With each global health crisis, the interconnectedness of populations around the globe becomes more pronounced. Diseases not only affect the health of communities, but they have a profound impact on political, economic, and social stability within countries and regions. This course engages the interdisciplinary nature of global health by approaching the issue through the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) developed by the United Nations. The SDGs range in focus from good health and well-being to gender equality to clean water and sanitation to affordable, clean energy. By engaging the ways that health has a stake in these goals, the course will bring the expertise of faculty from the University of Pittsburgh and CMU as well as practitioners to understand and address the issue surrounding global health from a myriad of perspectives and avenues. With an applied focus, the course will assist students in engaging and advocating for a community on a global health issue through a policy memo. This iteration of the course will examine gender equality and SDG #5.

Topic: The Destruction Of The Amazon: US-China Trade War Escalation Threat

The United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a decades-long nuclear race. Though the Cold War rivals achieved "Mutual assured destruction" in the 1960s, both powers made plans for their respective societies to survive nuclear holocaust. This live interview with Ed Geist will examine the American and Soviet political and cultural context that influenced their civil defense efforts to withstand the ultimate catastrophe.

Taking aim at the conventional narrative that standard, national languages transform 'peasants' into citizens, Gina Anne Tam centers the history of the Chinese nation and national identity on fangyan--languages like Shanghainese, Cantonese, and dozens of others that are categorically different from the Chinese national language, Mandarin. She traces how linguists, policy-makers, bureaucrats, and workaday educators framed fangyan as non-standard 'variants' of the Chinese language, while simultaneously highlighting, on the other hand, the 1920s folksong collectors, communist-period playwrights, contemporary hip-hop artists and popular protestors who argued that fangyan were more authentic and representative of China's national culture and its history. These intertwined visions of the Chinese nation--one spoken in one voice, one spoken in many-interacted and shaped one another, and in the process, shaped the basis for national identity itself.

Dr. Gina Anne Tam is an Assistant Professor of Chinese History at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford in 2016, and has had her research funded by the Fulbright, Fulbright-Hays, and Blakemore. Her book, Dialect and Nationalism in China, 1860-1960, will be published by Cambridge University Press in early 2020.

In conjunction with the Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures program's "Ten Evenings" series, Global Studies Center is hosting "Four Evenings" pre-lecture discussions that put prominent world authors and their work in global perspective. Open to series subscribers and the Pitt Community, these evening discussions, conducted by Pitt experts, provide additional insight on prominent writers and engaging issues. A limited number of tickets to the author's lectures will be available to those who attend the discussions.