Dr. Musialkowska and Dr. Talaga, the 2016 ESC and ULS Summer Research Scholars, will be presenting an update on their research in Pitt’s Barbara Sloan EU Depository Collection. Dr. Musialkowska’s research focuses on EU-Latin America dialogue on territorially-oriented development policies. Dr. Talaga’s research focuses on the evolution of legal character of decisions on state aid in the European Union. Both of this year’s summer scholars have come to Pitt from Poznan University in Poland.

Waves of refugees, exiles, troops, and war workers from overseas meant that the population of Britain reached unprecedented levels of diversity during WWII. Once the war was over, this multi-national, multi-ethnic wartime population often remained, but their history has been largely forgotten. As History Revealed commented: “Wendy Webster is on a mission to make us remember.”

Lunch will be provided; pre-registration required
Registration link: https://mixingit.eventbrite.com

The computing and digital revolutions have created new tools and capabilities that are challenging the liberal world order. If the Cold War was an era of static state superpowers, modern computing gives not only developed states but even a moderately trained rebel group their own superpowers: to teleport their presence around the globe, move vast sums of money instantly, and make evidence vanish. From Wikileaks to the hacking of elections, headlines across the democratic world have highlighted transnational cyber-enabled crime, violence and polarization.

Gianni Clementi is a prolific Italian playwright who has written a number of plays that deconstruct common stereotypes about immigration and look critically at notions of both Italianess and otherness. Drawing on postcolonial theory and migration studies, this paper considers how Clementi's plays, "Ben Hur", "Finis Terrae" and "Clandestini" challenge the otherness with which immigrants are often charged in Italy's media and politics and focuses on the notion of mare nostrum as a hybrid site where individuals of different races and ethnicities negotiate their respective differences.

What does it mean to solve a city through bodies? This paper draws from ongoing ethnographic research in a municipal public hospital trauma ward in Mumbai. The talk centers on a key figure in this context, the “Unknown” patient — this is the term for a patient who arrives to the ward without clear identity. Unknown patients underscore the challenge of trying to survive without kin.

Bordeaux Conservatory professor Jean-Louis Agobet will be in Pittsburgh as a part of NAT 28's French Music and Culture Festival. In this talk, he will speak about the relationship between the Conservatories and Universities in France and the politics of culture in the country.

The session will be in English but questions in both French and English are welcome.

Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1924801574516857/

Jason de Leon has been involved in an analog photoethnographic project focused on documenting the daily lives of Honduran smugglers who profit from transporting undocumented migrants across Mexico. He will discuss the relationship between transnational gangs and the human smuggling industry and will outline the complicated role that photography plays as a field method and data source in this violent and challenging ethnographic context.