Nov. 25, 2008
UWSP professor to teach in Oman as
Fulbright Scholar
An assistant professor of media studies at the University of
Wisconsin-Stevens Point will teach and conduct research in
Oman next semester as the winner of a prestigious Fulbright
Scholarship.
John Little will teach at Bayan College in Muscat, Oman’s
capital city, from February to July. (Oman is located on the
southeastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula.) Little’s course
is called “Media Convergence and Global Viewership: Mediating
Truth Claims Across Cultures.”
“I hope to study if truth claims of western-produced media are
perceived by another culture to contain truth,” Little said.
“How does Middle Eastern culture influence people to assemble
and interpret information as facts? I’d like to find out.”
Teaching in English, he will also provide his Bayan students with
a broad survey of English film and television and fundamental
media productions skills, and hopes to produce films with them.
He also hopes to produce his own film on native Omani boat craftsmen.
He has already begun learning Arabic with the help of another
Fulbright Scholar, Libya native Mohammed Hmuma, who is teaching
Arabic at UWSP this year.
Little said that when he applied for the Fulbright scholarship,
he didn’t expect to win it, as he just joined the faculty last year.
However, he said, university administrators have been very supportive
and accommodating.
Having traveled across Asia in his previous job as a developer of
computer technologies, Little looks forward to discovering the
Middle East “to learn about the culture and bring those lessons
back here,” he said. He hopes to start a dialogue that enables
UWSP to form partnerships in the Middle East.
Little earned a degree in physics from the University of California
at Davis, then, after working in the private sector for many years,
decided to earn a master of fine arts degree in science and natural
history filmmaking at Montana State University.
“It was then that I realized I loved teaching,” he said. “I feel
like I’m doing something really important, which I never felt in
private industry. I’m making a difference, so I’m a lucky guy.”
His television production credits include science short documentaries
for Discovery Channel and Science Channel as well as other broadcast
work. In July, Little completed a four-year media project for the
Mesozoic Media Center at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman,
Montana, producing over sixty short paleontology teaching videos
for public viewing. In August he created a short film about effects
of global warming in Alaska, “The Bark Beetle’s Bite.” Little also
collaborated to create videos for UWSP’s Theatre and Dance Department
production of Danstage 2008.
After his work in Oman is complete, Little plans to return to Alaska
in the summer of 2009 or 2010 to develop an educational film series on
the climate of the Aleutian Islands that he hopes to bring to Alaskan
schools through a live satellite feed.
