Why are cute and creepy mascots so ubiquitous among Japan’s cities and regions? Is there a Japanese Bigfoot? Have extraterrestrials ever landed in Japan? This lecture traces the history of Japanese mascots, cryptids, and UFOs, exploring how invented, imagined, and unexplained creatures have been deployed in tourism campaigns, the creation of regional identity, and local commercial boosterism.

The UCIS Educators Advisory Board convened their spring semester 2025 meeting where they discussed programming opportunities at UCIS and provided feedback on Title VI initiatives, funding ideas, and current and future curriculum needs.

Sören Urbansky, Ruhr University Bochum Chair, Eastern European History

Dr. Urbansky discusses the challenges faced by Chinese immigrants during the late Tsarist Empire and early Soviet Union, highlighting the racial and cultural prejudices that fueled hostilities in urban settings. His analysis explores how these early interactions shaped the experiences and perceptions of Chinese communities in a rapidly changing socio-political landscape.

Are you an international student at Pitt looking to connect, or interested in connecting with international students? Stop by the Nook in the Global Hub on Tuesdays, between 2 and 4 pm during Spring semester, to chat with OIS Outreach Coordinator Zharia White from the Office of International Services!

Are you an international student at Pitt looking to connect, or interested in connecting with international students? Stop by the Nook in the Global Hub on Tuesdays, between 2 and 4 pm during Spring semester, to chat with OIS Outreach Coordinator Zharia White from the Office of International Services!

A presentation by Dr. Lung-chih Chang, Director of National Museum of Taiwan History, that will focus on the exhibitions and publications of the National Taiwan Museum of History as key examples, exploring contemporary Taiwan's collective memory and public discourse.

Our annual Silent Asia film screening is a collaboration with the Department of Music to showcase student musical compositions in tandem with the Chinese silent film Cave of the Silken Web (1927). 

The University Center for International Studies is excited to hold its first annual Qissa (story in Arabic), a celebration of heritage, culture, and personal experiences through storytelling. We invite all Pitt students to share your internationally-focused story using various creative forms and listen to others in this unique performance setting.

Responding to the record low birthrate, in 2023, then Prime Minister Fumio Kishida declared Japan “on the brink of not being able to maintain social functions.” Seeing this as a crisis of social reproduction, he announced policies to incentivize young people into having children—to reembrace the family as the center of life/livelihood. As sociality continues to downsize in Japan—to single households, solo lifestyles, childless futures—the keynote asks how these changes affect the elderly who once counted on “the family” to both care for and bury them. 

For decades, tree planting has been at the heart of Chinese environmental endeavors, and forestry is pivotal to its environmentalism and green image more generally. During the Mao era, while forests were razed to fuel rapid increases in industrial production, the "Greening the Motherland" campaign also promoted conservationist tree-planting nationwide.