Wings of Desire (Himmel über Berlin)

October 2nd
Director: Wim Wenders, 1987
Popcorn and drinks provided

Interested in global issues? Join us for an Alumni & Professionals Panel on Careers in International Law. Discover career opportunities for all fields of study and network with alumni and professionals working globally. Our diverse panel will discuss a variety of career options and share insights about how to make yourself more competitive in the job market.

The Annual Commemoration of Kristallnacht

Testimonies of Kristallnacht read by Pitt Students, video excerpts from eyewitnesses and survivors, Music by Susanne Ortner-Roberts, clarinetist

In the past year, Ukraine has experienced tectonic changes in its internal and external orientation, with the fall of the fall of the authoritarian regime of Viktor Yanukovych, a de facto war with Russia leading to the loss of the most heavily ethnic Russian areas (Crimea and the heart of Donbas) and a new anti-Russian and pro-Europe constitutional majority in parliament. The lecture will address the political, economic, and regional constraints that the Ukrainian government is facing in seeking to reestablish legitimacy, recover territory, and implement cardinal changes.

On November 9, 1989 Americans tuned into the nightly news to watch anchorman Tom Brokaw’s reports from West Germany. The Berlin Wall was coming down after 28 years as a symbol of the Cold War between East and West. On November 11, 2014, in recognition of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Wall, the European Union Center of Excellence and European Studies Center will host a roundtable panel of Pittsburghers who witnessed this momentous event. Audience participation is welcome.

*Director Andreas Voigt will attend the screenings of his films November 7-8. A discussion with the director will directly follow the screening. Popcorn and drinks provided.

Considered to be the most comprehensive documentation of events surrounding the 1989 Monday demonstrations in Leipzig, this film highlights the centerpiece of the citizens' movement that led to the fall of the Wall. As the only professional team able to film in Leipzig at the time, demonstrators were interviewed, as well as members of the citizens’ rights movement, officials and bystanders in East Germany’s peaceful revolution. Film Director Andreas Voigt will attend the screenings of his films November 7-8. A discussion with the director will directly follow the screening.

Polishfest is an annual event featuring Polish folk music and dance, food, and arts and crafts. Funds raised help to support the Polish Nationality Room Scholarship fund.

Hungarian tourism promoters in the 1930s gnashed their teeth in frustration at a sluggish domestic travel market. In their minds, Hungarians were disloyal and ungrateful tourists, ignorant of their country and therefore unwilling to spend their vacations "at home" rather than abroad. The solution, these promoters decided, was to appeal to Hungarians' sense of patriotism and guilt them into traveling. But in neighboring Austria, another post-imperial country with its own struggles to stimulate tourism, such arguments were nowhere to be found.

Widely published in the languages, literatures, and cultures of the ancient world, Dr. Katz is interested above all in the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European and in etymology, which he views as part of the history of ideas.