What does it mean for a course, module, or lesson to be “global’? In part, it means looking at a question from multiple lenses—whether political, economic, social, cultural, ecological, or other. What better way to approach global curriculum planning (and to model collaborative learning for our students!) than to partner with colleagues from other disciplines in the same school? The University Center for International Studies at Pitt is offering a new program that will provide teachers with the time, space, and material support to gather with like-minded colleagues and (re)design an interdisciplinary, global unit or lesson. Science and French teachers might team up to offer a lesson on global warming in the francophone world; or Art, English, and Social Studies teachers might develop a unit on responses to the global refugee crisis in art and literature. We are looking forward to hearing your ideas!

We are currently accepting applications from teams of 2-4 teachers. We will meet three Saturday mornings (3/3, 4/7, and 5/5) from 9-12noon, and new content must be taught in the 2018-2019 school year. At each meeting, you will work intensively with your teammates, receive feedback from other participants, and learn about strategies for interdisciplinary teaching. We welcome teams that include teachers, librarians, curriculum development specialists, and/or administrative personnel. Ideally, each member of the team should interact with the same group of students.

Launched in 2006, Euro Challenge is an exciting educational opportunity for 9th and 10th grade high school students to learn about the European Union (EU) and the euro. Teams of three to five students are asked to make presentations answering specific questions about the European economy and the single currency, the euro. They are also asked to pick one member country of the “euro area” (the 19 EU member countries that have adopted the euro so far), to examine an economic problem at the country level, and to identify policies for responding to that problem.

Part of the ESC Participation and Democracy 2017-18 Series and its series of Virtual Roundtables, Conversations on Europe.

In her presentation, Professor Ragno will discuss the special characteristics of choice of court agreements in the EU, and will touch on the impact on these agreements of Brexit. Prof. Ragno graduated in Law (J.D.) with honors at the University of Bologna and obtained her PhD degree from the University of Verona. Her teaching and scholarship span Private International Law, European Law International Commercial Law and International Arbitration.

She is a Visiting Distinguished Fulbright Chair at the University of Pittsburgh for spring 2018.

This webinar is the second in a professional development series co-sponsored by the American Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies and the European Studies Center. It will use the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe as an example to explore non-university research institutions prevalent in Europe. First, participants will receive information about the Institute's collections and holdings (including 5 million newspaper clippings, close to 700,000 images, 40,000 historical maps, a library with half a million items etc.). Participants will learn about the fellowship and partnership programs available, in addition to the Institute’s profile in the field of Digital Humanities. Using the Herder Institute as an example, Peter Haslinger will also elaborate on networking strategies on the global level and the forms of cooperation in German academia to foster strategic partnerships between non-university institutions and universities.

To register, visit http://aseees.org/programs/webinars.

Speaker's Bio: Peter Haslinger is Professor of East-Central European History at the Justus Liebig University Giessen and Director of the Herder Institute in Marburg, a research institution affiliated with the Leibniz Association and specializing in the history, art history and digital humanities of East Central Europe. Dr. Haslinger is Principal Investigator at the Giessen Center for Eastern European Studies, the International Center for the Study of Culture, and the Center for Media and Interactivity, all located at the Justus Liebig University. He likewise functions as a spokesperson for the Herder Institute Research Academy, which aims to bridge the gap between scholarship in Eastern European Studies and the development of research infrastructures. His scholarly interest focuses on the history of the Habsburg Monarchy and successor states in the 19th and 20th centuries. He has published widely on Hungarian, Czech and Slovak history as well as on questions of nation, region and cultural diversity, on cartography and questions of security. Dr. Haslinger is the spokesperson for the project group that enhances the visibility of Eastern European Studies across disciplines within the Leibniz Association. He is likewise involved in activities for the enhancement of the Humanities and Social Sciences on the European level, among others as a member of the Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) Network board.

Next Webinar

April 11, 12 p.m. (EST)
Doing Research on Eastern Europe in the EU: Research Infrastructures, Grant Models, and Career Mobility

This reading group for educators explores literary texts from a global perspective. Content specialists offer stimulating presentations of the work and its context, and together we brainstorm innovative pedagogical practices for incorporating the text and its themes into the curriculum. After a successful partnership with City of Asylum and their authors-in-residence in the fall, our series continues this spring with the theme of literature and authoritarianism. At this session, Prof. Jacques Bromberg (Classics) will lead a discussion of Sophocles' Antigone.

What does it mean for a course, module, or lesson to be “global’? In part, it means looking at a question from multiple lenses—whether political, economic, social, cultural, ecological, or other. What better way to approach global curriculum planning (and to model collaborative learning for our students!) than to partner with colleagues from other disciplines in the same school? The University Center for International Studies at Pitt is offering a new program that will provide teachers with the time, space, and material support to gather with like-minded colleagues and (re)design an interdisciplinary, global unit or lesson. Science and French teachers might team up to offer a lesson on global warming in the francophone world; or Art, English, and Social Studies teachers might develop a unit on responses to the global refugee crisis in art and literature. We are looking forward to hearing your ideas!

Free parking, Act 48 credit hours, $300 stipend, and a mini-grant (up to $200 for your team) for curricular materials of your choosing.

Samedi 3 mars 2018:
La situation linguistique et culturelle en Bretagne, Dr. Sébastien Dubriel, Université de Carnegie-Mellon

Samedi 21 avril 2018:
Françoise Giroud & Simone Veil: deux écrivaines politiques pour la couse des femmes
Conférencière: Bénédicte Barlat, Directrice - Centre Francophone de Pittsburgh

Program runs from 9:00-13:30, with an 8:30 breakfast and 12:30 lunch included.

Registration deadlines: February 26th for March 3rd workshop; April 16th for April 21st workshop.
Enclose a $20.00 check for each program ($40.00 for both). Fee includes ACT 48 credit-4 -hours for each program, breakfast and lunch.) Send check payable to the University of Pittsburgh. To facilitate our records, please write on check memo: (French Immersion)

Bonnie Adair-Hauck: adairhauck@gmail.com

For more information, please see: http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/rivers-symposium.

The talk will discuss some examples of the very important but changing roles of rivers in history (the small Akerselva in Oslo, Norway, the Derwent in England, the Indus, and the Huang He in China). Based on these cases it will discuss modernization theories that dominated international discourse on development after World War II, theories that disregarded the role of water in historical developments.

For more information, please see: http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/rivers-symposium.

This session explores ways in which the Baltic region enabled the rise and consolidation of the French
colonial empire in the Americas. As a supplier of naval stores, the Baltic has long been viewed as central to
early modern European expansion overseas. Nevertheless, its particular association with French empire
building remains little studied. Drawing on data from the Danish Sound Toll Registers and French consular
records form Copenhagen, Elsinore, Stockholm, and St. Petersburg, the paper delineates how French
colonization began as an attempt to secure commercial independence from the Baltic, only to produce the
opposite effect of binding the French colonial enterprise and the Baltic ever closer together.

Comments will be offered by Niklas Frykman and Allyson Delnore.

The multiple uprisings of 1968 challenged authorities worldwide, and led to many reforms, but the insurgents misunderstood the nature of their insurgencies, and this misunderstanding drastically limited their effects. They did not add up to a revolution. Rather, in their multiplicity, they were something far more complicated and ambiguous: the culmination of an era of incremental progressive change, a signal of the collapse of conventional liberalism, and a prologue to deep cultural changes as well as grim backlash

Our center is excited to announce the launch of professional development webinars offered by the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East-Central Europe. Are you a scholar or academic professional curious about European higher education and research? Discover opportunities to enhance your career mobility and research. This series is co-sponsored by the American Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies and the European Studies Center.

Germany provides a highly developed network of university and non-university expertise for Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet states. The first webinar presented by the Herder Institute will provide a survey of all existing centers and institutions, and give an overview about their regional focus, research hubs, collections and infrastructures. For the purpose of drawing a more general picture, the discussion will include centers located in Austria and Switzerland in addition to those in Germany. Participants will gain insight into the present state and future development of East European Studies in these three countries and will learn how to organize a research trip and find the best opportunity for individual topics.

To register, visit http://aseees.org/programs/webinars.

Speaker's Bio: Peter Haslinger is Professor of East-Central European History at the Justus Liebig University Giessen and Director of the Herder Institute in Marburg, a research institution affiliated with the Leibniz Association and specializing in the history, art history and digital humanities of East Central Europe. Dr. Haslinger is Principal Investigator at the Giessen Center for Eastern European Studies, the International Center for the Study of Culture, and the Center for Media and Interactivity, all located at the Justus Liebig University. He likewise functions as a spokesperson for the Herder Institute Research Academy, which aims to bridge the gap between scholarship in Eastern European Studies and the development of research infrastructures. His scholarly interest focuses on the history of the Habsburg Monarchy and successor states in the 19th and 20th centuries. He has published widely on Hungarian, Czech and Slovak history as well as on questions of nation, region and cultural diversity, on cartography and questions of security. Dr. Haslinger is the spokesperson for the project group that enhances the visibility of Eastern European Studies across disciplines within the Leibniz Association. He is likewise involved in activities for the enhancement of the Humanities and Social Sciences on the European level, among others as a member of the Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) Network board.

Next webinar

March 7, 12 p.m. (EST)
Introducing the Herder Institute: Collections, Funding Opportunities, and Higher Education Partnerships

This conference will bring together Pennsylvania faculty with peers affiliated with the Nine University and College International Studies Consortium of Georgia for a workshop on innovative ways to internationalize curricula at community colleges and minority-serving institutions.

To attend, please register by January 19, 2018 via https://tinyurl.com/yaf5hjod.

Speakers will include: Abe Newman, Frederic Merand, Matthias Matthijs, and Rachel Epstein

Free and open to the Public
-Advanced registration is requested via https://eusa_roundtable.eventbrite.com

Co-sponsored by the European Union Studies Association, European Horizons – Pitt Chapter, and the German American Chamber of Commerce

Catalonia declares independence from Spain. Northern Italian regions vote on increasing autonomy from Rome. And these are just the latest secessionist and independence movements making news in Europe. We’ve invited a panel of experts to learn more about nationalism and secessionism and potential implications for the European Union. Join our panel of experts to learn more. In-person or remote participation in this virtual roundtable is possible, and audience questions are encouraged.

Moderator
Jae-Jae Spoon, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh

Panelists
Gianluca Passarelli, Department of Political Science, Sapienza University, Roma
Simon Toubeau, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham
Sergi Pardos-Prado, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford

From 12:00 to 1:30-ish on Wednesday, November 29th (in 4209 Posvar), students will have the opportunity to have lunch with Sierra Green, an archivist at the Heinz History Center. In an informal discussion over lunch Sierra will talk about her career path so far, trends she sees in the fields of archival and museum work, and suggestions she’d offer students who are interested in eventually pursuing grad programs and jobs in her field. A brief bio: A native of Adamsville, Pennsylvania, Sierra Green completed her Masters in Library and Information Science with a specialization in Archives, Preservation, and Records Management from the University of Pittsburgh in 2012. As an archivist at the Heinz History Center’s Detre Library & Archives, Sierra is engaged in archival processing and reference services in addition to her work in public and educational programming. Throughout her graduate and professional work thus far, Sierra has fostered a deep passion for and interest in archival outreach, engagement, and public awareness. She takes great pleasure in spreading the word about archival collections and the work of archivists within a museum environment.

Join the Asian Studies Center at the largest career fair for Japanese-English bilinguals in Boston. Contact rookoepsel@pitt.edu for information.

What is the power of study abroad for forging new identities? For this installment of our monthly Conversations on Europe series, we will look at the EU’s billion-dollar student and scholar exchange program called ERASMUS, which has reshaped higher education in Europe. With what results? How successful has the program been for the Europeanization of Europe’s college-aged youth? And what impact will Brexit have on the program?

Join our panel of experts to learn more. In-person or remote participation in this virtual roundtable is possible. Questions from the audience are encouraged

Welcome to EPIC

The Electric Power Industry Conference at the Swanson School of Engineering continues to lead the way in exploring energy production and delivery potential.

For a full conference schedule, registration, and additional details, visit http://www.engineering.pitt.edu/Sub-Sites/Conferences/EPIC/_Content/Home....

Annual United Nations simulation event for student teams from area high schools.

Catie Lott is currently the Director for the Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance Office at USAID/ Tanzania. Prior this posting she served as the Staff Director for the House Democracy Partnership, a bipartisan commission of the U.S. House of Representatives that works directly with 21 partner countries around the world to support the development of effective and independent legislative institutionsShe also previously held the position of Deputy Director for the USAID Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance Center comprised of more than 100 leading experts in the field of democracy promotion. As a Foreign Service Officer with USAID for more than 15 years, Ms. Lott has held postings in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In her work overseas she has designed and managed a wide variety of multi-million-dollar programs that cross all democracy areas of expertise. Prior to joining USAID, Ms. Lott worked as a journalist for a variety of publications in the United States and Africa covering human interest stories, travel, and politics. Ms. Lott has a BA from the University of California Santa Barbara, an MA from Syracuse University, and is currently working on a PhD focused on women's political leadership.

Fox Chapel Area High School is proud to announce this year's Pittsburgh World Language Connection Day, with Keynote speaker Professor Richard Donato. This is a great opportunity for world language teachers to learn about new pedagogies. Bring along your principals, curriculum directors, and administrators to learn about how to enhance your school's international programs through meaningful and fun community connections.

The conceptualization and measurement of political participation has been a contentious issue vibrantly debated for more than 50 years. The arrival of digital, and in particular social, media came to add important parameters to the debate about the continuous expansion of forms of participation, complicating matters further. While interest on the use of social media for political purposes is growing, the lack of a clear conceptualization of forms and modes of participation emerging from their use is inhibiting the measurement of this type of participation. The talk will focus on the challenges posed by digitally-enabled forms of political participation and on how they can be turned into an opportunity for better understanding the impact of social media on democracy.

Sponsored by the ESC's Jean Monnet Center of Excellence Grant, this lecture is part of the Center's 2017-18 Participation and Democracy Series.

Eric Reidy is a 2012 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh (BPHIL International and Area Studies and History). Learn how he prepared for his unique career path and how he goes about covering some of most compelling issues of our time. Based out of Beirut, Lebanon his investigative reporting has taken him around the Mediterranean covering numerous topics in nearly a dozen countries, with a current focus on migration and refugees.

In 2016, Eric was a finalist in for a National Magazine Award and for the Kurt Schork Memorial Award for International Journalism for his work on Ghost Boat – an investigative series about the disappearance of 243 refugees in the Mediterranean Sea. Eric has written for WIRED Magazine, the New Republic, Medium.com, Foreign Policy, and VICE News, among other outlets.

Join the European Studies Center to UNC to learn about graduate studies abroad at Trans-Atlantic University. Contact slund@pitt.edu for more information.

Have you considered graduate school abroad? Does is cost more or less than studying in the USA? How does the overseas credential transfer back to PhD programs, or make sense to US employers? Hear directly from Pitt alumni who have received a graduate credential from overseas. Discuss ways to tailor your applications with admissions councilors and members of admissions committees. Learn the pros and cons and the tips and tricks to successfully apply for graduate programs abroad.

Please join the International Week Committee and University Center for International Studies for the opening reception of the Displacement(s) film series. Refreshments will be provided prior to the first films in the series beginning at 6pm.

In this one-day symposium, invited scholars will discuss Europe’s contemporary “Muslim crisis” from a twofold approach: First, how successive public debates and the policies they have enabled have deployed specific languages of liberalism and secularism. Second, how have European Muslims responded to the discursive and conceptual terrain of Europe’s Islam debate and the political environment it creates. Do they defend their presence by employing some of the liberal languages Europe champions as its own or do they seek to employ alternative languages that refuse the discursive framework in which Islam has been placed? And in these different responses, what roles do creative forms of expression, such as cinema, music, or literature play? Faculty organizer: Jeanette Jouili, Department of Religious Studies. Attendance is free and open to the public, though advanced registration is required. Symposium sessions will also be live-streamed.

To register, go to https://escsymposium2018.eventbrite.com.

To view the conference program, visit http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/esc/content/europe-muslim-question .

Sponsored by the European Studies Center with additional thanks to the Consortium for Educational Resources on Islamic Studies (CERIS)
For more information, contact adelnore@pitt.edu.

This Graduate Student Workshop follows on the previous day's lecture on Culture and Security. Master's and Ph.D. students in GSPIA, History, and Political Science researching security issues are especially welcome. Participants will explore the emerging interdisciplinary field of culture and security studies through a set of readings distributed in advance and will discuss research projects. To sign up, please contact Zsuzsánna Magdó, Assistant Director for Partnerships and Programs.

Security studies have given surprisingly little attention to cultural diversity as a constituent factor in the overall dynamics of security management. A case in point is that securitization theory still refers to cultural differences mainly as a source for conflict and therefore as an object of securitization. So far, cultural codes, linguistic barriers, and processes of self-identification did not constitute an important aspect of analysis. Culture as a value based concept and as a group marker, however, is not per se a primary source of conflict. Rather, culture appears as a symbol over and through which security concerns are articulated. Therefore, in multi-cultural societies cultural affiliation plays a crucial role in pre-structuring audiences and security agendas.

Addressing this emerging field of interdisciplinary security studies, this lecture is a lead-up to a day-long Graduate Student Workshop on Thursday, October 12. While the workshop is especially intended to Master's and Ph.D. students in GSPIA, History, and Political Science, all are welcome. To sign up, please contact Zsuzsánna Magdó, Assistant Director for Partnerships and Programs by September 29.

Since 2007, Peter Haslinger has been the Director of the Herder Institut for Historical Research on East-Central Europe in Marburg, Professor of East-Central European History at the Historical Institute of the Justus Liebig University and the Interdisciplinary Center for Eastern Europe in Gießen (GiZo). His research and teaching focuses on forced migrations and expulsions; the minority question; nationalism, regionalism, language policies; memory, museification, and the politics of history; security and violence studies; the spatial turn and the history of cartography; and the history of discourse and scientific communication. For a list of publications and awards, see https://www.herder-institut.de/en/institute-staff/staff/personen/ansehen....

This lecture is part of the REES Fall Series: Eastern Europe in the World.

Few historians have asked about 'development' as an idea unfolding within one specific historical space and representing three big socioeconomic regimes: capitalism, developing/post-colonial economy and socialism. Witnessing transformation of Poland from a supply hinterland of Western Europe (and a space of economic exploitation under Nazi rule), into a modernizing socialist nation-state, Polish economists studied these socio-economic systems comparatively and in a world perspective. But what is even more interesting, they also understood all three of them as overlapping and following each other in their own country's recent past and present. What lessons did Polish social scientists try to convey from this experience to the post-colonial world and how may their contributions change our understanding of history of international development?

Malgorzata Mazurek specializes in modern history of Poland and East Central Europe. Her interests include twentieth-century social sciences, international development, social history of communism and Polish-Jewish relations. Her lecture is based on a new book project that deals with the intellectual history of East Central European involvement in the making of the non-Western world between the late 19th century and 1960s. Dr. Mazurek is part of Socialism Goes Global, an international research project housed at the University of Exeter and funded by the British Arts and Humanities Council, http://socialismgoesglobal.exeter.ac.uk/. Dr. Mazurek's previous book, Society in Waiting Lines: On Experiences of Shortages in Postwar Poland (Warsaw: Trio 2010), has been shortlisted among the ten best books in contemporary Polish history in a 2011 nationwide contest. She is also the author of several articles on comparative and transnational history of labor and consumption in twentieth-century Poland.

This lecture is part of the REES Fall Series: Eastern Europe in the World.

The federal elections in Germany will be held on September 24, 2017. In this lecture we will take a look back on the German election campaign and try to explain the outcome of the election. Which topics did the parties highlight in their campaigns? What campaigning trends did we see in the 2017 German election? Which strategies did the candidates and the parties use to sell themselves to the voters and did their campaigns matter? How did the far-right do in the German election? Besides that, we will also discuss the ongoing coalition formation processes and the efforts of the German parties to now form a government after the election. Finally, we analyze what the result of the German election means for the European power play and Germany’s foreign policy towards their European neighbors as well as the US.

This lecture is part of German Campus Week and the ESC's Participation and Democracy Series.

In the post-Crimea international arena, the Russian-speaking populations outside of the Russian Federation have once again become a central focus of journalistic enquiries and political analysis. Loyalties and identities of Russophones in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, where they are numerically the largest, and in Latvia and Estonia, where they make proportionally large share of the population, are under scrutiny. The lecture will focus on the conflictual interplay of regional security and stability strategies, Russia’s nation-building efforts and the questions of Russophone minority protection in post-Soviet space 25 years after the dissolution of USSR.

Kristina Kallas is the Director of Narva College at the University of Tartu. Her research and teaching focuses on nationalism studies, minority and fundamental rights, integration processes in multicultural societies, integration and migration policies, refugees and asylum seekers. Since 2015, she also heads the Supervisory Board of the Estonian Integration Foundation. Previously, she has been Senior Analyst at the Institute of Baltic Studies and Member of the Board for the Estonian Refugee Council.

This lecture is part of the REES Fall Series: Eastern Europe in the World.

Teaching foreign language across the curriculum is a means to internationalize courses commonly taught only in English. Students develop an enriched understanding of their chosen course of study while enhancing language skills in their second language. Educators bring world languages into areas of study beyond the typical foreign language and literature classes. This prepares educators and students for the cross-cultural and multilingual demands of global society.

Join UCIS for a one-day workshop for graduate students and faculty interested in teaching FLAC. Dr. Rob Anderson, LAC Coordinator from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill will direct the workshop. A continental breakfast and lunch will be provided.

There is no cost to attend the event, but pre-registration is required. Pre-register at http://flacworkshop.eventbrite.com/?s=77926837

The nineteenth century saw the explosion of questions: the Eastern, social, Jewish, Polish, worker and many other questions were hotly discussed in representative bodies, at treaty negotiations, and above all in the daily press. Over the course of the next century, these would be conglomerated into still bigger ones—the European, nationality, social, and agrarian questions—even as they fractured into countless smaller ones, like the Macedonian and Schleswig-Holstein questions, and made their way into various fields of human endeavor (there was cotton, oyster, and even a sugar question). What brought about the “age of questions,” and what does its trajectory reveal about Eastern Europe in the twentieth-century world?

Holly Case is a historian of modern Europe whose work focuses on the relationship between foreign policy, social policy, science, and literature in the European state system of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her first book, Between States: The Transylvanian Question and the European Idea during WWII, was published in May 2009. The book shows how the struggle for mastery among Europe’s Great Powers was affected by the perspectives of small states. Her lecture at the University of Pittsburgh is based on her current brook project that deals with the history of the “Age of Questions.” Case has written on European history, literature, politics and ideas for various magazines and newspapers, including The Guardian, The Chronicle Review, The Nation, Dissent, The Times Literary Supplement, and Boston Review, and is a regular columnist for 3 Quarks Daily.

This lecture is part of the REES Fall Series: Eastern Europe in the World.

Part of German Campus Week and the ESC's Participation and Democracy series for 2017-18.

Panelists:
Annika Schechinger, Deputy Director of the Information Center USA, German Embassy
Tarik Abou-Chadi, Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer, Department of Social and Political Sciences, Humboldt-University Berlin
Mark Kayser, Professor of Applied Methods and Comparative Politics, Hertie School of Governance, Berlin
Gregor Thum, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Pittsburgh

Moderator:
Jae-Jae Spoon, Director, European Studies Center and Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh

The presentation will cover:
- Introduction to the German American Chamber of Commerce.
- The importance of learning German.
- German business development in the U.S.
- The presence of German companies throughout the U.S.
- How to approach German companies in the U.S. for career opportunities.
- Understanding cultural differences between the U.S. and Germany.
- Success stories among young Americans, who have pursued German.
- Business German – an important tool for international career development.
- Comparison between the German and American educational systems.

Please register at www.gaccpit.com.
Free admission.

Get advice on how to apply, insights on writing and tailoring personal statements, and other do's and don'ts of applying for graduate school.

With speakers:
Michael Rizzi
Director of Student Services
Graduate School of Public and International Affairs
University of Pittsburgh

David Fortna
Associate Director of Admissions
Heinz College
Carnegie Mellon University

Kelly Urban
Visiting Lecturer
Department of History
University of Pittsburgh

Emily Rook-Koepsel
Assistant Director for Academic Affairs
UCIS Asian Studies Center
University of Pittsburgh

Meme Jeffries
Director of Financial Aid
School of Law
University of Pittsburgh

The staff of the European Studies Center invites you to attend a reception to usher in the 2017-18 academic year. All interested faculty, staff, students, alumni, and members of the ESC community are welcome to attend. Refreshments will be served.

The European Studies Center has partnered with the Pittsburgh Irish Festival. We are pleased to be able to offer discounted admission to all Pitt students, faculty, and staff. Just go to pghirishfest.org and use the promo code H2PITT to receive $2 of discounted advance tickets. A FREE shuttle will take Pitt students to and from the festival grounds! The shuttle will run from 4:00 pm to 10:00 pm Friday, and 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm Saturday. Board outside Posvar Hall on Schenley Drive.

We've partnered with Irish Festival organizers and will feature three presentations at the Hedge School stage:

• Friday’s Hedge School 6:00-6:30: Nic Barilar, Ph.D. Candidate, Theatre and Performance Studies
Title: Irish Theatre at Home... and the Diaspora: The Curious Case of the 1957 Dublin Theatre Festival
Summary: “In 1957, the Dublin Theatre Festival was postponed - indefinitely. The festival was to feature new plays by some of Ireland's literary giants: Sean O'Casey, Samuel Beckett, an adaptation of James Joyce's novel ULYSSES. What led to the Festival's cancellation and what became of these plays? Join Nic Barilar, a PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh’s Theatre and Performance Studies Department, to find out…”

• Saturday’s Hedge School 6:30-7:00: Dr. Janice Vance, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Pittsburgh
Summary: “Since 2006, over 260 undergraduate students from the School of Health and Rehabilitation have studied in Ireland on the SHRS in Ireland Study Abroad Program. Dr. Janice Vance, a native of Belfast, directs the program which involves visits to multiple schools, clinics, hospitals and support organizations in Belfast and Dublin. The focus of the program is on the development of inter-professional insights in health and rehabilitation within contexts were the students can also learn about the influence of economic, political and social factors on policy and practice. Dr. Vance will reflect on the challenges and rewards of developing this pre-professional learning experience and the unique opportunities offered in Ireland.”

• Sunday’s Hedge School 3:00-3:30: Dr. Paul S. Adams, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg
Summary: "Dr. Adams has led two Pitt study abroad courses to Ireland and Northern Ireland that focus on the development of the Irish state and the Troubles of Northern Ireland from the late 1960s to the 1990s. Dr. Adams' research and interests lie in the power-sharing arrangement that came about through the Good Friday Agreement of 1997 and brought peace to Northern Ireland. His presentation will focus on the current conditions in Northern Ireland and the unique opportunities Pitt students have had in their visits to Belfast that relate to the Troubles."

Despite incentives to present a unified front during elections, political parties are often rife with disagreements and differences in priorities. Yet, little is known about how parties negotiate between conflicting factions and intra-party groups. In this project, Dr. Greene considers competing perspectives that explain parties’ decision-making process. Do divided parties use campaign materials such as election platforms to detail carefully negotiated compromises or instead minimize policy disagreements by excluding discussion of these issues? Using evidence from Germany, Dr. Greene considers these perspectives by examining the content of speeches and election platforms from parties’ most important decision-making forum: the party national congress. The results suggest that different logics hold depending on the importance of the issue at hand.

Dr. Blanco Sío-López, one of the 2017 ESC and ULS Summer Research Scholars, will be presenting an update on her research in Pitt’s Barbara Sloan EU Depository Collection. Dr. Blanco Sío-López is conducting research on her project entitled “Navigating Schengen: Historical Challenges and Potentialities of the EU’s Free Movement of Persons from European to Global Governance, 1985 to the present.”

The Summer Research Scholars Program is a joint initiative by the ESC and the University Library System to award travel grants to two scholars per year working on topics relevant to European integration and for whom access to the unique archival collections housed at the University of Pittsburgh would prove beneficial.

This week-long study tour for educators is meant to increase participants' knowledge of the European Union, its institutions and decision-making process, and its influence in Europe and around the world.