Join us for an informal panel discussion on decolonizing global education as we collectively examine the question, "Is the world yours to explore?" During this discussion, we will highlight the crucial role of students in the University Center for International Studies’ mission to embrace the word and prepare global-ready graduates. Refreshments will be provided.

Moderator:
César Briones, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Manager, University Center for International Studies (UCIS)

Hin Ming Frankie Chick is currently a Visiting Lecturer of Pre-modern Chinese Literature at the University of Pittsburgh. He studies primarily Chinese thought and history, and also works in related areas such as the religious history of China and the reception history of pre-modern Chinese literature. He is now working on his monograph, in which he examines how "approaching correctness" was used as a principle to promote the idea of Confucian cultural assimilation in ancient China.

In Useful Bullshit Neil J. Diamant pulls back the curtain on early constitutional conversations between citizens and officials in the PRC. Scholars have argued that China, like the former USSR, promulgated constitutions to enhance its domestic and international legitimacy by opening up the constitution-making process to ordinary people, and by granting its citizens political and socioeconomic rights. But what did ordinary officials and people say about their constitutions and rights? Did constitutions contribute to state legitimacy?

Forging Leninism in China is a re-examination of the events of the Chinese revolution and the transformation of the Chinese Communist Party from the years 1927 to 1934. Describing the transformation of the party as “the forging of Leninism”, Joseph Fewsmith offers a clear analysis of the development of the party. Drawing on supporting statements of party leaders and a wealth of historical material, he demonstrates how the Chinese Communist Party reshaped itself to become far more violent, more hierarchical, and more militarized during this time.

The Foreign Language & Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship program is a prestigious and competitive federal award from the U.S. Department of Education that allows select Pitt undergraduate and graduate students to devote full time attention to their chosen modern foreign language and area studies specialty. There are separate competitions for the Academic Year FLAS Fellowship and the Summer FLAS Fellowship. Advanced doctoral students conducting field or archival research in a supported world language may also be eligible.

Peter Thilly is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Mississippi and author of The Opium Business: A History of Crime and Capitalism in Maritime China. He is currently working on a transnational history of the 1853 Small Sword Uprising, tentatively entitled "Small Sword, Big Trouble."

Selda Altan is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Randolph College, Virginia. Her fields of specialization encompass modern Chinese and Asian history, labor history, and comparative approaches to empires and colonialism in Asia and the Middle East. Her first monograph, Chinese Workers of the World: Colonialism, Chinese Labor, and the Yunnan–Indochina Railway (Stanford University Press, 2024), analyzes labor conflicts during the construction of the Yunnan railway (1898–1910) in the larger context of twentieth-century French colonialism and capitalist development in China.

Pitt TRIO SSS and the Global Experiences Office present a global trivia game to welcome students back to the spring term!

Join Addverse Poesia, an international and multilingual poetry group that discusses, reads and translates poems in at least 4 languages, for their weekly meetings!

Are you looking to gain experience that will help prepare you for a globally-connected job market? Stop by Drop-In Hours to learn more about getting the Global Distinction added to your academic transcript, receiving special recognition at graduation, and standing out to prospective employers!

Spring 2024 Global Distinction Drop-In Hours: Tuesdays at 3:30-4:30 pm.