Past Events

As humans rely more and more on electronic devices to support their everyday activities, there are ever present warnings about the impacts such reliance has on human autonomy ranging from who owns and controls information networks, the inequitable impact of technology consumption on peoples and places, varying accessibility of technology around the globe, and the promises and limitations of technology in improving human health.  In Spring 2024, the focus will be on the impact technology has on criminal justice. This will include a discussion about technology’s impact on human safety, including the increasing use of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and other technology by various authorities of the criminal justice system. This will include discussions on the benefits and risks in the implementation and automation of such technology within criminal justice apparatuses. We will also consider how such implementation differs across global criminal justice systems, including how this technology is governed.

Many efforts have been made over the past several years to diversify Eastern European and Eurasian studies. This new spotlight surfaces research that has been conducted by many scholars for much longer, highlighting their commitment to telling stories and honoring perspectives of diverse and minority communities. Their work reveals that while there is no unified queer experience in the region, there is often a one-size-fits all state response to the reality of queer lives in many nations within the region. How can a queer-studies focus advance conversations about decolonization in East European and Eurasian Studies? To address this question, Queer Focus will have seven virtual panels featuring speakers from various disciplines and institutions. Panelists and participants will explore how gendered regimes were constitutive of Russo-centric relationships of power, defining the region and how we study it, as we collectively grapple with what it means to re-examine our current research, teaching, and institutional practices.

The broad rubric of identity is the single most dominant research agenda in academic scholarship, and Eurasian history is no exception. When it comes to questions of ethnic identity, scholars most often focus on groups that can boast some kind of institutional backing - such as a nation-state. Yet, historically, there were many ways that people integrated into collectives - whether or not they were conscious of doing so - that did not lead to a modern nation-state. This keynote address highlights some of the Central Asian groups all but forgotten by history, as well as non-identitarian forms of human integration, such as language, cultures of documentation, and performances of sovereignty.

How did the project of Soviet internationalism imagine a future for a “national musical instrument” like the Ukrainian bandura? Drawing on the archive of the Kyiv Palace of Pioneers (KPDU), the mass institution that provided afterschool opportunities for Soviet schoolchildren known as “Pioneers,” alongside interviews with bandura players, this lecture tells the story of the formation of the children’s bandura ensemble in Soviet Ukraine and the violent erasures that enabled its creation. The story begins with the consolidation of the bandura and the centuries-old bardic traditions associated with it as icons of Ukrainian national identity in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the Soviet 1920s, the bandura became entangled in a series of violent erasures: as the “old style” of playing was repressed, as tradition-bearers disappeared, and as the bandura’s most flamboyant champion was executed by the Soviet state. Meanwhile, the Soviet project of rationalizing vernacular music in the service of building Communism saw the broad institutionalization of children’s music ensembles, including children’s bandura ensembles, at the premier Pioneer Palace of Soviet Ukraine. The history shows how children, imagined to be “powerful agents of revolution” (Kirschenbaum 2001) in the early Soviet period, were in fact often unruly vectors through which the ideological values of Soviet internationalism could be expressed. Based on archival materials and the testimony of a member of the first children’s bandura ensemble at KPDU in the late 1930s, this lecture reveals the contradictions that were inherent in engineering the Communist future through children’s music. Maria Sonevytsky is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Music at Bard College
https://mariasonevytsky.com/

Based on Artem Chukh's autobiographical novel Who Are You?, this Ukrainian drama is an encounter in a provincial town between Tymofiy (a Ukrainian boy) and Felix, a charismatic veteran of the Afghan War, broken by PTSD. A difficult portrait of generational difficulties between children and adults in the Ukrainian 1990s, this film is a coming-of-age story about the first lessons of kindness and cruelty.
The screening will be followed by a talk with the film's director, Iryna Tsilyk. Tsilyk is a prominent Ukrainian director and poet whose awards include the Documentary Directing Award at Sundance (2020).

Are you an undergraduate Pitt student planning to embark on a summer global experience? Join the Spring 2024 3-part UCIS Digital Narrative Workshop Series and create a short video to document your experience, which will be displayed on the big screen in the Global Hub! 3-part Workshop Series:
Workshop #1: Monday, February 26 | 5-8 pm | Posvar 4217
Workshop #2: Tuesday, March 5 | 5-8 pm | Posvar 4217
Workshop #3: Tuesday, March 19 | 5-7 pm | Global Hub (1st floor, Posvar Hall) Note: Students should attend all 3 workshops. If you have class or other pressing conflicts, special exceptions might be made, although you are strongly encouraged to join as much as you can to get the most out of the experience! Registration deadline: February 23

Join Global Experiences Office Peer Advisors for this weekly roundtable in the Global Hub! Bring your questions about study abroad programs!