Past Events

As students consider what they will register for in the fall, advisors and students from the University Center for International Studies will be available throughout the week to answer questions about international studies certificates, study abroad, and resources to support research and career development.

Shortages, bottlenecks, and over-centralization in the Soviet economy made the distribution of goods uneven, limited, and, to some extent, non-existent. But it would be a mistake to see the Soviet economy as only a planned, top-down system. Interwoven within it were shadow economies with illegal schemes that the innovative and corrupt exploited. What do these shadow economies say about Soviet everyday life, informal networks, and corruption, and how did their proliferation reflect and shape the realities of Soviet socialism? This live interview with James Heinzen will explore these questions and more through the culture, practices and morays of underground entrepreneurs in the Soviet Union from the 1960s to the 1980s. This event is part of the Socialism: Past, Present and Future Pop-Up Course.

The Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) is pleased to present the Spring 2020 Latin American Film Series. This series was curated by Luciana Lemos, a Brazilian GSPIA student with experience organizing independent film festivals. The topics vary from gender issues, water rights, and ethnicity in Latin America and the Caribbean to Latinx identity and a reflection on the tensions between parental roles and public duty. The films will be screened approximately twice per month, though the end of the spring semester. Doors open and pizza is served at 6 p.m., and screenings will start at 6:30. Stick around after the screening to participate in a discussion with actors, producers, directors, and faculty. Films will be screened at either 4130 Wesley W. Posvar Hall or the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium. For more information on upcoming films, email us at clas@pitt.edu

Join Aly Yingst, Biological Sciences and BPhil/IAS/Global Studies and current PhD student at the University of Iceland, in a discussion about how to prepare for graduate school and life abroad. Since graduating, Yingst has completed a Fulbright-funded Master's degree in Iceland, traveled the world working as a lecturer on expedition cruise ships. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Global Studies.

Shortly after independence, Julius Nyerere, the first President of Tanzania, embarked on a socialist experiment: the ujamaa, the villagization initiative of 1967-1975. Ujamaa, or "familyhood" in Swahili, both invoked established socialist themes and departed from the existing global repertoire of development policy by seeking to reorganize the Tanzanian countryside into communal village to achieve national development. This live interview with Priya Lal will discuss how ujamaa was envisioned and unfolded in Tanzania and how that experience spoke to particularities of African socialisms, nation building and development in the 1960s and 1970s. This event is part of the Socialism: Past, Present, and Future Pop-Up Course.