This Institute offers area secondary school French teachers an opportunity to maintain or improve their language skills, to develop deeper understanding of French culture and its global influence, and to share relevant teaching strategies. The French Immersion Institute hosts three Saturday workshops through the year and an intensive, weeklong workshop beginning in the summer of 2016.

This June citizens in the United Kingdom will vote on that country’s place in Europe. At a time of rising Euroscepticism there and across Europe, Great Britain will decide if it is better off facing the range of challenges to the European project—economic growth, migration, terrorism, conflict on its borders—by itself or as part of the EU. The results of the referendum will have implications for the entire UK (including Northern Ireland and Scotland), for the economic and political integrity of the EU, and for Great Britain’s ties with key continental countries and with the US. Panelists will address these aspects and many others and will respond to each other and to questions posed by the audience. To join the Conversation and for more information, please contact Kate Bowersox at kal68@pitt.edu.

Panelists:
Michelle Egan, Professor, School of International Service, American University
Amelia Hadfield, Jean Monnet Chair in European Foreign Affairs, Canterbury Christ Church University
Tim Oliver, Dahrendorf Fellow on Europe-North American Relations, London School of Economics
Alan Sked, Professor Emeritus of International History, London School of Economics (founder and former member of UK Independence Party)

Carol Perez, a high-level State Department official, will visit Pittsburgh to promote the many ways Americans can conduct foreign policy and serve their country abroad. Students of Less-Commonly-Taught Languages are uniquely qualified for a career with the State Department, as they have already demonstrated their ability to adapt to other cultures and communicate with people from different backgrounds. Also, there is a high demand in the U.S. Government for speakers of Persian, Swahili, Turkish, Urdu, Hindi, Russian, Arabic, Mandarin, and other difficult or less well known languages. If you would like to hear more about how to embark on a career with the State Department or secure a Critical Language Scholarship, please join Carol Perez and her State Department colleagues on April 14 for an informal conversation.

“Safe Harbor” is gone, replaced by a new US-EU Privacy Shield agreement. What does this means for US businesses and protection of personal data? Find out from this Virtual Briefing by logging in from your home or office at noon on Tuesday, April 12, 2016.

Presenters:
Ted Dean, US Department of Commerce, Chief Negotiator of US-EU Privacy Shield
Pierluigi Perri, University of Milan, Specialist in Advance Computer Law
David Thaw, University of Pittsburgh, Specialist in Law and Information

For information on how to connect and to register: http://tinyurl.com/gllxtrr.
Cost: $15

The University Center for International Studies will host a Teacher Forum on Internationalizing the K-12 Classroom on Saturday, April 9, 2016 at the William Pitt Union on the University of Pittsburgh’s Oakland campus.

The forum will provide educators, either as an individual participant or as a team of two, with the opportunity to present a project or lesson with a regional or global focus that they have used in the classroom. The project or lesson should focus on one or more of the following items: build understanding and awareness of other cultures, analyze multiple perspectives, communicate effectively across diverse groups, or take action on an international or global issue. Teams consisting of an in-service and a pre-service teacher are particularly encouraged to attend.

Educators will participate in a carousel poster presentation competition in the morning session. During this time educators will have the opportunity to learn from one another’s lessons, while also engaging in a judged competition. Each team will be allowed two to three minutes to present their lesson to a set of judges.

Following the morning presentations, educators will participate in a number of workshops that focus on internationalizing the K-12 classroom led by University of Pittsburgh faculty as well as highly qualified teachers from the region.

At the end of the day, all participants will gather together for the awards ceremony. One winner will be selected from each division – elementary, middle, and high school. Each winner will be awarded $500.00.

This lecture aims to offer a broader and more nuanced perspective on what has been widely referred to as Europe’s “refugee crisis.” With a focus on Germany, the lecture will reflect on the national and international events and changes that occurred between 2011 and the present as a means of rethinking this crisis as both a humanitarian crisis and an example of humanitarianism in crisis.

Russia and Hungary have developed very different economies and political systems in the process of postcommunist transition. Nevertheless, a certain convergence takes place in recent years. Vladimir Putin's regime in Russia and Viktor Orban's regime in Hungary combine authoritarianism, national populism, neoliberal reforms and certain economic measures that go beyond neoliberalism. One way to understand this convergence is to study two distinct types of capitalism that emerged in Russia and in Hungary, their contradictions and the role of the state. Ultimately, the authoritarian consolidation in both countries is rooted in the state-class relations. Both regimes have taken steps that go beyond the neoliberal playbook and adopted the policy of economic nationalism. Nevertheless, in both countries this policy is combined with neoliberal reforms in the social sphere. The presentation examines the past, the present and the future of both regimes.

The Europe: East and West Undergraduate Research Symposium is an annual event designed to provide undergraduate students, from the University of Pittsburgh and other colleges and universities, with advanced research experiences and opportunities to develop presentation skills. The event is open to undergraduates from all majors and institutions who have written a research paper from a social science, humanities, or business perspective focusing on the study of Eastern, Western, or Central Europe, the European Union, Russia, or other countries of the former Soviet Union. Selected participants give 10- to 15-minute presentations based on their research to panels of faculty and graduate students. The presentations are open to the public.

In collaboration with the St. Louis non-profit “Italian Film Festival USA,” we are pleased to announce the fourth edition of our three-week-long festival of contemporary, Pittsburgh-premiere Italian films; our festival begins next week, on Friday, April 1 with Francesca Archibugi’s Il nome del figlio. This year, all screenings will be on Pitt’s Oakland campus: the April 2, 8, 14, 15, and 16 screenings will be held at the Frick Fine Arts auditorium, while the April 7 screening will be held in the Cathedral of Learning, in G-24. All screenings will take place at 7pm, and are free and open to the public. The full schedule, with links to film synopses and a printable PDF flyer, is available here: www.italianfilmfests.org/pittsburgh.

When PEGIDA began its weekly protest marches in October 2014, many were blindsided by its steady outpouring of support. From a mere 350 followers on October 25, 2014, the numbers grew to between 17,000 and 25,000 on January 12, 2015. This talk analyzes the rhetoric and ideological affinities of PEGIDA with other right populist groups, both past and present. Their biases rely on chauvinistic nationalism and anti-government and anti-journalist stances. Slogans like “lying press” and “government abuse” create disdain for democratic mechanisms and open the door to violence and conspiracy theories. A close look at PEGIDA’s and AfD’s ideological backers (Udo Ulfkotte, Götz Kubitschek, and Tanja Festerling) reveals the group’s violent actionism despite its claim to represent mainstream citizens. Employing Jacques de St. Victor’s concept of anti-politics, Professor Druxes analyzes how PEGIDA instrumentalizes mistrust in governmental institutions to create a digital simulacrum of political participation.

This lecture discusses the various forms of isolation and stigmatization experienced by Jewish communities in Germany in the postwar period and seeks to explore the process of redefining Jewish existence in “the land of the perpetrators.” Competing and conflicting German, Jewish, and international conceptions of Jewish life in Germany that were voiced during the early postwar years play an important role in understanding the process of development within individual Jewish communities in the Federal Republic and the position that German-Jewish organizations occupy within the German as well as the Jewish environment today.

For the European Studies Center's second installment of Conversations on Teaching Europe, we will connect experts and local K-12 teachers via videoconference to discuss strategies and techniques that infuse information about European cultures, people and history as well as contemporary issues into curricula. For this particular webinar, we will discuss the use of European art and architecture in classroom lessons with a faculty expert and two local K-12 teachers.

Greece is at a critical crossroads as a result of the economic and refugee crises. Join us for an interactive video conversation dealing with the increasingly precarious economic, political, and psychological relationship between the EU and one of its most stressed members. Audience participation is encouraged. For more information or to participate remotely, contact kal68@pitt.edu.

Panelists:

Dr. Despina Alexiadou, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh

Dr. Panagiota Manoli, Assistant Professor of Political Economy of International Relations, University of the Aegean

Dr. Rachel Epstein, Professor of International Political Economy and European Politics, University of Denver

Dr. Ferree uses a discursive approach to explore the paradoxes of how gender equality politics intersects with liberal as well as neoliberal reform projects in universities. The ongoing struggles over meaning of higher education provide the context in which the global dynamics of academic capitalism and global modernization create different challenges and opportunities for gender equality advocates in Germany and the US. She specifically examines the discourses of diversity management and gender mainstreaming as frames for accountability and excellence in these and other universities.

The Euro Challenge is a national competition for 9th and 10th grade high school students to test their knowledge and understanding of the European economy and the euro, the currency shared by many of the 28 European Union member nations. Teams of up to five students take on the role of international policymakers to explore real world economic issues and possible solutions and recommendations to those issues.

Students who win the regional competition at the University of Pittsburgh have the opportunity to advance to the national competition in New York City where the tops teams are awarded cash prizes.

This Institute offers area secondary school French teachers an opportunity to maintain or improve their language skills, to develop deeper understanding of French culture and its global influence, and to share relevant teaching strategies. The French Immersion Institute hosts three Saturday workshops through the year and an intensive, weeklong workshop beginning in the summer of 2016.

France and the United Kingdom possess substantial shale gas reserves. Similarly, both countries’ mineral-rights regimes are state-controlled. In both states, firm and government officials have expressed interest in these reserves to stimulate economic growth and enhance energy security. In France, a Sarkozy-led government’s blunder would trigger a wave of resistance that in 2011 fostered the first ban in the world of the fracking technique. In 2012, Cameron’s government announced its intention to put the U.K. “at the heart of the shale gas revolution.” As of August 2015, however, not a single drilling site was in operation. As in France, a British anti-fracking movement has raised the same objections to the industry. This along with fractures within the government have contributed to a halt in development. Dr. Ilia Murtazashvili, Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, will offer remarks in response to Dr. Keeler's presentation.

Lunch will be provided to preregistered attendees. Please RSVP here by March 1st: http://tinyurl.com/zucnh6b

Cosponsored with: The Shale Gas Governance Center, GSPIA

Cody Corliss is a war crimes prosecutor at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) where he is part of trial team prosecuting Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and violations of the laws and customs of war. Mr. Corliss is an expert on international truth commissions and his work has appeared in magazines, newspapers, and legal journals throughout the United States. As a Rotary Scholar in the Netherlands, he researched the European integration of immigrants from majority-Muslim nations, with a particular focus on Dutch integration policies. Before joining the United Nations, Mr. Corliss practiced law in Pittsburgh with the international law firm K&L Gates, worked as a political consultant, and was a television news reporter. A native of West Virginia, he has degrees from Harvard, Universiteit Leiden, and Cornell.

NOTE: Room Change!

Can politicians use political tools to prevent volatility in the financial markets? The political economy literature shows that international financial actors watch political developments closely and can respond negatively to certain political events, such as the election of left-wing governments. However, these events are the outcomes of a (sometimes unpredictable) democratic process and beyond the control of political elites. We take a novel approach to this question and explore how political actors can directly mitigate the negative financial market effects based on their selection of ministers and portfolio allocation. We argue that international investors closely monitor political appointments, and are fast to reward governments that appoint (non-partisan) technocrats, especially when these governments lack credibility in the international markets. We expect that technocratic appointments act as signals to investors that a competent and market-friendly environment exists. With an event study analysis that employs new data on the professional and political background of finance ministers in 21 Western and Eastern European parliamentary democracies, we test the effects of ministerial appointments on the market returns. Our findings shed light to a so-far unexplored effect of international financial markets on domestic and partisan politics.

In this month’s virtual roundtable Conversation on Europe, our panel of experts will discuss the ethical and legal questions museums in the Europe and North America face in the on-going debates over art repatriation, conservation, and national vs. universal heritage. Please join us in person or remotely for what promises to be a wide-ranging examination of the topic from the various perspectives of museum curation, art history, anthropology, archeology, and law. Audience participation is encouraged. For more information or to participate remotely, contact kal68@pitt.edu.

Panelists:

Dr. Erin Peters, Joint Lecturer in Curatorial Studies, University of Pittsburgh

Dr. Neil Brodie, Senior Research Fellow at the Scottish Center for Crime and Justice Research, University of Glasgow.

Dr. Susan R. Frankenberg, Program Coordinator, Museum Studies of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Dr. Sophie Vigneron, Senior Lecturer, Kent Law School, University of Kent

Dr. Allyson Delnore, Associate Director of the European Studies Center, will moderate this discussion.

The second in a series of annual UCIS professional development workshops organized for faculty and staff of community colleges in the Western Pennsylvania region with the aim of internationalizing these community college campuses. Presenters from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University will discuss admissions, orientation, academics and student life in relation to international students attending US colleges.

As a follow-up to research undertaken as a part of EU-GLOBAL, an EU-funded International Researcher and Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES) Grant Pitt received along with four partners in the U.S. and Europe, Dr. Bernard Goldstein, Professor Emeritus and former Dean of the Graduate School of Public Health, will present his work on the method of shale gas extraction known as “fracking”.

Dr. Goldstein will present a manuscript summarizing studies performed while a visiting professor at the University of Cologne Department of Political Science and European Affairs. While initially focusing on the role of property rights in the differing rate of shale gas development, he found evidence of increasing and broadening concern among the US conservatives, but not the EU right wing, that environmental sustainability and related issues are an attack on US property rights, and that this emerging difference is likely to further heighten EU/US disparities on environmental issues. He will also present preliminary evidence that there are EU/US differences in the formation and role of boundary organizations, such as the Center for Sustainable Shale Development.

The paper is now available for download here: http://tinyurl.com/jlc89qm. Dr. John Keeler, Dean of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, will offer remarks and moderate the question and answer session.

Lunch will be available for pre-registered attendees. Please register by noon February 10, 2016 at: http://tinyurl.com/z5bznaw.

Marcy Brink-Danan is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Hebrew University. She is the author of Jewish Life in 21st Century Turkey: The Other Side of Tolerance (Indiana University Press, 2011). Brink-Danan examines what it means for Jews to live as a tolerated minority in contemporary İstanbul. The overall schedule for the event is listed below:

6:00 PM - Tours of Israel Heritage Room and Turkish Nationality Room
7:00 PM (324 CL) - Lecture with Marcy Brink-Danan
8:30 PM - Refreshments and Reception

Advance Registration is Recommended but not Required
The event is FREE and OPEN to the public

Jurcek Zmauc is the President of the Slovenian American Business Association and is a Secretary of the Office for Slovenes Abroad of the Republic of Slovenia. A native of Maribor, Slovenia, he received degrees in law from the University of Maribor and from the University of Ljubljana. His career has included service as the Republic of Slovenia’s Counsel General in Austria and as its Counsel General in Cleveland, Ohio, and as the Deputy Minister and Director of the Division of Southeast Europe of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia. In ad-dition to his government service, Mr. Zmauc has taught civil and international business law at the University of Maribor, and has served as Director of its Center for International Cooperation.

Claire Goldstein is Associate Professor in the Department of French & Italian at the University of California Davis. Her book, Vaux & Versailles: The Appropriations, Erasures and Accidents that Made Modern France, appeared in 2008 with the University of Pennsylvania Press. She is currently at work on a book manuscript entitled Comets in the Sun King’s Cosmos. Circulation and Epistemology in Early Modern France. This project examines how the last comets before Halley’s organize curiosity, scrutiny, resistance, and doubt regarding the epistemological status of observation, and crystalize alternative (non-official, sometimes contestatory) networks in which information and texts circulate.

The European Studies Center's Europe Day Contest is a multimedia contest for students in grades K-12. Students participating in the Europe Day Contest can submit projects using different forms of media related to each year's theme as an individual participant or as a member of a group of two to four students based on the type of project. Selected student winners will be awarded prizes and the opportunity to display their work at the first annual Europe Day Festival on Saturday, May 7, 2016 on the University of Pittsburgh campus.

For more information please visit the European Studies Center's Europe Day Contest website or contact Kathy Ayers, Outreach Coordinator.

This month’s session of our Conversation on Europe series will be devoted to the recent social movements and electoral dynamics within both the U.S. and Europe that reflect a rise in populist and right wing movements. Polarizing figures like Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen have grabbed headlines on both sides of the Atlantic, attracted enthusiastic crowds at public rallies, and prompted a great deal of liberal hand-wringing in social media forums. How electorally significant are these individuals and movements? What accounts for their rise in popularity? Our panel of experts will debate these issues and others.

Panelists include:

Lenka Bustikova, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Arizona State University

Jae-Jae Spoon, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of North Texas

Benjamin Haddad, Research Fellow, Hudson Institute

Helga Druxes, Proferssor of German, Williams College

Audience participation is welcome. For more information or to participate remotely, contact adelnore@pitt.edu.

KQV Interview

On Thursday, January 14, 2016, Professor Mallette will deliver the Italian Program’s annual Tucci-Cornetti Lecture at 6pm in 602 CL (Humanities Center) .

“Writ in Water: Poetry on Paper in Medieval Italy”

The technology of papermaking took off in Italy following the fourth crusade, at the beginning of the thirteenth century. By the fourteenth century, Italian paper was abundant and cheap, and Italian papermakers soon dominated the paper industry across the Mediterranean, displacing parchment as writing material. This talk studies the impact that Italian paper had on the writers who used it – historians, storytellers, and especially poets – in late medieval Italy. How did great authors like Dante and Petrarch respond to the new technology? “Writ in Water” describes writers’ reactions to the introduction of the new medium, and how it transformed the writer’s craft.

The UN Climate Change Conference (COP 21 / CMP 11) taking place in Paris November 30-December 11, 2015 seeks to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2⁰C. This will not be an easy goal to reach, as many scientists say the gases we have already emitted into the atmosphere will inevitably lead to a 2 degree increase. Expectations are high on all sides – with optimists and pessimists alike touting this as our last chance to avert catastrophe. This month’s session of our Conversations on Europe series of virtual roundtables will assemble a panel of experts to provide their views of what was accomplished and what was lost in the negotiations. Are the dire prognostications reasonable? And what are the next steps? Audience participation is encouraged. For more information or to participate remotely, contact adelnore@pitt.edu.

Audience participation is encouraged. For more information or to participate remotely, contact adelnore@pitt.edu.

Panelists Include:

Michaël Aklin, Assistant Professor, Political Science

Wil Burns, Co-Executive Director, Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment, American University

Thomas Pellerin-Carlin, Research Fellow, European Energy Policy, Jacques Delors Institute

Leah Stokes, Assistant Professor, Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara

ALL MAJORS WELCOME!

In the fourth installment of our International Career Toolkit Series, we will discuss teaching English abroad and how to prepare for it. Teaching English abroad in public schools, private, schools, universities, and private companies is a great way to immerse yourself in different cultures while gaining valuable experience that will make you stand out when applying to graduate school or jobs. You do not need to be an English or Education major to teach English abroad! Our panelists include invited guests: Pitt alum and current graduate student Crystal Christophe who taught English in South Korea and Oman; Lee Ann Bryan of the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council who taught English at a private school in Slovakia, and in Pittsburgh through Literacy AmeriCorps; Pitt student Michelle Grant who taught English in Spain; and others! Come hear their stories and get ready to teach abroad!

The European Treaties were drafted for a navigation in good weather conditions, not for what we are living through. This simple image summarizes a general perception in Europe: financial tensions among members, dramatic security threats, immigration out of control, nationalism, Brexit... Are those only huge political concerns, or existential challenges for the EU? Is the European Project in danger?

Ignasi Guardans has worked in international relations for over 25 years, notably serving as a Member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2006. Guardans also worked as the Director for Public Affairs and Member Relations for the European Broadcasting Union. In the media, Guardans is a regular contributor to the following major Spanish newspapers such as La Vanguardia, El País, and El Periódico de Catalunya.

University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Patrick Gallagher, administrators and staff from Pitt’s European Studies Center and University Center for International Studies, as well as students, staff, and faculty from Pitt, Duquesne University, Carnegie Mellon University, and Carlow University assembled Wednesday, Nov. 18, to show support for the victims of the Paris terrorist attacks and the people of France.

The 28 member states of the European Union have faced considerable challenges of late as hundreds of thousands of migrants flood the land and sea borders to enter Europe. It is clear that the members do not all agree on how to handle the crisis. But the movement of people continues unabated. And with no end in sight to the conflicts that prompt many people to make their way to Europe at any cost, it is likely to continue for some time. With this installment of our virtual roundtable series, Conversations on Europe, we have assembled a panel of journalists, filmmakers, and aid agencies to look more closely at how this crisis is playing out on the shores and on the borders. With pressure shifting from the sea route to the land borders, are there lessons that Balkan nations can learn from their Italian and Greek counterparts? How are aid agencies responding?

Panelists include:

Joanna Kakissis, Foreign Correspondent for National Public Radio. She has also written for Time magazine, Foreign Policy, and the New York Times.

Andrea Segre, Sociologist and Documentary Filmmaker. He is the director of the film Closed Sea/Mare Chiuso.

Martin Xuereb, Director of Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS). Founded in 2013, MOAS is a humanitarian search and rescue operation assisting vessels in distress in the Mediterranean Sea.

Center Director Ron Linden will moderate. Audience and school participation (both at Pitt and via remote connection) is welcome. To join remotely, please contact kma69@pitt.edu.

International Education Week is celebrated at Pitt and campuses across the country for one week, from November 17-21, 2014. The week is an opportunity for you to experience a new culture, open your mind to a new perspective of the world, or to simply savor a new taste. In short, this is the one week of the year that is jam-packed with activities to open your senses to the world.

Check out the activities planned for each day of the week at www.internationalweek.pitt.edu

Please join us for a special day just for world language teachers, ESL teachers, social studies teachers, and administrators.

Highlights include the following:
-FREE curricular and instructional materials for teachers from the University of Pittsburgh's International Outreach Coordinators
-International enrichment programs for students here in Pittsburgh
-Information on the new Global Scholars Program from PSMLA
-Opportunities for international service-learning trips
-Exploration of a global citizenship curriculum

Schedule for the Day:
8:00 AM Registration and Breakfast
9:00 AM Welcome & Keynote Address
9:45 AM Session I
10:45 AM Session II
11:45 AM Session III
12:30 PM Catered Lunch & Table Talks
1:30 PM Debriefing & Next Steps
2:00 PM Wrap Up

Please mail completed registration form and a $50 check made payable to Fox Chapel Area School District by Monday, November 2, 2015.

Fox Chapel Area High School
611 Field Club Road
Pittsburgh, PA 15238
(412) 967-2430

French and Italian Languages and Literatures is celebrating its 50th anniversary during calendar year 2015. As important figures in the department’s past, present, and future, they invite you to join the celebration!
Join the Department at the 50th anniversary social reception in the University Club Ballroom to reconnect with classmates and faculty. RSVP to frit50@pitt.edu by September 30, 2015, with your name, graduation year, and current address.

The Department of French & Italian Languages and Literatures will hold a conference on Thursday, October 29 and Friday, October 30, 2015: “History and its Discontents: Commemoration in Italy and the Francophone World.” On this occasion we will welcome an exciting slate of visitors to campus to reflect on the dates, places, discourses, and mechanisms of commemoration in the French, Francophone, and Italian cultures; distinguished scholars from a range of institutions and specializing in a stimulating array of topics and periods will be joined in conversation by our Pitt faculty colleagues in French & Italian and beyond.

Martin Munro (Florida State University, French) will deliver the keynote address, with Vivian Curran (Pitt, School of Law), Massimo Riva (Brown, Italian Studies), Debarati Sanyal (Berkeley, French), Carol Symes (Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, French/History/Theater), and Laura Wittman (Stanford, French & Italian) presenting their work in plenary sessions. Finally, Ruth Ben-Ghiat (NYU, Italian/History) has agreed to present her new book Fascist Italy’s Empire Cinema in a special session. We hope through this conference to make visible the importance of humanistic inquiry in our understanding, commemoration, and narrativization of the natural and historical events that shape our world.

This event is also sponsored by the European Union Center of Excellence, the Department of French and Italian, and a grant from the Dietrich School Faculty Research and Scholarship Program. For more information contact Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski at renatebk80@gmail.com.

Date:
Thursday, October 29, 2015 - 5:00pm to Friday, October 30, 2015 - 6:00pm

Qu’est ce qui a fait rire Jean Louis Dassier et Myriam Gau depuis qu’ils sont petits? Venez découvrir le rire en France vue par ces deux animateurs dynamiques.

French Immersion Institutes are designed for French instructors as well as advanced level college students to broaden their cultural understanding of current events and international studies regarding French-speaking countries, to strengthen their French listening and speaking skills, and to share strategies for the teaching of French language and culture. ACT 48 credit is available. Lunch and a continental breakfast will be served. Advanced registration is required.

By all accounts, the number of anti-Semitic incidences—including violent attacks on synagogues, businesses and individuals—has reached a postwar high across Europe. Official responses and those of community leaders have varied, as have explanations. Some point to the re-emergence of age-old European attitudes or populist political parties while others suggest a link to Europe’s changing demographic or a reflection of the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This Conversation will explore the current situation of Jewish communities in light of Europe’s past and with a view toward the future. Center Director Ron Linden will moderate.

Panelists include: Gunther Jikeli of Indiana University, author of Muslim Antisemitism in Europe; Ben Judah, author and journalist, who has written on Britain’s Jews for Politico and Tablet; Andrew Srulevitch, Director of European Affairs and Assistant Director of International Affairs for the Anti-Defamation League; and David Weinberg, Professor Emeritus, Wayne State University and author of Recovering a Voice: West European Jewish Communities after the Holocaust.

Audience and school participation (both at Pitt and via remote connection) is welcome. To join remotely, please contact kma69@pitt.edu.

The term ghetto is among the most fraught and freighted in the vocabulary of Jewish culture and history. Indeed, it has not only featured prominently in virtually all the major developments of modern Jewish history, from emancipation to antisemitism, from urbanization to suburbanization, and from mass migration to mass murder. The "ghetto" has been fundamental to very definition and constitution of Jewish modernity. For all this explosion of "ghetto-talk," the term has arguably become central to the collective history and identity of only one other people beyond Jews, namely African Americans. Ultimately, the story of the term's migration from Jewish to black concerns more than simply the changing nuance of a particular word. The transference of the ghetto was a semantic as much as a socioeconomic historical development, and indeed was understood as such.

Sponsored by: Jewish Studies Program

Co-sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies, Department of History, Carnegie Mellon Department of History, and Humanities Center.

For more information, contact, jsp@pitt.edu

Dr. Pricilla Layne is the co-editor of the book Rebellion and Revolution: Defiance in German Language, History, and Art (2010). In this talk, she will take a look back at German reunification and consider its effects on minorities. How did minoritarian Germans feel excluded from the celebrations? How were minorities used to incite public fears? How did minoritarian artists respond to the physical and epistemic violence? And how has the notion of a German identity become more inclusive twenty-five years later?

The French term, bidonville, used throughout the Francophone Mediterranean to designate informal settlements and shantytowns, originated in Casablanca in the 1920s when migrant laborers set up encampments around the Carlotti and Central Quarries. From the very outset, the term referenced the materials of large-scale industrial production and its accompanying conditions of clandestine labor and migration. In this presentation, Pieprzak will explore both the history and imagination of these spaces of migration – from the writings of French colonial-era urban planners, to Fanon’s political theory of revolution, to contemporary Moroccan

literature that has turned its gaze on the bidonville as a contemporary condition of poverty. Drawing on theoretical work on “perceptual enclosure” (Sekyi-Otu) and “conditions of appearance” (Gordon), Pieprzak seeks to understand how an aesthetics of immobility has emerged in response to the dynamics of movement, crossing and ambivalence present in ordinary neighborhood life, and the role this aesthetics plays in the articulation of possibilities of self-constitution, self-revision and political agency.

This presentation is part of Mediterranean Metageographies, a series of events in AY 2015-2016 organized around the French and Italian Department’s fall (Mediterranean Studies) and spring (Sicily: How To Do Things With Islands) graduate seminars. For a full description of the events planned, please see the “About” tab of the series website: https://fritmedseries.wordpress.com/about.

You are invited to join us for the European Studies Center’s first Conversations on Teaching Europe webinar on Tuesday, October 13th from 3:30 – 5:00 PM EDT.

For the ESC's first installment of Conversations on Teaching Europe, we will connect experts and local K-12 teachers via videoconference to discuss strategies and techniques that infuse information about European cultures, people and history as well as contemporary issues into curricula. For this particular webinar, we will discuss, “Teaching the Migration Crisis in Europe through Primary & Secondary Sources or Personal Narratives.”

Presenters:
Dr. Bernard Hagerty, Professor of History, University of Pittsburgh
Mr. Marc DiSilvio, Social Studies Teacher, McGuffey High School
Ms. Mina Levenson, World Language Teacher, Pittsburgh Allderdice High School
Ms. Lauren Vales, Social Studies Teacher, North Hills High School

The deadline to register for this event has passed. For more information, please contact Kathy Ayers at kma69@pitt.edu.

Over the last two academic years, there have been students in our [WCCC] classrooms from over 40 different countries. Because we do not have large numbers of international students, it is sometimes easy to overlook their presence on campus. On October 6, faculty members from the University Center for International Studies at Pitt will provide unique insight into the life experiences of international students. They will discuss what is going on in different regions culturally, politically, and economically, explain how those factors impact students’ expectations, and provide the perspective of education professionals, your counterparts, from different countries. Please come prepared to explore higher education from an international perspective, to discuss how international students’ choice to study here enriches campus life and to share ideas about how we can best serve them.

Tu e la tua famiglia are cordially invited to commemorate your italianità at the History Center with a full day of interactive activities designed with K-12 students in mind. In honor of Italian Heritage Month, local community groups and museum staff will facilitate educational activities on every floor of the museum. Activities are conceived in a manner that will allow all members of the family to work together to learn about Italian American history and culture. Intergenerational participation is encouraged, so bring tua madre, tuo padre, tua nonna, tuo nonno, tua zia, tuo zio, e tutti i tuoi fratelli, sorelle e cugini. Children 17 & under get into the museum for free on Italian Heritage Day.

The ESC is proud to be hosting three visiting researchers from Middle East Technical University as part of a multi-year grant funded by the European Union that encourages researcher mobility and inquiry into topics related to security and governance issues related to Europe, Turkey, and the Transatlantic relationship: EU-GLOBAL. In this workshop, these visiting graduate students will present their research related to these themes, with a focus on specific research questions, methods, and initial conclusions, with responses from Pitt faculty and alumni working in the field. Audience comments and questions welcomed and encouraged. Pizza will be provided.

The theme of the 2015 PaCIE Conference is Building Global Competence in International Education. This year’s theme embodies a significant part of PaCIE’s mission — to build and strengthen connections and collaborations among and between educational institutions, governmental bodies, businesses, and non-profit organizations throughout Pennsylvania. The conference will take place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on October 1-3, 2015. Individuals representing a host of academic disciplines as well as areas of international education administration, government, business, and non-profit will be presenting.

The University Center for International Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, in cooperation with BILAT USA 2.0, is hosting this special workshop open to all researchers from any discipline on how to receive funding through Horizon 2020.
Horizon 2020 is the European Union’s €80 billion ($90 billion) research program.

This free afternoon workshop is will provide specific information useful for U.S. researchers and institutions that are interested in participating in Horizon 2020. Researchers from all fields are encouraged to attend, as the program has calls relevant to the social sciences, natural and biological sciences, physical and informational sciences, and the humanities. Pre-registration is requested.

Register: http://pitthorizon2020workshop.eventbrite.com

Abdellah is a young gay man navigating the sexual, racial and political climate of Morocco. Growing up in a large family in a working-class neighborhood, Abdellah is caught between a distant father, an authoritarian mother, an older brother whom he adores and a handful of predatory older men, in a society that denies his homosexuality.

Salvation Army, the directorial debut for Abdellah Taïa – an acclaimed Moroccan and Arab writer – is adapted from his novel of the same name.

Discussion with the director after the screening.

In addition to the screening of Salvation Army on Tuesday, September 29, join us on Sunday, September 27 from 3-5 p.m. as Mr. Taïa reads from his novels.

East End Book Exchange,
4754 Liberty Avenue, Bloomfield.

Dans le monde francophone, quelles sont les relations entre l’identité linguistique, l’identité nationale, le sexe, et la sexualité?

Prenez part à notre vidéoconférence pour répondre à cette question avec un panel d’experts:

Abdellah Taïa, écrivain marocain d’expression française
Denis Provencher, professeur de français et de la communication interculturelle à l’Université de Maryland Baltimore County
Nadia Fadil, professeur au Centre de recherches sociologiques, KU Leuven

Animée par Jeanette Jouili, professeur d’études religieuses à l’Université de Pittsburgh

Cette conversation sera entièrement en français!

En coopération avec nos partenaires aux Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program, and the Department of French & Italian at the University of Pittsburgh ; European Union Centers at Florida International University and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne ; and the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

Cette conférence a été rendue possible grâce à l'appui généreux de la Commission Européenne.

Professional development workshop for faculty of the Nine College and University International Studies Consortium of Georgia, addressing political and economic aspects of the current Russia-Ukraine conflict and how this material could be introduced into undergraduate classrooms.