Lecture

Valdis Dombrovskis is the Executive Vice President of the European Commission for An Economy that Works for People and European Commissioner for Trade. On the heels of the EU-US Technology and Trade Council (TTC) meeting in Pittsburgh on September 29th, Executive Vice-President Dombrovskis will sit down with Pitt Associate Professor and Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, Erica Owens, for a conversation about the TTC, transatlantic trade, and the future of the EU-US relationship. Students and faculty are encouraged to participate.

Cities are terrains of social and political contestation. It is projected that 70% of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050, and cities are major engines of both economic growth and socio-economic inequality.

Europe's views on Black America are informed by a range of contradictory tendencies: amnesia about its own colonial past, ambivalence about its racial present, a tradition of anti-racism and international solidarity and an often fraught geo-political relationship with the United States itself. Europe both resents and covets American power, and is in little position to do anything about it. So African Americans represent to many a redemptive force– living proof that that US is both not all that it claims to be and could be so much greater than it is.

For the first time after World War II, a radical right party is represented in the German federal parliament. In this regard, the Federal Republic has finally ‘caught up’ with other European countries who have witnessed the ongoing success of radical right pariahs. The presentation will analyze the ideology of the AfD in this context and reflect on the causes and consequences of its electoral success. Marcel Lewandowsky is a DAAD Visiting Assistant Professor at the Center for European Studies, University of Florida.

Internationalize your career-focused courses with the BETH (Business, Energy, Technology, and Health) series. For year 3 of our faculty development workshops for community colleges and minority-serving institutions, the University Center for International Studies at the University of Pittsburgh is offering a series of monthly webinars focused on technology. Our second webinar will examine Technology in the Time of COVID, specifically addressing international responses to the pandemic regarding efforts to mitigate community spread through contact-tracing. Presenters are: Dr.

The University Center for International Studies now offers a Certificate in Mediterranean Studies at both the undergraduate and the graduate level. A certificate in Mediterranean studies provides Pitt students and faculty with the institutional support and organizational structure to examine issues and themes across the Mediterranean world over a broad chronological span – from Antiquity to the present.

In this presentation Dr. Looney examines how the reception of Dante Alighieri –his biography and the Divine Comedy–contributes to the productive literary entanglement of several key figures of American literary life in the middle of the 20th century.

Communist revolution in the 20th century was reliant on a profound change in individual consciousness. It is not surprising that communist ideology spoke forcefully and often about creating “new people.” Revolutionary China was no different. But how did Chinese communists at various levels, from Mao Zedong to village cadres, understand their work to transform individual consciousness? What did “Maoism” mean in the everyday?

During this session, the European Studies Center’s year-long exploration of Memory and Politics in Europe focuses in on one building in the center of Paris: the Notre Dame Cathedral. On the one year anniversary of the devastating fire that destroyed its roof, this virtual discussion will highlight Notre Dame’s standing a lieux de mémoire for the French, as well as its significance outside of France. The Conversation will also address our current crises: what has been the importance of cathedrals as social gathering points throughout history?

Forty years ago, Margaret Thatcher declared that “there is no alternative.” State socialism was dying and capitalism, restructured as neoliberalism, was ascendant. The collapse of state socialism in 1991 seemed to hammer the last nail into socialism’s coffin and vindicate Thatcher’s prophecy. Fast forward to today—socialism is back. However, the road to socialism is not easy. Today’s socialists cannot simply be dreamers. They must also be realists.