Events in UCIS

Thursday, April 1

3:15 pm Cultural Event
Laber Rhabarber - German Conversation Hour
Location:
Zoom
Sponsored by:
Global Hub along with Department of German
See Details

Laber Rhabarber - More than a German conversation hour!

"... the most human thing we have is language, and we have it in order to talk." German author Theodor Fontane wrote in 1892. So, here's chance! Be human with us for an hour every week, albeit in German ;D

Everyone and every level of German welcome!

Zoom Meeting link: https://pitt.zoom.us/j/99661883076
German Dept. website: http://www.german.pitt.edu/
Follow us on Instagram/Facebook/Twitter: @UPittGerman

4:00 pm Film
Film Screening and Discussion: Ayka
Location:
Vimeo
Sponsored by:
Center for Russian East European and Eurasian Studies
See Details

Award-winning actress Samal Yeslyamova (Tulpan) plays the role of Ayka, a Kyrgyz illegal migrant in Moscow. Ayka has no money, no home, and she just gave birth. She is never still, so we follow her through wintry Moscow streets on her reckless pursuit to find work. An aggressive soundtrack and visceral cinematography emphasize the vision of a huge megalopolis where anyone can get lost or disappear. It is Yeslyamova, however, who steals the camera; always moving forward in her unraveling as she enters her curtained den until the end, when she and the camera give us a chance to breathe. In 2010, 248 newborns were abandoned in Moscow's maternity wards, a statistic information director Sergey Dvortsevoy found in the newspapers and adapted for his film. He likes to make films from "real" life and values surprises and doubt, interested in what happens when families and relationships break down between people and their environment to the point when an individual is morally damaged. His film comes at a time of worldwide chaotic migration, and it is obvious that what happened to Ayka is happening to others. (Maryna Ajaja, SIFF)

Moderator: Nancy Condee, Director, Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Director of Graduate Studies, Slavic Languages and Literatures
Speakers: Colin Johnson, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Idaho State University
Heath Cabot, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh

View the trailer here: https://www.siff.net/festival/ayka

REGISTER TO ATTEND HERE: https://tinyurl.com/y5x6pwvy

5:00 pm Seminar
Cultura Negra no Atlantico (CULTNA) Discussion Series: Descolonizando imaginários e saberes
Location:
Zoom
Sponsored by:
Center for Latin American Studies along with Laboratório de História Oral e Imagem
See Details

O seminário "Culturas Negras no Atlantico (CULTNA)" é uma iniciativa que congrega o Laboratório de História Oral e Imagem (LABHOI) da Universidade Federal Fluminense e da Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, e o Center for Latin American Studies da University of Pittsburgh. Neste encontro, será discutido o texto "Propuesta de una epistemologia africana para descolonizar los imaginarios y los discursos latinoamericanos sobre las identidades", de Clément Animan Akassi, com o próprio autor. Evento em português.

Registration required: https://tinyurl.com/4f2akzf7

6:00 pm Reading Group
Four Evenings Discussion: Bernardine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other (Discussion)
Location:
Virtual - Register Online!
Sponsored by:
European Studies Center and Global Studies Center along with University Library Services
See Details

In Conjunction with the Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures program's "Ten Evenings" series, GSC 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.

With Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo became the first Black woman to win the Booker Prize for Fiction. The novel is a magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity, across generations, in a group of Black British women. Girl, Woman, Other is a polyphonic and richly textured social novel that reminds us of all that connects us to our neighbors, even in times when we are encouraged to be split apart. The twelve central characters of this multi-voiced novel lead vastly different lives. From a nonbinary social media influencer to a 93-year-old woman living on a farm in Northern England, these unforgettable characters also intersect in shared aspects of their identities, from age to race to sexuality to class.

6:00 pm Film
CLAS Film Series Presents: Pelo Malo
Location:
Online
Sponsored by:
Center for Latin American Studies
See Details

Pelo Malo (Bad Hair)

Fiction / Venezuela / 2013

"A nine year old boy's preening obsession with straightening his hair elicits a tidal wave of homophobic panic in his hard-working mother, in this tender but clear-eyed coming of age tale. Junior is a beautiful boy, with big brown eyes, a delicate frame, and head of luxurious dark curls. But Junior aches to straighten those curls, to acquire a whole new look befitting his emerging fantasy image of himself as a long haired singer. As the opportunity approaches to have his photo taken for the new school year, that ache turns into a fiery longing. Junior's mother, Marta, is barely hanging on. The father of her children has died, she recently lost her job as a security guard, and she now struggles to put a few arepas on the table for Junior and his baby brother.

Junior doesn't even know yet what it means to be gay, but the very notion prompts Marta to set out to 'correct' Junior's condition before it truly takes hold. This is a story of people doing what they feel they have to, partly out of fear, but also out of love."

—Diana Vargas, Toronto International Film Festival

Language: Spanish with English subtitles

Registration is required: https://tinyurl.com/y5ws7urf

Please register by April 1, 2021 at 3 pm. Around 5:30 pm you will receive an email with the Zoom link and instructions on how to access the film