Past Events

Dr. Priya Sirohi discusses her career as professor, writer, researcher, and scholar of cultural rhetoric. Her research conducts case studies between the English East India Company and Mughal India, to illuminate the significance of Early Modern economics that continue to define contemporary globalization. She holds a doctorate from Purdue University with secondary concentrations in Public Rhetoric and Cultural Rhetoric To Register:https://pitt.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwtf-CspjwiEtxRiV3pytpt-Wsd4D48pZL5

Connect with other teachers, ask questions, and learn how Duolingo for Schools makes it easy to enrich your curriculum and motivate your students! Building on the efficacy and success of the original Duolingo platform, Duolingo for Schools, created for schools and universities alike, augments any curriculum, giving students content designed to promote long-term retention, while providing teachers with creative ways to differentiate instruction, increase engagement, and keep students learning on any device, both inside and outside the classroom. This session goes behind the scenes to show how Duolingo for Schools works--we'll walk through creating classrooms, adding students, assigning work, and viewing student activity on Duolingo.

For the 2021-22 academic year, the European Studies Center has announced its annual programmatic theme: “Recovering Europe.” The December roundtable will discuss the COP26 summit and how it impacts the European Green Deal. Hosted in Glasgow, UN Climate Change Conference 2021 aims to build off of the Paris Climate Agreement. European Studies Center Director Jae-Jae Spoon will moderate this roundtable. Audience participation encouraged. #CoE

Rafał Wnuk is a professor at John Paul II Catholic University in Lublin/Poland (KUL). In the last couple of weeks, Poland is constantly in the news for not keeping the European standards of the rule of law. However, this deformation of the country’s legal system is just one of the many issues Poles face today. The current government is also trying to implement its version of national history, silencing dissenting views and encroaching on the school and university curriculum. Professor Wnuk will discuss the role of history as a tool in building an increasingly authoritarian state. The talk is followed by a discussion moderated by Jan Musekamp (DAAD Visiting Associate Professor, Dept of History).

Facilitated by Dr. Jean-Jacque Ngor Sène, Associate Professor of History and Cultural Studies, Chatham University “La République Française,” has been, for the last hundred years or so, a Muslim Global Power. The French, more particularly in Modern Times, have arguably stood in World History as the very top incubator-nation of theories, from that of the “Noble Savage” falsely attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, to that of (Colonial Cultural) “Assimilation” formalized by, say, Arthur Girault, onto that of “Deconstruction” in post WWII times with Brother Jacques Derrida. One such new theory out of the Hexagon of Fading Glory is the controversial nébuleuse known as l’Islamo-Gauchisme (Islamo-Leftism???) fathered by Pierre-André Taguieff in 2002 from what we think we know. David Robinson’s Paths of Accommodation, Muslim Societies and French Colonial Authorities in Senegal and Mauritania, 1880 -1921 (Ohio University Press) straddles the tropes of Negotiation, Cooperation, Sabotage, Resistance, Jihad, and more importantly, for our chosen focus, Knowledge and Power Crystallized into (Symbolic) Sociopolitical Capital. Dr. Sène, will lead a discussion focused on the diversity of Arabic sources, archival sources from the colonial registries, oral ethnographic documents, and powerful folkloric testimonies from the early 1900s onwards. The book is a unique springboard for a re-evaluation of (Muslim) Civil Societies’ agency against neo-imperial forces of mass exploitation/oppression in our own times. This discussion is cosponsored by the African Studies Center and the European Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh and Chatham University. Act 48 Credits available for PA teachers. For more information:https://www.cerisnet.pitt.edu/event/ceris-fall-book-discussion-for-educa...

Anthony Kruszewski is professor emeritus at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Beata Halicka is professor at Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań/Poland. During this conversation, we will discuss Beata Halicka’s biography of Anthony Kruszewski. Professor Kruszewski was first a Polish scout fighting in World War II against the Nazi occupiers, then a Prisoner of War and Displaced Person in Western Europe. He was stranded as a penniless immigrant in post-war America and eventually became a pioneer in the field of Borderland Studies. His life story is a microcosm of twentieth-century history, covering various theatres and incorporating key events and individuals. The discussion will be moderated by Jan Musekamp (DAAD Visiting Associate Professor, Dept of History).

A Symposium in Honor of Dr. Irina Livezeanu This unique event brings together former students, colleagues, and associates of Irina Livezeanu’s, many of them specialists in the history, art, and culture of Romanian Jews or Romanian fascism, to discuss Jewish lives, creativity, and persecution during the Holocaust, and the memory of these earlier times. Held to celebrate Irina Livezeanu's retirement from the University of Pittsburgh, "Image and Memory: Jews, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust in Romania" deals with major themes that have occupied her writing and teaching over several decades. The event involves four roundtables that are open to the public. The first roundtable uses images and interviews to investigate Jewish lives before and after the Holocaust; the second—artwork and writings by Jewish members of Romania's twentieth century avant-garde movements; the third—propaganda photographs of Romanian fascists and the Holocaust; the fourth is a screening and discussion of director Radu Jude's 2018 feature film, "I do not care if we go down in history as barbarians," which deals with how contemporary Romanians remember the role of Romania’s Nazi-allied government in World War II. Announced by European Studies Center.