Faculty, Student, and Alumni News

Pitt has won 12 concurrent U.S. Department of Education awards that will support teaching, research and learning about five different world regions, key world languages and overarching global themes.
 
All six of the University Center for International Studies’ global and area studies centers have been chosen to receive both National Resource Center grants and Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships by the federal government. These competitive awards will bolster the work of Pitt faculty and their students with more than $11 million in funding over the next four years.
 
“The University of Pittsburgh is dedicated to preparing our next generation of global leaders,” said Chancellor Patrick Gallagher. “And — as this news shows — the team behind our University Center for Institutional Studies has positioned our international and global studies programs to be among the best in the nation. It’s both an exceptional achievement and a well-deserved one.” 
 
The six centers are: Asian Studies Center, Center for African Studies, European Studies Center, Center for Latin American Studies, Global Studies Center and Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.
 
National Resource Center funding will allow all six centers to maintain and expand existing programming, broadening the University’s student and community engagement and offering global perspectives. Current center initiatives include teaching foreign language and area studies courses, offering study abroad opportunities to students, showcasing the immigrant communities of Pittsburgh and bringing international visitors and academic research to Pitt.
 
“We are very excited that the excellent work done by all of Pitt's global and area studies centers is recognized at this level. This is a historical achievement,” said Ariel Armony, vice chancellor for global affairs and director of UCIS. “The unprecedented number of awards places Pitt in a top group of global institutions that offer the best international research and learning experiences to all students."
 
The six centers also have plans for expanded programming moving forward, including advancing initiatives to promote diversity, inclusion and equity within area studies; supporting course development to foster essential skills to students engaging in international careers; developing a consortium of colleges and universities across Appalachia to expand access to foreign language and international studies courses; and increasing the teaching of endangered and less commonly taught languages such as Quechua (an indigenous language of South America), Irish Gaelic, Twi and Slovak.
 
Foreign Language and Area Studies funding will directly support Pitt students as they seek to become proficient in less commonly taught languages and deepen their knowledge of related regions. Target languages include Portuguese, Arabic, Russian and Swahili, among others. This funding will finance as many as 280 graduate and undergraduate students with academic year and summer fellowships over the next four years.
 
Starting in the spring of 2023, students will be able to apply for Foreign Language and Area Studies funding through the UCIS website.
 
 

On Saturday, January 28th, people from all over globe tuned in to listen to a online book discussion on Indian Cinema. In connection with the publication of 25 essays in The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Indian Cinema (2022), the co-editors, Neepa Majumdar (University of Pittsburgh) and Ranjani Mazumdar (Jawaharlal Nehru University) invited six speakers to engage with the keywords archives, technology, circulation, and bodies as they relate to the book and to the fields of film and media studies and South Asia studies. The speakers at this Zoom event were: Mark Betz (King’s College, London), Manishita Dass (Royal Holloway, University of London), Vinzenz Hediger (Goethe University Frankfurt), Priya Jaikumar (University of Southern California), Juan Llamas-Rodriguez (University of Pennsylvania), and Rosie Thomas (University of Westminster).
 
The Asian Studies Center was proud to help host this event and support increased interest in South Asia as a whole, and Indian culture more specifically. The Asian Studies Center always seeks to highlight distinguished accomplishments by the Pitt Community such as Prof. Majumdar's new book.

Please join the entire Asian Studies Center staff, faculty, students, and community in welcoming Linda Lieu to her new position as Assistant Director for Partnerships & Programming.

Linda was formally the Assistant Registrar for Student Records and Graduation for the University of Pittsburgh’s Registrar’s Office. Prior to working at the University of Pittsburgh Linda spent many years in community engagement roles at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Action Against Rape. She has presented on topics such as sexual assault, the Model Minority Myth, Pitt’s PeopleSoft student information system and conducted programs in the Allegheny County Jail. She is currently co-chair of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Caucus through the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO). 

As ASC’s Assistant Director for Partnerships & Programming, she will be responsible for most of the great programming held by the center. Additionally, she will oversee partnerships with community organizations. Welcome Linda!
 

On Saturday, November 5th, with help from the Asian Studies Center, Screenshot: Asia, and Pitt Professor Seung-Hwan Shin, The Crossroads of Youth Byeonsa Performance US Tour visited the University of Pittsburgh, bringing its troupe from South Korea to the United States for a multi-city tour in Fall, 2022. The byeonsa troupe presented Crossroads of Youth (Cheongchunui sipjaro, Ahn Jong-hwa, 1934), Korea’s oldest surviving silent film, with live storytelling, music, and acting in accompaniment. The troupe reimagined and reconstructed byeonsa culture, Korea’s unique film watching tradition from the colonial period. The performance was held in the Alumni Hall Auditorium alongside food and period attire.
Byeonsa refers to film narrator. Byeonsa performance was a mode of movie watching popular in colonial Korea. This tradition was unique to the film culture of East Asia at its early stage. As opposed to the intertitles common in Western silent film, byeonsa performance would usually include both description of events and verbalization of characters’ voices. It came to Korea via Japan—benshi—during the colonial period and Korea developed its own style of film narration with its distinctive stylistic flourishes. Byeonsas were highly trained and highly respected artists and allegedly, some of them enjoyed greater celebrity than famous actors.