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.

DUE TO A NUMBER OF OUR PANELISTS BEING UNABLE TO TRAVEL, THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED. WE APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE THIS MAY CAUSE.

Spotlight: Researching the EU at Pitt

Featuring – Dan Pennell, University Library Services on the Barbara Sloan Collection and the Archive of European Integration

European Union Studies Association Roundtable on the State of the EU Today: “Bigger Fish to Fry? The EU after Brexit”

The ESC is pleased to welcome members of the EUSA Executive Committee for a roundtable discussion of migration and citizenship, democratic deficit and backsliding, security concerns, Euroskepticism and public opinion. Moderated by the Chair of EUSA, Matthias Matthijs, Johns Hopkins University.

Panelists:

Christina Schneider, University of California-San Diego

Stephanie Hofmann, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (Geneva)

Sara Goodman, University of California-Irvine

Catherine De Vries, Bocconi University

Milada Vachudova, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Book Launch: The European Union and Beyond: Multi-Level Governance, Institutions, and Policy-Making (ECPR Press, 2020). Co-edited by Jae-Jae Spoon and Nils Ringe.

Featuring: Jae-Jae Spoon, Co-Editor and Director of the European Studies Center at Pitt

This edited volume resulted from a November 2019 Symposium at Pitt in honor of the ESC’s founding director, Prof. Alberta Sbragia (retired) and features contributions from scholars at Pitt and from other parts of the world. Together, the chapters seek to examine current debates and issues in the study of regional integration, multilevel governance, and European Union studies.

As students consider what they will register for in the fall, advisors and students from the University Center for International Studies will be available throughout the week to answer questions about international studies certificates, study abroad, and resources to support research and career development.

Speaker, Dr. Emmanuel Jean-François, Penn State

This talk takes islands and seas as its focus, outlining an approach to geographies that can be considered globally in any context. It explores the case of the Indian Ocean but relates to broader themes such as colonialism/postcolonialism, racism, and global movements and migration.

As Dr. Jean-François puts in in his abstract: "Using the New Thalassology and Kamau Brathwaite’s notion of “tidalectics” as a relational framework for exploring multipolar connections, minor solidarities, and long-ignored forms of cosmopolitanism, this presentation discusses how the transcolonial and transoceanic imaginaries of Francophone Indian Ocean writers disrupt the colonial taxonomies that have construed islands as spaces of colonial difference, isolation, and vulnerability. While their “de-insularization” of islands and their rewriting of geographies, temporalities, and epistemologies bridge the gap between landmasses and seas, oceans and archipelagoes, it also configures fluctuating horizons and symbolic spaces of relation from which minority, racialized, and subaltern subjects across multiple sites can interact in fruitful and lateral ways."

Please note this language table is now meeting via Zoom. Contact Julia O'Hare (jho3@pitt.edu) for more information.

Portuguese Language Table

Please note this event is now meeting online. Join via Zoom: https://pitt.zoom.us/j/466509031
Contact Benjamin Brand (bmb145@pitt.edu) with any questions.

Join professors and students from the Department of German and practice your language skills!

José-Alain Sahel is the chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, director of the UPMC Eye Center, and the Eye and Ear Foundation Chair of Ophthalmology. Dr. Sahel is known worldwide for his expertise in vision restoration techniques. He has developed several interventions— including stem cell implantation, gene therapy, innovative pharmacologic approaches, and the artificial retina—for retinitis pigmentosa, age-related macular degeneration, vascular eye disease, and other vision impairments that currently are untreatable. Over the past decade he has led pioneering efforts in optogenetic vision restoration, a technique in which cells in the retina are genetically modified to express light sensitive proteins. This therapeutic technique has the potential to help patients who are blind or visually impaired as a result of a genetic defect. Sahel, who was born in Algeria, studied medicine at Strasbourg University and in Lariboisière, Saint-Louis. He received his medical degree with a Medal of the Faculty of Paris and obtained his specialty certification in ophthalmology. He completed a residency in neurology and neurosurgery at the Louis Pasteur University Hospital in Strasbourg. He also was a research fellow at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and a visiting scholar in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University. Dr. Sahel is the founder and director of the Vision Institute in Paris and currently a professor at the Sorbonne’s medical school Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie.

Please note this event has been canceled. Contact Emily Fogel (ehf11@pitt.edu) with any questions.

Practice your Hebrew at our weekly language table!

Postponed until the Fall!

The Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) is pleased to present the Spring 2020 Latin American Film Series. This series was curated by Luciana Lemos, a Brazilian GSPIA student with experience organizing independent film festivals. The topics vary from gender issues, water rights, and ethnicity in Latin America and the Caribbean to Latinx identity and a reflection on the tensions between parental roles and public duty.

The films will be screened approximately twice per month, though the end of the spring semester. Doors open and pizza is served at 6 p.m., and screenings will start at 6:30. Stick around after the screening to participate in a discussion with actors, producers, directors, and faculty. Films will be screened at either 4130 Wesley W. Posvar Hall or the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium.

Practice your Turkish language skills - all levels welcome!

EAT@Pitt will be discussing international/immigrant-owned restaurants in the area and showcases.