Upcoming Events

- Lucinda Morgan and Rachael Ochoa
- 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm
- 5108 Posvar Hall

- Nicholas R. Micinski
- 4:00 pm
- Zoom
Presenter: Nicholas R. Micinski Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the University of Maine Moderator: Paweł Lewicki, Associate Director European Studies Center Migration has become an important area of cooperation within the European Union and has faced several recent refugee crises, including people seeking protection from Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Ukraine. This lecture will discuss the ways in which cooperation within the EU has evolved over the last 20 years, focused on the starkly different responses in 2015-17 and 2022. The lecture will build on the findings in Micinski's book, Delegating Responsibility: International Cooperation on Migration in the European Union (2022).

- Milada Anna Vachudova
- 4:00 pm
- Zoom
SPEAKER: Milada Anna Vachudova University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Professor Vachudova will explore how the rise in support for populist parties has shaped party systems in Europe over the last decade, focusing on ethnopopulist parties -- parties that make strong anti-pluralist appeals, vilifying individuals, groups and institutions labeled as culturally harmful. When in power, ethnopopulist parties use these appeals to justify the concentration of power -- and this playbook has helped bring authoritarian rule to Hungary while Poland stands on the brink. She unpacks why ethnopopulism has become a challenge to liberal democracy in Europe, how oppositions have responded -- and why EU member governments have shown such complacency and cynicism in countering it. This has led to the risk of a decoupling of the EU from the regime type of liberal democracy. Yet Russia's war against Ukraine is changing political contestation related to liberal democracy and to relations with Russia in key states including Poland and Germany. Professor Vachudova will close by reflecting on Ukraine's challenge to the European Union -- and whether and how the EU enlargement process can be revived as a tool of EU foreign policy.

- Various
- (All day)
The revolutionary prospect of socialism inspired homosexual emancipation and the growth of toleration toward same-sex relations in the first quarter of the twentieth century in many countries, including the UK, US, Hungary, and USSR. However, the development of LGBTQ+ rights within socialism was never linear and even. The conference seeks to address those discrepancies and the reasoning behind them. It aims to discuss the LGBTQ+ experience and its political, social, and cultural implications under state socialism from a global perspective. What was the place of queerness under socialism? Was socialist ideology generally more responsive to queer people’s agenda and empathic towards them? How did legislation relate to same-sex activity change over time in socialist countries? How did the Cold War and geopolitical tensions between socialist and capitalist counties influence and inform sexual politics toward queer people and their perception? Why did some socialist countries, such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, and the GDR decriminalize homosexuality as early as the 1960s and the Polish People’s Republic never criminalize it? What strategies of networking and concealment did sexual and gender non-conformists adopt in the socialist countries where homosexuality was still illegal, such as Soviet Republics, China, and Cuba? What was the attitude towards gender and sexual dissidents among the left-leaning movements in capitalist countries? Why decriminalization of homosexuality and homosexual emancipation that followed it was subsequently cut off in some post-socialist countries such as Russia? The main goal of the symposium is to reflect on the broad spectrum of topics related to the conjunction of queer and socialist ideology from a global and comparative perspective. The symposium aims at the broader public, including students, scholars, and activists.

- Giuseppina Mecchia
- 12:00 pm
- Zoom Webinar
In the last few years, we have seen an increasing international awareness of the challenges facing the interaction between human populations and a changing environment. In France and Italy, these issues have in fact occupied a really important role in philosophical, social and political debates and initiatives for at least five decades. Our panelists will offer a diverse and far-reaching presentation of their own involvement with the research and initiatives presently occurring in Italy and France. Moderator: • Giuseppina Mecchia, University of Pittsburgh Panelists: • Yves Citton, Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint Denis, France • Daniela Fargione, University of Turin, Italy • Giuseppina Mecchia, University of Pittsburgh Dr. Yves Citton, Professor of Literature and Media at the Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint Denis, France, will discuss a new-web-based platform that he has founded with international collaborators, the Terraforma Project, which aims at providing a more-than-human position on current ecological challenges. A report on Terraforma can be downloaded from this calendar. Dr. Daniela Fargione, Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Turin, Italy and a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh this spring, is currently engaged in a transnational reflection on literary and media interventions on new climate challenges, and she will address the history and current engagements of Italian Green movements. Dr. Mecchia, Associate Professor of French and Italian at Pitt, will talk about the living legacy in France but also internationally ot the insights of two of the most important French philosophers dealing with the presence of humanity on Earth, Bruno Latour and Michel Serres. Their work, since the 1980s, has inspired a multitude of researchers and activists.

- Kaija E. Schilde
- 4:00 pm
- Zoom

- Vida Skerk
- 10:00 am
- Zoom
2022-23- MEET EU EMERGING FILMMAKER: VIDA SHERK, Director, Night Ride (Noćna vožnja) This is a three-part seminar that focuses on what makes a film visually distinctive, and how mood boards and storyboards can be used in the pre-production process to help the director, the cinematographer, the costume designer, the art director, and the rest of the crew envision the right atmosphere for the film - and choose the right tools to do so. The goal of this seminar is also to encourage even Screenwriting students to develop mood boards for their stories, as they can be a useful tool during the screenwriting process as well. FEB 14, 2023 @ 10:00-11:30 AM EST- Required PART I: MOOD BOARDS - What are mood boards, and why are they important? Can they be useful for screenwriters (during the development phase) as well, and how? FEB 21, 2023 @ 10:00-11:30 AM EST (2nd Half-Optional) PART II: STORYBOARDS – How do mood boards influence storyboards? How do we make a storyboard? FEB 28, 2023 @ 10:00-11:30 AM EST (Optional) PART III: THE CHICKEN OR THE EGG? WHICH COMES FIRST? Are mood boards useful only in the later stages of pre-production? Is there even a right way to approach the development and pre-production process, or can we shake things up and start with the parts of pre-production which are usually reserved for the later stages in the process of making a movie, only after a story (or script) is already set in stone? REQUIRED WORK: Participants will be asked to produce mood boards and storyboards for their own projects. We will discuss their own exercises and work during the seminar. They will also be asked to watch Vida Skerk's short film “Night Ride” beforehand, as this film and the material made during the preparation for this project will be used as examples during the seminar.

- Oxana Shevel
- 4:00 pm
- Zoom

- Matthias Matthijs
- 4:00 pm
- Zoom

- Mary Rauktis
- 12:00 pm
- Zoom Webinar
As North and Central America increasingly experience climate change and disasters (fires, hurricanes, drought, rising waters from the Great Lakes and Atlantic Ocean), the US has come to realize what our European colleagues have been experiencing as they have been at the forefront of the accelerating trend of global displacement related to climate change. The pre-covid years of 2015-2016 saw the highest peak of immigration into Europe. Last year President Biden signed an executive order 14013 “Rebuilding and Enhancing programs to resettle refugees and planning for the impact of climate change on migration”. With the release of the report, it was the first time the U.S. Government officially reported on the link between climate change and migration. While no nation offers asylum to climate migrants, the UN High Commission on Human Rights has published legal guidelines for offering protection to people displaced by the effects of global warming. Additionally, several of the 169 targets established by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) lay out general goals that could be used to protect climate migrants. The panel will be an informal discuss of how Europe’s experience with climate change and migrants can inform the United States. The organizer and moderator of the Panel is Mary Rauktis, School of Social Work, University of Pittsburgh The Panel members are: Sigrid James, University of Kassel, Germany Juri Kilian, University of Kassel, German Carla Malafaia, University of Porto, Portugal Cosmin Nada, University of Porto, Portugal Sheila Velez Martinez, School of Law, University of Pittsburgh

- Stephanie Hoffmann
- 4:00 pm
- Zoom

- Jan Kubik
- 4:00 pm
- Zoom

- (All day)
The Undergraduate Research Symposium is an annual event since 2002 designed to provide undergraduate students, from the University of Pittsburgh and other colleges and universities, with advanced research experiences and opportunities to develop presentation skills. The event is open to undergraduates from all majors and institutions who have written a research paper from a social science, humanities, or business perspective focusing on the study of Eastern, Western, or Central Europe, the European Union, Russia, or Central Eurasia. After the initial submission of papers, selected participants are grouped into panels according to their research topics. The participants then give 10- to 15-minute presentations based on their research to a panel of faculty and graduate students. The presentations are open to the public. For more information and to apply, please visit: https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/creees/urs. APPLICATION DEADLINE: January 8, 2023 Limited travel grants are available to help defray travel expenses for accepted participants located outside of the Pittsburgh region. SYMPOSIUM: March 31, 2023

- Steve Lund
- 4:00 pm
- Zoom
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