EVENT: Author, commentator to speak at UCF

Author and radio commentator Rachel Louise Snyder will speak Thursday, January 19, 2012, at the University of Central Florida.

In addition to the Global Perspectives Office, sponsors and partners include the UCF Nicholson School of Communication, the UCF Political Science Department, the UCF International Services Center and the Global Connections Foundation.

Snyder will give a presentation entitled “Globalization: Manufacturing, Sweatshops, Development/Aid Work and Ethical Consumerism” at 3 p.m. in the Cape Florida Ballroom of the Student Union. The event, organized by the UCF Global Perspectives Office, is part of the 2011-2012 themes of “People Power, Politics and Global Change” and “Covering Crises from the Frontlines.” It is free and open to the public.

Snyder is the author of “Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade,” which was featured on public radio’s “This American Life” and “Marketplace.” It also won the 2006 Lowell Thomas Award from the Overseas Press Club.

Snyder’s work as a writer and commentator has taken her all over the world. In 1998, Snyder spent two months traveling through Tibet, India and Nepal, where she interviewed the Dalai Lama, and charted the progress of one refugee family’s trek from Lhasa to Kathmandu to Dharamsala. Later that same year, Snyder traveled to Honduras to cover relief efforts after Hurricane Mitch.

In 2000, Snyder drove across Cuba watching the island’s social and economic revolution. At the same time, she began spots as an essayist on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” After 9/11, Snyder covered the war in Afghanistan and the future of Afghan women by spending her entire time camped out with the women held at the Kabul Jail for Women. She also covered Aceh, Indonesia in the weeks and months following a devastating tsunami.