The Sakthi Folk Cultural Centre in Tamil Nadu, India, led by two progressive Tamil Catholic nuns, uses Tamil folk arts to build self-esteem and economic skills among young Dalit women (formerly known as outcastes or untouchables). Sakthi reclaims the degraded parai frame drum to re-humanize and empower the young women through the physical embodiment of confidence in performance and a regenerated cultural identity in a complex campaign against gender, class, and caste subjugation.

What holds together conflicting lineages of law and medicine? Is it the history of their encounters? The everyday practices carried out in their name? This paper considers these questions by pursuing contrasting concepts of "dignity" in a West Bengal hospital's palliative care unit, during a fraught period - August 2024 - when doctors and nurses were pulled between protest and medical practice.

India has the world’s largest and most diverse population in terms of cultural traditions, languages, and religious affiliation. Since gaining independence from Britain in 1947, the country has been governed on the basis of democratic principles and the rule of law. A robust structure of political contestation at state and national levels has produced representative governance anchored in an independent electoral process that is highly regarded, the world over, as exemplary.

University of Pittsburgh, May 8-10, 2026 | Format: Hybrid 

Taiwanese horror is a rising genre that has claimed an important space in Taiwanese popular culture, particularly in the video game industry since the debut of Detention in 2017. Video games associated with such aesthetics often incorporate elements of Taiwan's local religions, cultures, and mythologies. Furthermore, such horror is evoked not only by fear of the unknown, but also by the unsettling feeling of being forced to live under duress.

Ryka Aoki, author of Hugo Award nominated Light from Uncommon Stars, is a Japanese American writer and teacher from Southern California. Her works also include poetry collections like Seasonal Velocities and Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul. With a degree in chemistry, Aoki spent a year working in a lab before pursuing her master's degree in creative writing at Cornell University. As a transgender woman she is also an incredible advocate, often engaging in activities to create safe spaces within the performance arts for transgender people.

Join Pitt's Asian Studies Center in celebrating the Lunar New Year! We will welcome in the year of the Fire Horse with dumplings and a thematic craft! All are welcome and we hope to see you there!

In 2020, a wave of protests broke out in Thailand. Calling for political and royal reform, the youth-led movements challenged the status quo with open criticism of the monarchy and popular mobilization against the military-backed government. Among the masses of protesters, saffron robes became a distinct part of the movement as monks and novices, lovingly dubbed the "carrot gang", joined the rallies, raising a defiant slogan “Give Back Our Brows” to critique state and social interference into the code of monastic discipline.

Join the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures for an information session about scholarship opportunities to support Pitt undergraduate students' study abroad at NTNU.

Join the Vietnamese Student Association for a Vietnamese Food Workshop to spread Vietnamese culture.