Two of Oyamada Hiroko's best-known works are her proletariat debut novella "The Factory" (Kojo, 2013) and her Akutagawa-prize winning novella "The Hole" (Ana, 2014). Scholars are only beginning to shift their focus to Oyamada, and as of yet, little scholarly work has been dedicated to analyzing the animals that are characteristic of her writing. In my thesis (Hayley Gerlach), I examine the liminal space between human and nonhuman worlds in Oyamada's speculative fiction and what these spaces say about societal and environmental responsibility.

Join us for an important lecture and complimentary lunch with Dr. Miranda Schreurs.

Open the newspaper on any day and you will be confronted by tragedy. Wars are raging in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Waves of migrants are fleeing insecurity in the search for better lives. Floods, hurricanes, droughts, and extreme temperatures linked to climate change are wreaking havoc around the planet. Growing numbers of people are struggling to make ends meet. These developments are giving new significance to the concept of security and posing great challenges for political, economic, and societal decision-makers. This talk will discuss the threats these crises pose for Europe and the United States with a particular focus on climate change as a security threat but also climate change mitigation as a security amplifying mechanism. Both in Europe and the United States efforts to address climate change and reduce dependencies on fossil fuels are beginning to show effects. Climate mitigation efforts have been sped up in reaction to the Russian war in Ukraine with visible effects. To what extent and how quickly further progress on addressing climate change can be achieved will depend on many factors, including our ability to overcome growing domestic political polarization and reduce global geopolitical tensions.

Prof. Miranda Schreurs (PhD University of Michigan) is Chair of Climate and Environmental Policy at the Bavarian School of Public Policy, Technical University of Munich. She investigates environmental movements, green politics, and climate policymaking both comparatively and internationally. She has lived and researched in Europe, the United States and Asia. She also specializes on the politics surrounding the disposal of highly radioactive waste. In 2011, Prof. Schreurs was appointed by Chancellor Angela Merkel as a member of the Ethics Committee for a Secure Energy Supply. In 2016, she was appointed by the German Bundestag as a member of a committee established to bring citizens’ voices and ensure greater transparency in the search for a disposal site for highly radioactive waste. She was a member of the German Council on the Environment (2008-2016) and served both as Vice Chair and Chair of the European Advisory Council on Environment and Sustainable Development. She was a Fulbright Fellow to Japan and Germany and spent three years studying at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She also worked as a professor of comparative politics at the University of Maryland. From 2007 to 2016 she was Director of the Environmental Policy Research Center and Professor of Comparative Policy at the Free University of Berlin.

Join weekly Tavolina (a separate gathering from Tavola Italiana) to practice Italian. This is an Italian conversation table aimed for beginner and intermediate speakers.

Join weekly Swahili Class 2 students for weekly conversation hours this Spring semester, to practice Swahili outside of the classroom.

Come practice your conversational Hungarian with students of all levels!

Join weekly Bate-Papo Portuguese conversation practice for all levels, from brand-new beginners to advanced or heritage speakers!

Join Spring 2024 Kya Baat Hai weekly conversation hours, on Wednesdays from 7-8 pm, for students to practice speaking in Hindi and Urdu and connect over shared cultural experiences!