The Global Studies Center and the African Studies Program invites Pitt students to dialogue with students at American University in Cairo (AUC) on topics concerning politics, economics, revolutions, religion, terrorism, American foreign policy, women’s rights, occupation, sharia law and more. All the topics you shouldn’t discuss at a cocktail party! The Egyptian students are enrolled in a interdisciplinary global issues course at AUC. Each session facilitated by Dr. Riham Bahi, AUC and Dr.

The second of the EUCE's 2013-2014 interactive Conversations on Europe Virtual Roundtable Series. Turkey’s likely future and its relation to Europe can be seen in several dimensions. Probably best known and easiest to track is its long-running pursuit of membership in the European Union. But Turkey’s geographic and historic position has also drawn it into—and pushed it away from--the rapidly changing dynamics of the Middle East. It is one of NATO’s oldest members but has signed onto virtually all of Russia’s energy initiatives in the region.

Please join the EUCE/ESC as we kick off the 2013-2014 school year with an opening reception. Come and meet faculty, staff, and fellow students, and learn more about the Center and our upcoming programs all while enjoying some European-themed refreshments.

Film Screening and Q&A with Indian Documentary Filmmaker Paromita Vohra
Screening: Partners in Crime (Paromita Vohra, India, 2011, 94 mins.)

The film explores music piracy in the Indian film industry and the "copyleft" and copyright debates it has generated. For reviews, see:

http://www.timeoutbengaluru.net/film/features/moral-compass
and
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/we-are-pirates-all

The Center for Latin American Studies, University of Pittsburgh, would like to extend a very warm welcome for the upcoming academic year to its students and faculty (returning and new) at its annual welcoming reception! All current and new students, faculty, and staff, as well as alumni and friends of the center are cordially invited to attend, meet and greet each other for an auspicious beginning to the semester. Refreshments will be served.

In a little over a decade, microbiologists have sequenced the genomes for all the major pathogens that cause human disease, information that allows them to reconstruct the phylogenies (“family trees”), and hence the histories, of these organisms. They have also, together with bioarcheologists, developed techniques for identifying the presence offragments of these pathogens in ancient remains.

The first of the EUCE/ESC’s 2013-2014 interactive Conversations on Europe Virtual Roundtable Series will explore the outcomes and impact of the German Elections (which will take place the Sunday before). Experts on contemporary Germany will give their assessment of the results. Audience participation is encouraged.

The end of Soviet power resulted in a number of “frozen” conflicts that birthed political entities with varying degrees of recognition: Transnistria in Moldova, Abkhazia and S. Ossetia in Georgia, and Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan. The existence of these quasi-states raises a host of questions related to statehood, sovereignty and political authority. In the 21st century, who decides whether a state is recognized as such? Must political dominion over a territory be recognized? Formal recognition aside, how do these unrecognized polities legitimate themselves to constituents?

Bioarchaeology has impacted how archaeologists reconstruct individual characteristics of past life-ways and behavior. Through detailed analyses of human remains in relation within their mortuary context, bioarchaeologists have contributed to understanding how social identity among the living (gender, status, occupation, social relations, etc) is represented in death.