize descriptive data that can be related t0 maps. The GIS is a powerful tool that allows re-

to orient spatial data into a grid or polygon system. For example, they combine satellite data with information a satellite cannot detect readily, such as slope angles of land surfaces, subsurface rock type, or precipitation levels. "Even though the satellite data

Geography graduate student Ken Gallager, at rcar, watches Dr. Stephen J. Walsh use a Graphic Digitizer to transfer inagebased map data into digital computer form for the Geognphic lnformation Systen. In the background, a color gnphiu computer monitor displays integrated data fron the GIS.

searchers

are very raluable for describing biophysical variables-satellites give us detailed information

30 or 40 overlays on a color graphics computer screen, researchers can easily see relationships they once may not have noticed. The overlays also serve as the basis for constructing quantitative and empirical models.

"l guess what we're basically

probleml' Walsh says. By organizing data into grids or polygons oriented to the same map scales, researchers can use the GIS to construct

to analyze problems. They can program the GIS to show areas where variables intersect, as in the set theory example. By programming the GIS to display a series of

and instructioni' Applications 0f the GIS for UNC-CH researchers include its use in drought evaluation, water quality modeling, and analysis of geomorphic effects of snow avalanches.

overlays

evaluating environmental management issues and conducting basic research in computer modeling.

talking about

is trying to weave together physical geographic research herel'Walsh explains. "ln the Department of Geography, GIS and remote sensing are treated as valuable spatial techniques to enhance physical and social/cultural research,

on a repetitive basis over extensive areastheir data cannot tell us everything about a

Also important are techniques for merging remotely sensed satellite data into the GIS for

A Gacc Study Uclng the Before coming

to UNC-CH in

GIS

1986 from

0klahoma State University, Walsh received a number of grants, including some from NASA, t0 compare how well satellite data reflect topographic features. Because satellites pass over all parts of the earth, it is relatively

EIIIDE

inexpensive

Other Uses of GIS

to retrieve a host of data from

them, Walsh explains. But if the remotely sensed data cannot be linked effectively to actual ground conditions, they have little utility

for

Satellite data seem to provide useful information on specific, difficult topographic problems-the sensors are pretty sensitive. "Satellite data provide a lot of GIS informa-

researchers.

Walsh recently proposed that NASA create

a GIS to check the effectiveness of satellite data for studies in rugged topography. "The

tion we couldn't otherwise retrieve in the fieldl' Walsh says. "We merge these data with

NASA people are interested in verifying how sensitive the sensors arel' Walsh says. "l designed a proposal that looked at the geo-

the landscape elements the satellite can't detect and do some spatial analysis and location modelingi' 0n a basic level, the GIS is kind of a big electronic filing cabinet that holds descriptive information based on an equal geographical

morphic, vegetation, and hydrologic relationships in Glacier National Park, Montana, through the Thematic Mapper sensor on the Landsat satellitel' For the NASA study, Walsh chose to look at snow avalanche paths in the northwest Montana park known for its rugged, varied terrain. When avalanches send thousands of pounds of snow tumbling down mountains,

a scarred, barren path. From aerial photos, avalanche paths are easily discernible. They

look like a bunch of pick-up sticks randomly arranged on the sides of slopes. 'Avalanche paths are such a dramatic visual element in

Park to conduct field research in a 225 square-mile study section. Amid lush greenery, mountain flowers, cool blue-green lakes, jagged mountains, and glaciers, Walsh and Gallager spent two weels photographing and mapping avalanche paths.

0n their return t0

Chapel

Hill, the re

a newly available GIS system t0 create their control for the satellite study from their field results, as well as from existsearchers used

ing map and photographic data. Walsh says he hoped that when satellite information was added to the geographic data base, it would offer researchers a chance to look at the character of snow avalanche paths, to try to determine whether they were spatially organized or randomly placed, and to ascertain how the shape of the earth's surface determines their occurrence and behavior. He also wanted to know whether the paths were topographically controlled by variables such as slope or if they were structurally controlled by features such as faults or slippages in the earth. The GIS, including satellite data, also would permit

a hydrologic and vegetation assessment of the

trees grow. Through programming, researchers can ask more complex questions. After finding out

trees snap and vegetation clears, leaving only

the park that we cannot help but see them and try to understand why they occur-their processes of formation and distribution, and their impact on humans and natural events and processesl' Walsh says. The NASA grant allowed Walsh and UNCCH geography graduate student Ken Gallager to trek in summer 1987 to Glacier National

scale. For example, researchers can quickly find, using a vegetation "transparency" from a GIS, all areas on a plot of land where pine

black-and-white version of the general

topography ol part of the Montana study area taken hom the color graphics

nonitor of the

Geographic I nformation Systen

park, Walsh predicted. Researchers would be able to look at how glaciers fluctuated over time and the impact such change has had on vegetation composition, erosional levels, and

landform development. "From that analysis, some of our hypotheses were proved and others expanded because of the spatial relationships in the datal'Walsh says. "We had assumed that avalanche paths were controlled by the geologic structure and topographic influences. The results 0f the GIS confirmed that, and even strengthened those contentions, but they also introduced something we had not anticipated as a dominant control of avalanche paths, but now that we see it, we wonder why we hadn't seen it before. We found that the lithology [rock character] is another factor controlling avalanche paths and avalanches since they seem to be occurring at the base of sillsl' or changes in rock strata caused by an intrusive body of igneous rock. "These GIS files help us in the interpretation of some of the satellite datal' Walsh says. "We can also combine the information 0f the GIS fites with the satellite data so we can ask more complex spatial questionsl'

where all pine trees are, they can seek more specific information, such as the location of pine trees that grow on state-owned land. By programming the GIS to search through several "transparencies" and filter out unnecessary information, researchers can query the GIS on multiple levels to get specific, composite information. An even more complex use of the 0lS is modeling, which involves using the tool to create scenarios for specific questions. As another example, take for granted that

county emergency center has a GIS. An emergency dispatcher gets a rush-hour call about a bad wreck and car fire on a littleused road a few miles outside of town. By using the GIS, the dispatcher quickly can

enter known weather conditions and areas where traffic is stalled. Using a GIS data base, the computer will show the quickest route emergency teams should take t0 get t0 the scene of the accident. Any time saved could result in a saved life. Researchers armed with a GIS can model other problems, such as the impact of urban growth on water quality in a watershed or whether soil will erode too much if pine trees are cut down in a plot, Walsh says. "The GIS allows us to look at ramifications of certain scenarios before they are implementedi' he explains. "Let's model it before we cut down the trees. If we can see what will happen before it happens, then we can be prepared for it and deal with itl' The GIS basically is an organizing tool that can be programmed. "lt has a strong analytical capabilityl'Walsh says. "lt can do all the 'What ifs?l do all the compositing of

Eil

thematic overlays, all the modeling, and it can act as a receiver of other types of data. "There are alternate techniques that are sometimes used in concert. Satellite data pro

vide primary data collection. GIS is just a framework in which to put some of that data to do spatial examinationsl' Gallager, the graduate student, also is pleased with the value 0f the GtS. "lt's almost

like a video game-the quick response of it. You can get your results very quickly and do

rapid but complex analyses. 0nce you have your data digitized, you can combine them in just about any way you want and can do it much quicker than you could manually. The speed

with which you can perform analyses

pretty refreshingl' But Walsh adds, "lt's not an end by itself. You have to be able to interpret what the GIS is telling youl'

future

GIS Use at UNC

seminar on use of the 0lS, was amazed at the versatility the system offered. He says the tool can be used to enhance studies in a

The GIS is not a tool only for UNC-CH's Geography Department.

lt is an image pro

cessing technique that should be available to qualified university researchers by Fall 1988 through the university's broadband, or main campus-wide, telecommunications system, says Associate Provost John H. Harrison, whose Office of lnformation Resource Management spent about $37,000 to buy computer software t0 run a complex GIS. "lt's a visual, graphic representation ol a data basel' he says. "This can be one monstrous data base and you can putt it up when you want tol' To use the GIS, researchers need to access the broadband and display results on a high resolution graphics monitor and printer. Harrison, who in the spring attended a

variety of fields: marketing, demographics, public health, and city and regional planning. Walsh agrees. "These spatial techniques are

not solely under the purview of geographersl' he notes, adding that effective use 0f the GIS requires some spatial training. 'Almost any department could apply GIS technology to research and instruction. A lot of departments now realize that GIS is an image processing technique that will enhance their techniquesl' Demographers could insert census data into the GIS to study where shifts in population occur and what would happen to some areas if others were kept constant. City and regional planners could model environmental impacts of water quality resulting from various growth scenarios. Marketing specialists could combine census data with income information to high-

light where people with a lot of disposable income live. 'All the utilization depends on how much data is therel' Harrison explains.

In addition to type and amount of data, Walsh of the systems operator is crucial in GIS use.

adds, the spatial sophistication

Students also will benefit from the GIS at UNC-CH. "Students need to know how to use techniques like this because they are going to

be available in the marketplacel' Harrison says. He adds that GIS training seminars will be available for potential users. Other information on GIS use will appear in university newsletters. "The potential utilization is just phenomenall' Harrison says. Gallager, who is working with the GIS to study the relationship of topographic elevation to avalanche paths, sees a future demand for the GIS, both at UNC and outside university life. At the university, he says, more students will want to use GIS techniques. 'h lot of [geography] students have some sort of interest in itl' he notes. "lt's fun for one thing. So I think that there's quite a future for GlSl' Policy-making governmental bodies also are to increase their use of GIS, he says. "GIS's are quite a fad now. They're very expected

.= =

= Walsh and Gallager use the Aeographic Infornation Systen to study avalanche paths section of Alacier National Park in northwest Montana.

popular in planning agencies and a number of state and local governments. They're being used to site reservoirs, evaluate farm programs, such as in soil productivity, and t0 route firemenl' For the present, Walsh and his geography students are leading the way for use of the Geographic Information System as a research tool throughout the university campus.

in a 22|-square nile

-Andy

Brack

t.D

Probinq the Secrets

of tht

Universe

Astronomers Make New Predictions About the Size and Age of the Milky Way Galarry

By adding a new twist to an old mathematical technique, UNC astronomer Bruce Carney and his colleagues have produced one of the most accurate estimates to date of the age of the

Milky Way galaxy. The researchers

have

established that the galaxy, and the entire universe, is at least 18 billion years old-8 billion years older than many other astronomers believe. "There's a current debate

astronomy

between two groupsl' Carney explains. "0ne group thinks the universe is about 10 billion years old, and one group thinks the universe

field RR Lyraes, though, are much closer to

earth-the nearest are about 1,000

light-years

away-and so are easier to study telescopically. The key to the project was to determine precisely the distances of the clusters from the derived distances 0f the RR Lyraes found in those clusters. The distance of the cluster is essential because it is the most important variable in converting the apparent brightness of cluster stars to the intrinsic, or actual, brightness. Once the researchers know the intrinsic brightness of globular cluster stars, they can determine the age of the cluster.

To determine the distance of the RR Lyraes, Carney joined forces with Latham, who had iust installed advanced spectrographs on telescopes at Oak Ridge Observatory near

Cambridge, Massachusetts, and at Whipple Observatory on Mt. Hopkins near TLcson, Arizona. They studied the nearby field RR Lyrae star called VY Serpentis. By analyzing changes in the spectra of light emanating from this star, Latham measured the star's radial velocity as a function of time. The star's velocity of expansion and contraction over time, called its pulsa-

is about 18 billion years old. We've now entered that frayi' Carney, a professor of physics and astronomy, has worked on the project for the past six years with Dr. David Latham, associate director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and Dr. Rodney Jones, a postdoctoral fellow in the UNC Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition whose work on this proiect earned him his Ph.D. in astronomy in 1987. The National Science Foundation has funded most of their research. To arrive at their estimate, the group studied several nearby stars called RR Lyrae variable stars. These stars are about 50 times brighter

than the sun and regularly expand and contract, a characteristic that helps astronomers study them (see upper photograph 0n page 16). RR Lyrae stars are located throughout the galaxy. They are found individually, referred

to as "field starsl' and in globular clusters,

of 100,000 to 1,000,000 found in the outer reaches of our galaxy (see lower groups

photograph on page

16).

>.>*

Globular clusters contain the oldest stars in the galaxy, but are difficult to study directly because they are so far away-the nearest is about 25,000 lightyears from earth. Some

Rodney lones (left) and Bruce Carney review data

hon their project

them a version of a standard mathematical = .9

t O q E

technique. This technique, called the Baade Wesselink method after the two astronomers who derived it, allows astronomers to determine theoretically the distances of pulsating stars. The method essentially consists of matching the change

in a star's

angular

diameter over time, determined from phota metric data, with that of the star's actual diameter, determined from spectroscopic data. Unfortunately, though, the results from photometric data suggested that the star reached its maximum diameter at a later

time than did the results from the spectro scopic data, which is clearly an impossibitity

(see graph 0n page 17). "Something screwy was going on!" Carney says. "The process of

determining distance is simple in principle, but nature is never as simple as it looksl' At this point in the study, Rodney Jones set out to unravel the puzzle presented by the team's incongruous results. For his Ph.D. dissertation, Jones analyzed data obtained from three additional field RR Lyrae stars by the three astronomers using telescopes at the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) near Thcson and at the Oak Ridge and Whipple

this double exposurc photograph, note the expansion of the center star. lt is a variable star, sinilar to the RR Lyrae stars studied by Carney and his colleagues, and is beginning its regular cycle of expansion and contraction. RR Lyraes complete one cycle of expansion and contraction, called a period, in anywhere

from 6 to 24 hours.

observatories. He determined that the astronc

mers had been working

in the wrong part of

the spectrum. TYaditionally, most astronomical observations

in the optical part of the spectrum (visible to the human eye), where the RR Lyraes are at their brightest, and the researchers had accordingly collected data from this area. For his dissertation research, Jones worked in the near infrared (nearly invisible to the human eye) part of the spectrum. When he then applied the Baade-Wesselink method to the infrared data, the method worked. The photometric and have been carried out

a I

spectroscopic data no longer conflicted, and the researchers could unambiguously estimate the distances of the three RR Lyrae stars. After he completed his dissertation, Jones reanalyzed VY Serpentis and also analyzed

This relatively old globular cluster, called 47 Tbanae, is one of the globular clusters Carney and his colleagues

are studying.

distances of these seven field RR Lyraes, the group was able to establish their inhinsic

tional velocity, was then obtained from these radial velocities. The change in the actual diameter of the star over time was then determined from the pulsational velocities. Using a 36-inch telescope at the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory

three additional fietd RR Lyrae stars using spectroscopic data from Latham and photometric data he and Carney obtained using the 50-inch telescope at KPNO. Now armed with data indicating the precise

Chile,

Carney collected photometric data, which are quantitative measurements of VY Serpentis' apparent brightness and color over time. "We

brightness. "The infrared results clearly indicate that these stars may be intrinsically fainter than previously thoughtl' Jones says. "Since they have the same apparent brightness as before, they must be closer to earthl' [f a

got the best data everl' Carney says. "We had high precision and enioyed clear skiesl' After collecting the data, Carney applied to

car headlight and a flashlight appear t0 be the same brightness, Jones explains, you know that the flashlight is closer to you than

YOR

EilDEA the headlight. Since distances in the Milky Way galaxy are based in part upon the assumed distances to RR Lyrae stars, the new results imply that the galaxy may be smaller than previously believed. The age of our galaxy can also be estimated by using RR Lyrae stars t0 measure the distances t0 globular clusters. The age of a globular cluster can be determined from the intrinsic brightness of cluster stars known as main sequence stars: stars like the sun that are still burning hydrogen in their core. Since the brightest main sequence stars use up their hydrogen the fastest, the fainter the brightest main sequence star in a cluster, the older the cluster. In order to determine the intrinsic brighr ness of a main sequence star from its apparent brightness, the distance to the cluster must be known. This distance can be estimated by assuming that the RR Lyrae stars in the cluster possess the same intrinsic brightness as those in the field. Using this assumption, the researchers derived an age of 18 billion years for the relatively nearby globular cluster called M5. Since the galaxy must be at least as old as any of its members, it t00 must be at least 18 billion years old. In addition, since the galaxy is believed

clusters, as we've done for the field stars. But we've established credibility, the project is important, and we can now get time on the largest telescopesi' Recently, Carney and Latham collected data

from an RR Lyrae star in cluster M5. They utilized the li6-inch Multiple Mirror Telescope on Mt. Hopkins, the 36- and 158-inch telescopes at KPN0, and the NASA 120-inch Infrared Telescope Facility atop Hawaii's Mauna Kea (where snow interrupted the observing!). Graduate student Judy Beck, for her master's degree in astronomy, helped with the observing and then analyzed the data. To the researchers' delight, the derived intrinsic

brightness of the cluster RR Lyrae matched

that obtained from the seven nearby field stars, confirming that M5 is indeed 18 billion years old. To test the predictions he and his colleagues have put forth, Carney is currently studying RR Lyrae stars in other globular clusters in

our galaxy. Susan Tlammell, a UNC undergraduate, .ioined the group this past spring and has helped with these observations at

Kitt

Assisted by graduate student Monty Laycox, Carney is also beginning to study cepheids, pulsating stars intrinsically much brighter

than RR Lyrae stars and located in our galaxy and other galaxies. "0ur method has worked well, but is at odds with one of the accepted theories about the expansion of the universe, based on how fast the galaxies are moving apart and how far away they arel' Carney explains. "So we'd like to measure more precisely the distances to other gataxiesl' The cepheids can be seen in other galaxies, s0 once their distances are measured, the distances to those galaxies can be determined. These galactic distances can then be used to improve the precision of measurement 0f the universe's expansion rate. Once the size and the expansion rate are known precisely, the age of the universe can be calculated from the length of time it took for the universe to expand

to its present

size.

"l hope we get the same age as we have for the ancient globular clustersl' Carney "but we're prepared to be surprisedl'

says,

-Tlacey J. Maxwell

Peak.

to have formed shortly

after the formation of the universe, the researchers estimate the universe to be also 18-20 billion years old. But while Carney's group has settled the mystery of their puzzling results and made some startling predictions, they have also

challenged some other astronomers. 'All of the previous RR Lyrae results were derived using data collected in the optical part of the spectrumi' Jones explains. 'And now we're saying that you can't believe those results. They [the researchers involved] don't like it

= .9

too muchl' Carney and his colleagues are also at odds with a large group of astronomers who believe the galaxy and universe are only about l0 billion years old. "[t's controversial

stuffl' Carney

s s

says.

The researchers knew they could be even

9! .3<

more confident 0f their predictions about galactic age if their underlying assumption, that cluster RR Lyraes had the same intrinsic brightness as those in the field, held firm. Their next step was to measure directly the distance to RR Lyrae stars in a globular

g.= -g <d

cluster, preferably one that was already well researched and understood.

"We've made a tacit assumption that the field stars are the same as the stars in the clustersl' Carney explains. "lt's just barely feasible to actually study the RR Lyraes in

Serpentis' angular dianeter

(vertial uis) recorded over time (horizontal uis). The solid and dashed

fron

spectroscopic data at two assumed distances. The crosses rcpresent dianeters obtained fron optical photonetric data, while the circles reprcsent diameters fron infrared photometric data. Note that the naximun diameter obtained hon the optical data (peak of the crosses) occurs later in time than the maximum diameter obtained from the infrared and spectroscopic data. lines arc diameters derived

E.il.D

o.R

Life Without Light A

Chemosynthetic Community

in the Gulf of

When people g0 grocery shopping, they often

the geological processes that formed the eroded cliff. "Particularly if you're thinking about the geological features, you're more likely to pay attention to the forest before you look at the treesl' he says, adding that they guessed that the shell material and some rocks had fallen from the top of the cliff. 0n that first dive, Paull says he and Neumann wanted to sample the shells, but could not because of dive problems and the limitations of the ALVIN. "Being in a sub-

return with something-razors, candy, or magazines-they did not originally intend to buy.

When Assistant Professor of Geology Charlie Paull went shopping for rocls on deep-sea research dives off the coast of Florida, he found a lot more than he expected. More than two miles below the ocean's surface, Paull discovered a community of organisms

that survives on chemical energy, not on sunlight. And the processes associated with the chemosynthetic food chain help explain

mersible is like being parachuted into the western United States in a Volkswagon that can only go one mile an hour in reverse and all the windows are covered up except for a

deep-sea geological processes.

In 1984, Paull, then a doctoral student in geological oceanography, designed a dive project to get rock samples from the face of the West Florida Escarpment, which is the edge of the limestone platform on which the Florida peninsula rests. The platform, which extends westward at least 140 miles from the coast, makes the Gulf of Mexico relatively shallow near the coast-no more than a few hundred yards deep at any point. But the Gulf quickly becomes more than two miles deep at the edge of the platform. Paull describes it as a sharp underwater cliff, the bottom of which almost is at a 9O-degree angle with the ocean floor. "This type of cliff face was once thought to be the result of reef growthl' Paull says. "lt turns out that the edge of this cliff is an eroded edge and looks very much like the side 0f the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon has truncated beds exposed

on the side of it. Certainly in detail, [the two of theml have a lot of differences, but if you're not familiar with their geological origins, they're remarkably similarl' The original project to get rock samples, funded by the National Science Foundation, was to provide Paull with a way of looking at the Florida platform without having to drill a well for samples, says UNC-CH marine sciences Professor A. Conrad Neumann, who

Mexico

tttfl Marine geologist Dr. Charles K. Paull exanines a piece of rock taken from the base of a cliff nore than two niles below the surface ol the Gulf ot Mexico. The rock was found near a comnunity of organisms, including the mussels in the jar in the foreground, that survive on chenosynthetic energy.

was a coinvestigator on the 1984 series of dives. "l was t0 g0 along to look at erosional processesl' he explains. "Chartie wanted to

collect rocks to see what kind of rocks underlaid Floridal' Both researchers surely did not expect t0 see broken shells-signs of lifewhile collecting rocks. Neumann and Paull noticed shells on their

first 1984 dive in the ALVIN, a spherical submersible just big enough to fit a pilot and two passengers. Neumann says he realized the shells were out of place, but did not understand their implications then. Paull explains they were trying only to understand

onefoot squarel' Paull says. Neumann says dives are like descending slowly at night with a flashlight in a helicopter. By the second dive, researchers found what they surely did not expect-a great knot of sea life existing in scattered places at the intersection of the cliff face and ocean floor. Ralph Hollis, the ALVIN pilot, was the first to see stands of tube worms, fluffy white mats of bacteria, and beds of mussels in an area so dark that Paull says an open roll of the most sensitive film probably would not get exposed in a year with the minimal amount of light that reaches the bottom. He adds that sunlight normally ceases t0 be adequate to sustain life

100

120 meters below the

ocean's surface.

Neumann remembers that Paull had an idea that something unexpected would be on the ocean floor. A few years earlier, another team of researchers found dense communities of biological organisms surrounding the Eastern Pacific Rise near the Galapagos Islands. In those communities, which included taxonomically similar mussels to ones found by Paull s group, bacteria live around hydro

thermal vents in volcanically active areas. These bacteria, which are eaten by mussels and other creatures, oxidize hydrogen sulfide

AYO that can be utilized by oxidation. According to Paull, when reduced fluids seep onto the abyssal sea floor, they react with the oxygen in sea water to produce energy, which supports bacterial life. "There's something about the geochemistry of this interface between the platform and base level sediments that is associated with pore fluids in the sediments that are strongly

,(\ o\

enriched in reduced compounds, such as methane, hydrogen sulfide, and ammonial' Paull says. "These communities can live

wherever there is hydrogen sulfide, methane, ammonia, and oxygen. The reduced compounds will break down in the presence of oxygen. Bacteria use this energy to synthesize organic matter which is the food for mussels

--rT(n= CONTOURS

IN METERS

100

and tube wormsl' Paull and other marine researchers discovered chenosynthetic communities in the shaded, boxed area along the West Florida Escarpnent southwest of Tanpa, Florida.

to survive. In 1984, Paull guessed a similar mechanism possibly was at work

in the Gulf

of Mexico. Paull told researchers on the second dive to look for vents, akin to springs at the base of mountains, lrom which chemicals could seep. "He had a premonition that something could be therel' Neumann recalls, "but said it

in a joking mannerl' Then the pilot reported that he saw vent communities. "We changed the program right around from looking at the cliff facel' Paull says. "We spent half the time looking at the bottom rather than going up the cliff face and looking at itl' They found biotic communities that lived along the contact point of the cliff and abyssal sediments, or material making up the ocean floor. Paull calls the communities a common occurrence because they appear along l0 to 20 percent of the cliff face. "lt's fairly bizarre that there are whole food chains set up t0 Iive without sunlightl' he says. What added to the intrigue was that in the Pacific, but not in the Gulf of Mexico, communities lived

Paull says hydrogen sulfide, a reduced compound, breaks down into a hydrogen ion, energy, and sulfate, a common inorganic chemical in sea water. While the energy feeds bacteria, the hydrogen could cause a geological reaction, Paull theorizes. "The hydrogen ion is an acid and this acid, I think, is dissolving this cliffl' he explains, adding that hydrogen reacts with limestone to form a dissolved form of carbon dioxide and calcium,

both of which dissolve into sea water like sulfate.

This second part of Paull's theory connects reactions involving reduced brine fluids from vents t0 biotic life and a geological erosion process. Researchers previously figured the

cliff face eroded

of the physical pro cess of abrasion caused by currents or by the because

breaks off matter that hangs over vent sites. The process is slow and the Florida platform will not soon be gone. "lt's probably retreat-

ing at the rate of 1/l00th of a millimeter a yearl' Paull says. "lt has been eroded from one to five kilometers in 100 million years. The rocls that are being eroded are 100 million years oldl' Support for Paull's theory comes from chemical analysis done by a research team led by Christopher S. Martens, a UNC-CH professor of marine sciences. Martens and Jeffrey P. Chanton, UNC-CH research assistant professor of marine sciences, joined another National Science Foundation-funded diving

team led by Paull in 1986 to do chemical studies of brine fluids in abyssal sediments near the cliff face. "The reason we're involved with the Florida work is that it's a system where large amounts of methane have been produced or brought

in along with migrative

brine fluidsl' Martens says. "lt appears that the methane is supporting large communities

of organisms. Charlie was capable of hypothesizing that the methane was involvedl' In 1986, Martens says, ALVIN researchers took a piston-like suction machine into the deep, collected brine fluids under great amounts

of pressure, and brought samples t0 the ocean's surface. He notes it was the first time pore fluids in abyssal sediments loaded with gases were collected on the sea floor, taken undecompressed to the surface, and analyzed on

a ship at

sea.

"We found enormous dissolved methane gas

persistent penetration and scraping by organisms, called bioerosion. That such erosion

could have been entirely a local and intense chemical process at the cliff base was a novel idea for marine erosion. In the latter situation, hydrogen ions, acting as an acid, eat away at the bottom of the cliff. Gravity eventually

near a source of heat. Paull theorized that the communities lived off of something that seeps, like a spring trickles water, from the Florida platform. He figured brine fluids, made of water, concentrated salts, including chlorides, and reduced organic and inorganic compounds, seeped

from the platform; similar fluids had been found in deep Florida wells. Reduced compounds have a higher electron energy state, which allows them effectively to store energy

Chenosynthetic organisms thrive at the base of the West Florida Escarpnent, as shown in this sketch in which the horizontal scale is five neters. Abyssal sedinents are on the left, white linestone of the cliff is to the right. kine fluid seeps are at the black oval areas wilh white bacterial nats inside. 'lhbe worns live in sedinents and on the wall, while mussels survive on the floor of the Autf of Mexico

Eil

sulfur, and sulfur grabs metals out of solutions and forms an insoluble orel' Neumann explains. Paull adds, "Sulfide minerals are i I I '|

;..!d*ar,.X!-r::ea

,:a'rnqlx9. " r.?!..r

_.1j

= 4 E

commonly associated with ore bodies. The processes which are going on may be a modern model for how our ancient sedimenthosted ore bodies were generatedl' Martens suggests that Paull's discoveries may be a boon to researchers looking for ways to clean up chemical pollution. He says chemosynthetic mussels show a vast potential. "They have the unique capability of assimilating what are considered toxic chemicals by humansl' he says. "l believe if those organisms were properly treated, they would grow at

The ALVIN, a deep-sea subnersible, drops into the more than two niles below the surface.

concentrations [in the sediments]l' Martens explains. "We were able to do isotope measurements and radiocarbon measurements on board. These measurements produced conclusive evidence that the chemicals that can support those communities are there in great abundance. These chemicals include dissolved

sulfide as well as dissolved methanel' It is interesting that an isotope study of the methane shows a depleted delta carbon-l3 value, which means that the methane is isotopically light. Mussel tissues from the same area contain similar depleted values, which Martens says are almost as depleted as can be found on the earth's surface. The similar carbon isotopic compositions of methane in brine fluids and mussel tissue appear t0 result from a chemosynthetic food chain in

which bacteria, living in mussel shells, consume methane and are then, in turn, consumed by mussels. That means methane and reduced fluids must be flowing from vents in the Florida platform to support the food chain. While Paull's chemosynthetic model explains why organisms can live deep below the ocean's surface without light and why the Florida platform slowly erodes, it implies more-conclusions that may shed light on creation of oil and ore deposits, pollution control, and other geological processes. "The outshoot of all this is that this type of chemosynthetic deposition may be a model of how some petroleum deposits are madel' says Paull, some of whose work was funded by the American Petroleum Institute. "Because we have all these bacteria, the sediments on the sea floor are very organic-rich. They're in an accumulation that may be buried quickly without being degraded. If this type of mechanism goes on for a long time, we may get a fair amount of organic material which is

\ulf

of Mexico to explore a chemosynthetic community

buried and associated with these seeps. If you bury organic matter, with time it matures into liquid hydrocarbonsi' Paull is quick to point out that the chemosynthetic model probably only explains how a small amount of the world's oil is made. "l don't think that major petroleum deposits come from this origin-not as much as one percentl' he says. "But if you found one field that de veloped from this model, it's worth thinking aboutl' In addition

to links with oil production,

Paull's chemosynthetic model hints at how

ore deposits may be made. Because limestone contains trace amounts of ore elements, such as copper, zinc, and lead, the acid erosion process of limestone cliffs leaves ore elements on the floor as sulfides. "Most of the ore metals have been put in a solid state by

one atmosphere [of pressure]l' Neumann says Paull's model can help geologists interpret rocls because they now know that mussels, once thought to grow only in shallow water, live in the deep. "You could

in the interpretation [of the compositionl of the rocksl' he says. While uses of the model will continue to spark scientific minds, Paull hopes to continue work on Florida platform seeps. Now that he think he knows how the Gulf side of the platform works, he wants t0 see if the model explains platform erosion on the Atlantic side, where it is too deep to dive with the ALVIN. "We don't know the morphology of the continent well enough to make an informed comment on how the two sides comparel' Paull says. He plans to apply to the National Science Foundation for funding to study the Atlantic side of the Florida make a big mistake

platform.

-Andy

Brack

:$P\s ,r,".1.

JP f

A photograph taken the base of a clitf.

fron

the ALVIN submersible shows stands

of nussels embedded in

abyssal sedinents at

Through the Text Darkly Visions of the Literary Creator

While researchers in the Department of Romance Languages span the breadth of eighl languages, all genres, and all periods of literature and criticism, their work ultimately focuses on the study of a text and its relationship to the author, the reader, and its time and place in history United in this focus, three researchers in the department are emphasizing different aspects of the author's

*i.*-rtew,{

role in creating these textual relationships. One is studying how, through the narrative structure of the text, an author sets up and conducts a discourse with the reader. Another

is investigating how an author breaks down reality and blends autobiographical elements with fictive ones to produce a self-portrait. And a third is discovering how an author transcends his worldly existence and human limits through the act of writing.

Author ac Gommunicator "lf you study the system of how a book is written, then in the end you will probably understand what that book is aboutl' says Dr. Antonio llliano, professor of Italian. One should not only place a text in its historical context and in the moment of the author's life, but also examine how the text is constructed in order to understand it in its completeness and complexity. Only then can one begin to define those individual elements, such as plot and characters as well as portraits, that make up the stuff of novels. For

this reason, Illiano's approach to a text is through its narrative structure and techniques, and he is pursuing a long{erm, in-depth study of a major ltalian work, Alessandro Manzoni's

Promessi Sposi

(lhe

Betrothed).

Illiano calls Manzoni "the Walter Scott of Italy, the most important historical novelistl' I Promessi Sposr describes the whole of seventeenth-century Italy through the story of

Dr. Antonio llliano, professor of ltalian

the thwarted betrothal of a couple of poor and innocent peasants. Illiano's examination of the novel has focused on several of the more original and unexplored aspects of Manzoni's narrative technique: the novel begins with an introduction by the author, feigning that he has found an old manuscript and that what the reader holds is a reworked, annotated edition of the manuscript; the narration switches back and forth between an "[" and a "we" who address the reader; and the novel is a long series of digressions

woven around the central thread of the lovemarriage story. These techniques of Manzoni's narration were carefully developed, for Manzoni pubIished three major editions of the novel in 1823, 182i, and 1840. "Manzoni produced a sequence of revisions, aiming for the perfect novel in ltalianl' Illiano observes. The second

edition contains the most startling structural revisions, while the third transforms the novel into the Florentine dialect. As Manzoni said, he went to Florence "to wash his clothes in

E,AY

Why does Manzoni bother to

fill his reader

in so thoroughly? The plot of a love story and marriage, Illiano explains, works also as a device around which Manzoni builds the totality of seventeenth-century political and social life to show how corrupt the Spanish domination of ltaly was, how justice did not exist, and how only the most unshakable faith in Christian providence could motivate his humble creatures successfully to withstand all the abuses of political and social oppression. To illustrate this world, he brings in a multitude of real and fictional characters. "But even when they are invented they are all rooted in the seventeenth centuryl' Illiano notes. The digressions constitute a set of portraits showing all the facets of Italian life. "They're a series of portraits that all fit ini' he adds.

Author ac Subject A different type of portrait, one that is a self-contained text of prose or poetry and complete in a few pages, is the province of

Dr. Maria A.

Salgado, professor

of Spanish

device to set up communication with the reader. "The novel was written not just to sell but also to communicate intellectually with a readerl' he explains. By addressing the reader directly and establishing an intimacy, the introduction invites the reader to par-

script, the captivating voice of the storyteller. Manzoni continually and consistently switches back and forth between the two voices, playing with the role of each in a narrative system that is thoroughly calculated yet also natural and naturally communicative. The switching is linked to Manzoni's use of digression. At various points, he stops the flow of narration to give some background information, the context necessary for the reader to understand the story. In doing sq he switches voices-from the "we" who is telling the love story to the "l" who decides the reader needs more information. Often

ticipate in that discourse. But just who is doing the inviting? Every

these digressions are portraits of characters. For instance, at one point the nun Gertrude

novel, of course, has an implicit author, the person who selects the materials to relate but

is introduced. Manzoni then devotes the next chapter to tracing the story of Gertrude and how she was forced to become a nun by her father. "He brings her in in black and whitel' Illiano says. "You see her physically, morally, and psychologically. But the question is, 'How

the Arno' and, thus, to produce the definitive edition, one that would be in perfect accordance with what he viewed as the most representative speech form.

The introduction drew lllianos attention it is a very suspicious thing for a novel to have. After examination, llliano has found that Manzoni uses the

because, as he says,

remains hidden behind a narrator who actually relates the story. This author is the firstperson speaker of the introduction and the relater of the digressions. "Manzoni is

'non-implicit' authorl' Illiano says. "He has no qualms about using the first-person voice and even connecting it with autobiographical elementsl' The "ll' however, gives way to a "wel' who has its own, distinct role. This "we" is the narrator of the reworked manu-

Dr. Maria A. Salgadq professor of Spanish. "They're sketch-like, a personal vision like a painting that is more connected with space than with timel' Salgado says. Salgado is studying literary portraits and self-portraits of Spanish modernist authors writing during a period beginning in 1888 and extending into the 1940s. Although common in other literatures since the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, portraits did not begin to appear consistently in Spanish literature until the late nineteenth century. Portraits, especially self-portraits, have

long history in painting, but not in literature. In fact, the literary attitude toward selfportraiture is negative. "People tend to see it as narcissisticl' Salgado comments. "lt's interesting that when painters do it it isn't considered that way. Some painters have whole series of self-portraits at different ages, stages

of their lives, or momentsl' Salgado, who

has

been drawn increasingly toward seltportraits, says they tend to occur more frequently in poetry "perhaps because poets tend to be more sellcentered and self-searchingi' Salgado adds that it is difficult to locate portraits because they have not been collected and there are no set criteria defining them.

is digression brought in s0 as not to interfere with the flow of the narrative?"' The key is

Literary portraits also tend to be psychological rather than physical descriptions and are,

the rapport established in the introduction between the author and reader. This rapport allows the reader to accept the digression as a continuance of the original discourse.

therefore, harder to recognize. A self-portrait is a momentary vision, Salgado stresses, which can be very one-sided and may be based on a whim.

Y.O The difficulty in tracking down portraits makes Salgados work much like that of a detective. ln 1985, having read that a famous Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, had written

a self-portrait for a newspaper-sponsored contest, she went to the National Library in Madrid, Spain. She hoped her discovery of the contest would lead her to a body of entries that would aid her in establishing a set of parameters for defining the portrait. Her hopes were not in vain, for she found over thirty entries. Her preliminary findings are outlined in a forthcoming article. Due to the difficulty of establishing the identity of the subject, Salgado restricts her work to pieces that have been identified as such by their own authors. "l look for some clue in the title or in the author's other writings or even the use of'll although this last clue can be hicky since it could just be a fictional 'll " Salgado explains. For exgmple, one self-portrait, a poem by Ruben Dario that stands as a preface to a collection of his poems, begins, "l am the one who. . . l' This poem portrays the speaker's creative endeavors. In this instance, the sel[referential details included in the poem establish the "1" as Dario the author. Salgado is curious about how much of modernist fiction is autobiographical. "l have found that Dario reveals himself more in his fiction than in his non-fictionl' she notes. 'As most authors, he tends to be very cautious when writing about historical events because he talks about people he knows, and he wants t0 protect their identity. But there is a direct relationship between his life and the events and characters in his fictionl' One article that she recently prepared on a series of short stories by Dario deals with "how he dresses up real wents with words, images, and allusions to literature and art to disembody the real and recreate it in this other sphere of art and fantasyl) Salgado says. If one knows enough about Dario's life, one can recognize real incidents in sections of a story that appears totally fantastic, she adds. A portion of this article was presented in March 1988 at the International Conference of the Fantastic in Literature and the Arts, held in Ft. Lauderdale. In another area of her research, Salgado is studying sellportraits from the late nineteenth century to the present written by Spanish and Spanish-American women. These writers all have one thing in common: the quest for their own identity leads them to question

their mlidity as artists. "Men question their seltworth, their style, their poetry-in other

words, metaphysical, aesthetic, or ethical

qualitiesl' Salgado says. "But with women, these questions tend to recede to the background, and their overriding concern is that having been born women has branded their work as secondary and inferiorl'

Author as Communlcant Through the study of the life and work of central figure, Dr. Jean-Michel Heimonet,

his political action was driving him against his will toward Communism or Fascism, which, however divided, shared a kind of affinity then. This feeling led to a self-analysis that affirmed an aspiration of transcendence in himself and impelled him toward writing as a superior alternative. Man writes because he cannot satisfy himself with worldly activities, Heimonet says. Writing is a kind of rwolt against human limits, a challenge to God and, therefore, bound to the sacred. At the same time, writing is bound by its own limit: some things cannot be described with words. Thus, writing simultaneously denies and affirms one's limits: It denies them in striving for transcendance, yet affirms them in showing that man remains a prisoner within the world of language and representation. "Writing

is an expression of this deep necessity which in every man to look after a kind of

exists

something else, to escape the profanel' Heimonet

explains. "Writing is a modern religioni' In his attempt to transcend the profane world through writing, Bataille strove to reach

Dr. Jean-Michel Heinonet, assistant protessor of French

assistant professor of French, is reinterpreting modern French literature and thought. Describ ing his field as the philosophy of literature

and the history of ideas, Heimonet says: "l am studying the relationship between politics and religion and writing, shown through the trajectory of Georges Bataille. . . . It is my opinion that theoretical French thought after World War II found its roots in Bataille's workl' Heimonet has published three books

in this area, with a fourth in

progress.

According to Heimonet, it is almost impossible to classify Bataille into a single, specific discipline. He must be considered simultaneously as a sociologist, an economist, a philosopher, a poet, and a novelist. Aligned

with the far left, his activity had been mostly political until he started writing in the 1930s. About that time he developed a feeling that

the point where it was impossible to describe what he felt. His writing tried to lead discourse as far as possible until it met its limit and the necessity of silence. For Bataille, Heimonet explains, this silence was the realm of the sacred. "Silence is the summit of poetry not the defeatj' Heimonet says. Even though writing is ineffectual in that it must inevitably reach a limit, Bataille recognized that it was an important and necessary act, proof of one's humanity and a means of sharing in the human condition. This sharing constituted his "notion of communicationl' The political instability of the period in which he lived produced in him a primordial desire for unity and "totality of community'l-an obsession that governed his writing, for he believed that community was possible only through communication and language. "ln writing-which means in striving to express a 'supra reality, one that is beyond our daily lives-what you share with all others is the universal experience of human limit as it is reached through

this tortuous act of languagel' Heimonet says. "Modern art, especially literature, is nowadays somewhat equivalent to the sacredl' he adds. "l have arrived at this conclusion through the work of Bataillel'

-Diantha J. Pinner

E,A

usic and Poetry of the Italian Madrigal Se la mia vita da I'aspro tormento

different yet pleasantly harmonious tones and

si puo tanto schermire, e dagl'

pitches.

ch'

veggia per

affanni,

virtu degl' ultim' anni,

The lext is by the fourteenth-century poet

his name to this familiar type of sonnet; the music, written for voices but not necessarily for instruments, is by the sixteenth-century composer Luca Marenzio. This combination of poetry (which

Donna, de' be' vostr' occhi

lume spento,

e i cape' d' oro fin farsi d'argento, e lassar le ghirlande e i verdi panni, e 'l viso scolorir, che ne' miei danni al lamentar mi fa pauroso e lento, pur mi dara tanta baldanza Amore ch' i' vi discovriro de' miei martiri qua son' stati gl' anni e i giorni e I'

Francesco Petrarch, who lends

could include forms other than the sonnet) and music is fairly typical of the Italian madrigal of the High Renaissance, a form which ore;

'l tempo e contrario ai bei desiri, non fia ch' almen non giung' al mio dolore alcun soccorso di tardi sospiri. e se

If ny life

can, from its cruel tlrment and from its anguish, thus much shield itself, that I may see by force of ultimate years,

James Haar, Kenan Professor of Music at UNC-CH, has long made the focus of his research.

Haar is most interested

in the

origins,

characteristics, and development of this most popular of musical genres in sixteenth-century Italy, although he has also written of the

James Haar, Kenan Professor of Music

the radiance, Lady, of your fair eyes dimmed, and your fine golden hair to silver turn, and you abandon garlands and green robes, and your face pall, which in my misfortunes makes me slow and

featul to lanenL

then will at last Love give

thus nuch

lrf ram rltri

boldness,

3l'rliini

shall avow t0 you what have been the years and days and hours of ny nartyrdon;

that

that time is adverse to love's longings, nay it at least not be without some comfort reaching my grief fron your belated sighs,

and

(Holger Klein, transl.) Imagine these ltalian lines sung a cappella by a soprano, two tenors, trvo counter-tenors, and a baritone. The tempo is relatively slow. Touched lightly here, the notes are a little

fxa} &x

!rgr$ xr dtui": e/l'd,rini4pwr b{[o ;rirw

ft gb

lictic:

q*lle*

rdr:: l!t'{Sq,

,r'fltrsi mrr tr3liq

md a1lbr ptlj:k['cr'iw*i,

drawn out there. Occasionally the singers repeat a phrase of the poetry 0r even an entire line, their voices coming in not simultaneously but according to a rather staggered pattern. It is as though one could sing into a canyon and hear the echoes return in distinctly

in "part books," in each ol which appearcd the nusic of numerous nadrigals arranged for a given voice. This one is written for the bass. Sixteenth-century ltalian nadrigals were often published

fourteenth-century madrigal form, only tenuously related to the later genre. [n his f,ssays on ltalian Poetry and Music in the Renaissance, 1350-1600 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: UCLA Press, 1986), Haar explains that the term

"madrigal" is of uncertain origin but that it may derive ftom natrialis, "something homelt'' This possibility seems likely insofar as the form uses the ltalian vernacular and, frequently, rustic or pastoral imagery. Haar points out, however, that madrigals were never a type of folksong, that they were probably both composed and sung by educated people of at least polite, if not strictly

black notes for somber moods, for instance. Much appreciated in its day (and still enjoyed by performers and audiences of

two-way motion video teleconferencing and

the ltalian madrigal was sung in the original in both France and Germany but was translated by the British, who in turn frequently imitated the ltalian form as they came to shape their own. "Part

For today's complex computer applications, students and faculty must have reliable, highspeed communications and computer facilities. Many faculty members and students spend a

Renaissance music),

books" were widely published and distributed, each of which would include a number of songs arranged for only one voice, so that

vertised as "suitable for singing or violsl'

The origins of the sixteenth-century ltalian madrigal itself are generally thought to involve a departure from another genre especially popular in the previous century: the frottola, a more closed form employing fixed patterns of repetition (inctuding that of verse-refrain). Besides the freer rhyme schemes of its poetry, the madrigal differed from the frottola in its preference for polyphonic (multi-voiced) over solo performance. French and Flemish composers working in ltaly-Philippe Verdolet, Jacob Arcadelt, and Adrian Willaert are the names most often cited-contributed much to the early sixteenth-century development of the

suggesting that the music allowed

madrigal. Subsequent composers, such

Marenzio.

The madrigal was typically a relatively short, unaccompanied, secular song arranged for as few as three or as many as six voices. 0ften a love song of Petrarchan influence (if not actually authored by that poet), the madrigal was "marked by a close and individual relationship of text to musicl' says Haar, "so that n0 two were alikel' Indeed, even within a single song the music changed with the mood, so that frequently no two stanzas were sung to the same music. In some madrigals or in

a given stanza of one madrigal, the voices might sing together in chords or they might move contrapuntally-in counterpoint, that is, to one another. Toward the latter half of the sixteenth century increasing emphasis was given t0 fitting music to text, to the point that "madrigalisms" to sigh, or to lament, 0r t0 move huniedly as though the singers were in flight-in short, to dramatize the poetry musically. Another feature of these developed: the voices were made

madrigalisms was "word painting" or "eye musicj' the use of musical notation that suggested

to the eye what the text conveyed-

lot of time working on these facilities and find Sitterson to be a comfortable home away from

home'

*Tracev J. Maxwett

each member of a group of singers would have only his own music before him. Occasionally an anthology of madrigals was ad-

aristocratic, society.

Willaert's pupil Cipriano de Rore, introduced variations that expanded the capacities of the genre. Also significant in this regard was the work of Philippe de Monte, 0rlando di Lasso, Claudio Monteverdi, and the abovementioned

teleclass facilities to and from these universities and organizations.

for some

string accompaniment if desired. One popular way to include strings, says Haar, was to sing the top part while someone else played the lower on a lute. Madrigals were sung by professionals and amateurs alike, whether as entertainment at court or as dinner music for smaller gatherings of families and iriends. The typical listening audience was well educated and musically literate, often familiar with the poetic texts of the songs as well. Haar credits the composers more than the poets for the beauty of the Italian madrigal, noting that the poesia per musica of the day is not particularly remarkable. Rather, it is what Haar calls "the interlocking web of voices, a shimmering sound-picture" that contributes to the madrigal's unparalleled success, as Haar writes in the fssays, in "making words singl' Haar has made numerous trips to Bologna and Florence where the largest collections of Italian music not yet available in modern editions are to be found. Currently, in collaboration with lain Fenlon of King's College, Cambridge University, Haar is compiling a bibliographical work entitled The Early Sixteenth-Century ltalian Madrigal: lts Sources and Their lnterpretation.

4llison Bulsterbaun

Endeavore Research and Graduate Education

at the University

of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Fall

1988

Volume

Vl, Number

Endeavors is a magazine published three times a year by the 0ffice of Research Services, a division of the Craduate School of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Each issue of Endeavors describes only a few of the many research projects undertaken by faculty and students of the

University. Requests

for permission to reprint material.

readers'

c0mments, and requests for extra copies should be sent to Editor, Endeavors,Office of Research Services, CB# 4100, 300 Bynum Hall, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-4100 (919/966-5625).

Chancellor: Paul Hardin Vice Chancellor for Research and Oraduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate School: J. Dennis 0'Connor Director, 0ffice of Research Services: Tom K. Scott Editor-in-Chief: Tom K. Scott Managing Editor: Suzanne Appelbaum Assistant Editors: Andy Brack

Allison Bulsterbaum Tracey Maxwell Photographer:

Will 0wens

Designer: Lynn Kenney continued

kon page

1988 by the University of North Carolina at

high flexibility is the bottom line. These building communications resources are extended beyond Sitterson Ha[[ via connection to the campus-wide broadband system, a geographically larger syslem that handles computer and video data. The broadband system is extended, in turn, via microwave and satellite connections to other area universities, as well as to hightech industries in

the Research Tliangle Park. In addition to relaying data, the microwave network provides

Cover: For

a religious festival held annually in

Madras City, South India, long lines of devotees

pull a ralra or chariot built to resemble the temple of the Lord Kapaleeswara (background). The pyramid shape of the temple suggests a flowing down and out of all history hom the most sacred images at the top toward the increasingly secular images at the bottom, Photograph by Dick Waghorpe.