Lecture

Income inequality and what to do about it is a hot button political issue throughout our world. Much this disparity is the result of how the value of labor is calculated. How much is a worker's labor worth? How is it measured? Namely, how is it commodified? This live interview with Martha Lampland will discuss these questions from an unlikely place--socialist Hungary--to shed light on how economists in a society without a labor market nonetheless determined the value of labor and what this says about socialism and capitalism.

Please join us for coffee, pastries, and an immersive discussion of Jewish cafe culture at the turn of the twentieth century. Dr. Shachar Pinsker, professor of Judaic and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Michigan, will talk about the convergence of cafés, their urban milieu, and Jewish creativity. Pinsker’s research uncovers a network of interconnected cafés that were central to the modern Jewish experience in a time of migration and urbanization, from Odessa, Warsaw, Vienna, and Berlin to New York City and Tel Aviv.

To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the publication of Simone de Beauvoir's ground-breaking The Second Sex, Dr. Manon Garcia (Harvard) will offer a lecture for undergraduates titled 'What is a Woman?: Beauvoir’s Understanding of Sex as Situation.' All students are welcome! Talk in English! Dr. Garcia (Harvard) recently published the well-received book On ne naît pas soumise, on le devient (“One is not born, but rather becomes, submissive”) (Flammarion, October 2018), which is part of a recent reconsideration of the legacy of Simone de Beauvoir.

Dr. Manon Garcia (Harvard) will deliver the lecture to commemorate the memory of Professor Philip Watts and the 70th anniversary of the publication of Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex:" "From Abdication to Independence: Beauvoir's Philosophy of Love as Emancipatory Analysis", Wednesday, February 12, 2020, 5-6:30 pm, 602 CL Join us for the Watts lecture in French studies. Dr. Manon Garcia (Harvard) will deliver the lecture to commemorate the memory of Prof. Phil Watts and the 70th anniversary of the publication of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex.

Socialism is often discussed as a singular, proper noun devoid of ideological, regional, political, or economic difference. Several types of socialism were operative in the twentieth century--from Soviet state socialism to Yugoslav worker self-management. What were some of the transnational movements of socialist experimentation and how, in the later decades of the twentieth century, intersect with, offer alternatives, and even shape neoliberalism?

Prof. Heng is the author of The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2018). This book is a major intervention in Medieval Studies and has sparked conversations across a number of disciplines. We are excited to be able to discuss that project with her. This lecture will be followed by informal responses from a number of members of the Pitt community - some from MRST, some not.

Search and Rescue (SAR) missions in the Central Mediterranean continue to be the subject of extensive debate in Italy and in Europe, even as the number of sea arrivals have significantly declined. A multitude of actors engaged in rescuing migrants and refugees at sea has created an increasingly complex situation in the waters south of Sicily all the way to the Libyan coast. Based on previous and on-going research by Dr. Marolda and her Ford Institute working group, this lecture addresses the following questions: 1) What is the migration challenge Europe is facing in the Central Mediterranean?

The hit HBO miniseries Chernobyl thrust the nuclear disaster back into public consciousness. What are its legacies in and around the "Exclusion zone"? This live interview with award-winning historian Kate Brown will discuss her book Chernobyl: A Manual for Survival and the role of international agencies in actively suppressing the magnitude of this human and ecological catastrophe. This event is part of the REEES Fall Speaker Series, Nuclear Fallout: Science and Society in Eurasia.