This one credit mini-course is part of a series organized by regions around the world based on their role on the world stage, their importance within the Muslim world, and the critical influence they play in the global community. The series and course seeks to illuminate the various perspectives of the Muslim community around the world.

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.

The standard narratives of 19th-c. global economic transformation compare and connect patterns of economic change in different regions of the world in distinct ways. The durability of competing explanations for the contrasting economic conditions of countries in the late 18th and early 20th centuries poses a challenge to our efforts to create a more persuasive account of both the momentous changes and the persistence of older economic practicies.

Francis Fukuyama is the author of “Political Order and Political Decay,” “The Origins of Political Order,” “The End of History and the Last Man,” “Trust,” and “America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy.” He is an Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

The event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP to CMSGSPIA@pitt.edu to reserve a seat.

In this first 2014 installment of our Pizza and Politics Graduate Lecture Series, GSPIA's EU and the World Organization executive members talk about their experience interviewing policy-makers, EU civil servants, and visiting major institutions in Brussels and Luxembourg as participants in the EU in Brussels Program, co-sponsored by Pitt's EUCE/ESC & Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. Also learn about getting involved in the EU and the World Organization and about other opportunities for EU Studies at Pitt! PIZZA WILL BE SERVED!

The EUCE/ESC will be hosting the 2014 High School Model EU, which allows students the opportunity to participate in a simulation of a recent European Council meeting. For more information, please contact EUCE/ESC Assistant Director for External Affairs, Kate Bowersox, at kal68@pitt.edu.

Dr. Clark’s research focuses on European politics, the European Union, and comparative political behavior. More specifically, his research agenda seeks to empirically assess theoretical claims about the quality of democratic citizenship and governance in multi-level political systems such as the European Union. His lecture will highlight the state of the public’s knowledge about the European Union and how that knowledge influences voting behavior in European elections.

Is Germany the new California? Is Texas the new Denmark? Historically, the political leadership on sustainable development has shifted back and forth between the U.S. and Europe. Nowhere is this as evident as in the promotion of renewable energy. Where do we stand now? Dr. Aklin will explore the sources of renewable energy policies both across continents and vertically within the European Union and the U.S.

The centenary anniversary of the Great War has invited numerous commentators to make comparisons between the events leading up to the outbreak of war in 1914 and the current Ukrainian Crisis. This session of the EUCE’s virtual roundtable series asks experts to comment on these comparisons. Can we learn anything about effective conflict prevention from that earlier period? Or are such comparisons too facile, and deceptive? Public participation is welcome.

Panelists will include: