Faculty and graduate students are warmly invited to join us later today for an afternoon focusing on Digital Humanities in research and teaching, hosted by Eighteenth-Century Studies at Pitt, with co-sponsorship from the Department of French and Italian.

Event Details
Humanities Center, Cathedral of Learning, Room 602
November 20, 2014
2:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

The number of refugees entering the EU and Turkey has risen dramatically as a result of conflicts and crises in North Africa and the Middle East. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHRC) reported that European countries recorded 264,000 asylum applications during the first six months of 2014, an increase of 24 per cent from the same period the year before. The largest increase – 73 per cent – in asylum seekers was reported by countries in Southern Europe, in particular Italy and Turkey.

Center Associate Dr. Gabriella Saputelli will explore the characteristics and the evolution of EU citizenship 20+ years after the Maastricht Treaty. She will consider EU citizenship in light of the finding by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) that it “…is intended to be the fundamental status of nationals of the Member States”. In fact, the way in which EU citizenship and ECJ case law function raises questions about its future development.

In prehistoric China, egalitarian communities were often organized into ‘bifurcated settlements’ (两分结构聚落). These settlements are characterized by distinct clustering of residential areas and even burial grounds into two distinct sectors. Ethnographic examples of bifurcated settlements indicate their internal organization is a reflection of a kind of kinship organization akin to the moieties of South America, phratries of North America, and marriage classes of Australia.

Excrement was a hot commodity in the cities of nineteenth-century Japan. The widespread use of night soil as an organic fertilizer meant that residents of big cities such as Edo (Tokyo) and Osaka could sell their waste rather than dispose of it themselves. Thanks to this trade, early modern Japanese cities enjoy a reputation as remarkably green spaces, in which residents lived in salubrious harmony with nature.  Let us put poop into the modernizing city.

This one credit mini-course is part of a series organized by regions around the world based on their role on the world stage, their importance within the Muslim world, and the critical influence they play in the global community. The series and course seeks to illuminate the various perspectives of the Muslim community around the world.

The standard narratives of 19th-c. global economic transformation compare and connect patterns of economic change in different regions of the world in distinct ways. The durability of competing explanations for the contrasting economic conditions of countries in the late 18th and early 20th centuries poses a challenge to our efforts to create a more persuasive account of both the momentous changes and the persistence of older economic practicies.

On 16 October 2010, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared multiculturalism in Germany a failure. Far-right parties that have recently gained power in countries such as Sweden and Austria have further raised doubts about the viability of multiculturalism in Western Europe and North America. Meanwhile, in South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, where immigration is tightly controlled and integration programs are at their infancy, the catchword, “multiculturalism,” has gained popularity among policymakers and the public alike.

Dr. French will discuss the relationship between China and Africa in a way that will help us understand the encounter between these two parts of the world. Having worked as an international diplomat and travelled extensively in Africa and China, he will tap into his wealth of experience as he shares the conversations Africans are having about China’s role in their communities and also the conversations the Chinese are having about their involvement in Africa. The question in many people’s minds is “Are the Chinese helping to bring about development that will change lives in Africa?”

Four Visiting Scholars at the Center for Disaster Management will lead a dialogue on the impact of recent extreme events in their respective countries, and outline new approaches for managing risk and building resilience to hazards at the community level. Dean John T.S. Keeler will introduce the research and exchange programs between GSPIA and Kobe University, Japan and Nanjing University, China for faculty and students.

The panel will include:

Art, Therapy, and Disaster Recovery: Popoki in the Tohoku Region, Japan - Ronni Alexander, Professor, GSICS, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan.