The European Union Center of Excellence & European Studies Center is pleased to present the first Spring 2014 Conversations on Europe Videoconference.
Panelists will discuss the 2004 enlargement, which witnessed the growth of the EU from 15 member states to 25, and assess the impact of that expansion on the entering member states and the institutions of the European Union.

Professor Cabot reflects on how asylum, humanitarian aid and radical migrant politics reconfigure the relationship between rights and political recognition, amid rapidly changing conceptions of citizenship in Greece. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2005 and 2011, Dr. Cabot shows how humanitarian aid encounters provide venues for dialogical forms of negotiation, miscommunication, recognition, and misrecognition between aid workers and clients, as well as for potentially transformative social ties.

Ambassador Pavilionis visits the Center to reflect on the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union—the first time the Presidency has been held by a state that emerged from the USSR--and to share his ideas about the future of the EU and Lithuania’s relationship with its fellow EU member states. Refreshments will be served.

Professor Culpepper is a Professor of Political Science at the European University Institute in San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy. He is visiting the University of Pittsburgh as a candidate for the William Dietrich Chair in Political Science.

This will be an information session for those interested in teaching English abroad on. Pitt Alumni will present on their experiences teaching in France, Chile, and China.

Annunziata (Ann) Ugas, a visiting MA-level student from the University of Cagliari in Italy (Sardegna) and Center Associate within the European Union Center of Excellence, has been working on her translation studies while at the University of Pittsburgh. She will offer a talk based on her research. She will discuss the challenges of translating a parodic text (Barry Trotter and the Unauthorized Parody), and Professor Dennis Looney (French & Italian) and Professor Carol Bové (English) will respond to Ann’s presentation.

Mental Illness is one of the top public health challenges in Europe as measured by prevalence, burden of disease and disability. It is estimated that mental disorders affect more than a third of the population every year, the most common being depression and anxiety. Featuring experts from Scotland, this presentation aims to describe how the Scottish government is tackling mental health and related issues, as understanding grows and the stigma of mental illness is decreasing.

This talk examines this process of global diffusion, highlighting the specific role played by European activists. Given the diversity of countries where same-sex marriage is currently under discussion, structural causes once put forward to explain the emergence of same-sex marriage in Western societies must now be challenged.

In many ways, the EU appears to be in a period of transition: recovering from the financial crisis, continuing to implement the Lisbon Treaty’s provisions, and awaiting a new set of European elections. Have these developments produced change in the EU’s politics and policies, or has it been Brussels as usual? The Organizing Committee of the Ninth Annual Graduate Student Conference on the European Union welcomes graduate students from around the world to contribute to the theme of the conference, as well as others related to the EU.

This conference features keynote speaker Ambassador Peter Tomsen (GSPIA ’64), Former U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Author of "The Wars of Afghanistan". An R.S.V.P. is required. To attend, please email Beverly Brizzi by Monday, December 2nd, to confirm your registration.