Lecture

Victoria Harms, Associate Teaching Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University and author of the book The Making of Dissidents: Hungary’s Democratic Opposition and Its Western Friends, 1973-1998 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024) in conversation with Gregor Thum, Associate Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh. Introduction by Kati R. Csoman, Director of the Nationality Rooms and Intercultural Exchange Programs.

The presentation discusses the role of local public libraries in shaping memory about the Great Patriotic War in Russia today. With a particular focus on the Northwest of Russia, it will demonstrate how local libraries practice an emotional approach to commemoration, building close connections with their audiences through the feelings and personal histories they convey by means of material objects.

Dr. Sajić served as the ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina to France, UNESCO, Algeria, Monaco, Andorra and Romania. She was also a foreign policy advisor in the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. She will be at Pitt to discuss her diplomatic experiences with students and the wider community.

Light lunch will be provided.

In the interwar period, a Polish Consulate served Pittsburgh's sizeable population with Polish roots. The last consul before the Second World War was Heliodor Sztark, who came to Pittsburgh in 1938, together with his wife, Aniela and their younger daughter Nina. All three became active public figures within the Polish community, the city of Pittsburgh, and Pitt. After the war, Heliodor resigned from his post because he did not agree with the new Polish government.

Was socialist China's fatal blow to the Tibetan theocracy in 1959 an atheist assault? Peng Hai examines how Chinese cinema justified the People's Liberation Army's dismantling of institutional Tibetan Buddhism. In the Chinese cultural war on religion, Mao and the People's Liberation Army surpassed the Dalai Lama, the pontiff of Tibetan Buddhism, and the old Lamaist establishment as the new icons of salvation and values.

Please note a change of time:
Keynote Speaker for the Undergraduate Research Symposium:

Join the Nationality Rooms and Intercultural Exchange Programs and the Hungarian Room Committee, along with the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, the European Studies Center, and the Hungarian Program of Less Commonly Taught Languages in the Department of Linguistics to commemorate the 1848 Hungarian Revolution.

Dr. John Palka is a retired professor of biology at the University of Washington with a specialty in neuroscience. He is the winner of numerous prestigious academic awards, including election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, two Fulbright Fellowships for teaching in India, and a Guggenheim Fellowship for research in Cambridge, England. He also co-founded and co-directed the University of Washington's highly lauded Program on the Environment.

Join AISEES for the first lecture of 2025!
Meeting ID: 836 1337 4056
Passcode: 229970

Orthodox Christianity first came to Central Asia along with the Russian conquest in the 19th century. Along with Slavic settlers came Orthodox sacred objects, such as miraculous icons and the relics of saints. Churches, monasteries, and parish communities were build around these objects. During the colonisation process, control over Orthodox sacred objects was contested by the imperial regime, settler communities, and the native population.