Register here.

This panel will include a screening and discussion of Exact Time (Точное время, 2017) by Tat’iana Stefanenko and Stasya is Me (Стася—это я, 2020) by Stasia Granovskaia. In their films, both filmmakers reflect on the intricacies of post-Soviet temporalities. Stefanenko’s film is about a Moscow research institute of time measuring; its obsolete machines, designed in the Soviet period, and frustrated staff, educated in the USSR, seem to be out of synch with modern Russia. Granovskaia, in her turn, combines her cinematic biography and autobiography by being both an object and subject of the camera, which records the life cycle of one family with its births and deaths. While Stefanenko’s film makes the viewer think about an overarching relationship between Soviet and post-Soviet temporalities in a metaphysical fashion, Granovskaia’s film pieces home video footage from the 1990s and contemporary family chronicle together to demonstrate how these temporalities are inhabited and lived by one family.
This screening will be available worldwide during the duration of the panel.
Curator and Host: Dinara Garifullina, Ph.D. Student
Film and Media Studies Program
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
University of Pittsburgh

Introducer: Bella Grigoryan, Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
University of Pittsburgh

Respondent: Anastasia Kostina, Ph.D. Candidate
Film and Media Studies
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
Yale University

Please register for the screening here: https://watch.eventive.org/rfs/play/6074a11f2bcd4e00b344d26b
Please register for the introduction and discussion here: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__mMTRvcPT_-0tbXjkLjPsw

You are cordially invited to the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Latin American Studies Virtual Graduation on Sunday, May 2, 2021 at 2:00 pm. Join us as we celebrate the academic achievements of the Class of 2021!

After the difficulties of the last four years, the arrival of President Biden in the White House offers new hope for transatlantic relations. He and his very impressive team have always been committed Atlanticists. This presents a unique opportunity to redefine the relationship and, above all, to reshape it in a way which provides bulwarks against future shocks. But the challenges are considerable. On both sides of the Atlantic, domestic issues are to the fore: the pandemic, economic recovery and the need to build greater social consensus. And the US and the EU do not always share either a common analysis of global trends such as the rise of China or a common prognosis of how to respond. So, what will this new relationship look like, what will be its principal components and what are the chances of success?
This event is co-sponsored by the Santa Fe World Affairs Forum and the German American Chambers of Commerce-CO. We hope that you will join us. The Zoom meeting link will be emailed to you prior to the event after you register.

1pm EST.

#JMintheUS

The Women's International Club is proud to present an enlightening discussion by Lourdes Margarita Tabares Neira, Professor Emeritus of Havana University on May 5, 2021 at 6pm.

This panel will include a screening and discussion of Spice Boyz (Спайс бойз, 2019), a provocative Belarusian grotesque that features a bachelor party turned into horror when the groom and his friends use drugs and become violent. The film bears a complex relation to reality since the story is based on a true tragic event that happened in 2014 in Gomel and involved a person with a disability. Spice Boyz’s eccentric tone and disturbing images may pose a challenge to some viewers.
This screening will be available worldwide during the duration of the panel.
Curator and Host: Denis Saltykov, Ph.D. Candidate
Film and Media Studies Program
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
University of Pittsburgh

Introducer: Jeffrey Sconce, Professor
Screen Cultures Program
Department of Radio, Television, and Film
Northwestern University

Respondent: Adam Lowenstein, Professor
Film and Media Studies Program
Department of English
University of Pittsburgh

Please register for the screening here: https://watch.eventive.org/rfs/play/6074a3a0ddc59900cb3b42ef
Register for the introduction and discussion here: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__mMTRvcPT_-0tbXjkLjPsw

This panel will include a screening and discussion of Ich-chi (2021), a hypnotic ethnic horror film from the Republic of Sakha, the largest Russian region with the only full-fledged film industry outside Moscow and Saint-Petersburg. Filmed in half Sakha and half Russian, Ich-chi tells a story about the local spirit, collective memory, and national imagination. Ich-chi is the first Sakha film that has got international distribution.
This screening will be geographically restricted to the United States only.

Curator and Host: Eva Ivanilova, Ph.D. Candidate
Film and Media Studies Program
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
University of Pittsburgh

Introducers: Kostas Marsan, Director, Ich-chi
Marianna Siegen, Producer, Ich-chi
Founder and CEO, Art Doydu Film Company

Respondent: Neepa Majumdar, Associate Professor
Film and Media Studies Program
Department of English
University of Pittsburgh

Please register for the film screening here: https://watch.eventive.org/rfs/play/6074a3a0ddc59900cb3b42ef
Register for the introduction and discussion here: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_T6mvBVYnRAiQoBAXYBtxnw

The Undergraduate Research Symposium is an annual event since 2002 designed to provide undergraduate students, from the University of Pittsburgh and other colleges and universities, with advanced research experiences and opportunities to develop presentation skills. The event is open to undergraduates from all majors and institutions who have written a research paper from a social science, humanities, or business perspective focusing on the study of Eastern, Western, or Central Europe, the European Union, Russia, or Central Eurasia. The 2021 Symposium will be online.

Dr. Anna Grzymala-Busse (Stanford University) and Dr. Graeme Robertson (University of North Carolina) will speak on past and present challenges and developments in democracy, particularly in post-communist nations in Europe and Eurasia.

A young teacher in modern Bhutan shirks his duties while planning to go to Australia to become a singer. As a reprimand, his superiors send him to the most remote school in the world, a glacial Himalayan village called Lunana, to complete his service. He wants to quit and go home, but he begins to learn of the hardship in the lives of the beautiful children he teaches, and begins to be transformed through the amazing spiritual strength of the villagers.

Register here for a virtual screening of LUNANA: A YAK IN THE CLASSROOM (Pawo Choyning Dorji, 2019).
Event will be broadcast live digitally. Before the screening, a link will be sent to the email account provided below.

Register here.

The African Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh is hosting a virtual conference May 13-14, 2021 to ponder African futures in the context of current challenges and to think about innovative strategies for moving forward with the continent's development agenda. This conference will provide a platform for scholars and practitioners who work on Africa related topics to engage in conversations about Africa's economic growth, development and transformation based on their research, practice and scholarship. The first day of the conference will consist of a keynote panel comprised of distinguised scholars and practitioners. The second day of the conference will consist of a keynote spekaer who will examine the general landscape of Africa's development, and the necessity of finding alternative pathways to solve the challenges facing African countries in development efforts.

The topics of discussion are wide ranging and interdisciplinary in nature. We invite you to join us for this very enriching conference. This year, because we are virtual, we are especially excited to have speakers and participants from across the United States, Africa, Europe and other places to share their research and experiences in the field of African Studies. We are looking forward to having important conversations about Africa's growth and development prospects especially inlight of the gloabl pandemic. Discussions will be focussed on what the various African countries are doing in efforts to find sustainable solutions to Africa's biggest challenges, ranging from reducing poverty and gender inequality to addressing health and wellbeing.

UCIS alumni Dr. Aaron Abbarno (Facebook) and Jessica Kuntz (Department of State) will discuss the value of global education in their professional experience in government, non-profit, and corporate sectors.

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 livro Massacre dos Libertos, de Matheus Gato (editora Perspectiva). com o próprio autor. Evento em português.

No Brasil, o livro está disponível para compra no site da editora: https://editoraperspectiva.com.br/produtos/massacre-dos-libertos-o/

This panel presents films by six contemporary Russian animators: Svetlana Andrianova, Nina Bisyarina, Liana Makaryan, Leonid Shmel’kov, Dina Velikovskaya, and Varia Yakovleva. They belong to different generations of animators and in their work, they use different styles and techniques. All of these techniques, however, including the weightless lines in Dina Velikovskaya's Ties, minimalistic drawings of Svetlana Andrianova’s Lucky Ticket and Once upon a Time There Was a House, schematic watercolors of Nina Bisyarina’s How Much Does the Cloud Weigh?, rustic cut-outs of Varia Yakovleva’s Anna, Cat-and-Mouse, and post-impressionistic Lola the Living Potato by Leonid Shmel’kov, celebrate the limitless potential of animation to create imagery. What also unites these different films is their exploration of relationships—at the focus of all of them is the topic of connectivity with others and with the world.
This screening will be available worldwide during the duration of the panel.
Curator and Host: Olga Blackledge, Assistant Professor
Department of Communications and Media Arts
Bethany College

Introducer: Laura Pontieri, Independent Scholar

Respondent: Michele Leigh, Assistant Professor
Department of Cinema and Photography
Southern Illinois University

Please register for the film screening here: https://watch.eventive.org/rfs/play/6074a4bd86f143003e0cf974
Register for the introduction and discussion here: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qT5g8-IfTPy3y-i-jSDIlg

Colombia atraviesa uno de los momentos más críticos de su historia reciente. Una serie de protestas multitudinariasque lleva más de dos semanas han creado caos en varias ciudades. El gatillo de la situación actual fue el anuncio de una reforma fiscal que el gobierno presentó al congreso. A pesar de haber retirado la propuesta y renunciado el ministro de Hacienda, las confrontaciones no han cesado. Este panel propone analizar la problemática colombiana desde perspectivas social, política y económica.

Moderado por: Lucia Dammert (Universidad de Santiago de Chile)

Con:
Marla Ripoll (University of Pittsburgh)
Miguel García (Universidad de los Andes)
Fabio López de la Roche (Universidad Nacional de Colombia)
Jorge Enrique Delgado (University of Pittsburgh)

The event will be in Spanish. // El evento será en español.

Poster Image credit: Leon Hernandez

This panel will include a screening and discussion of Stanislav Sokolov's 3D stop motion animation Hoffmaniada (Гофманиада, 2018), one of the first full-length puppet animated film in the recent history of Soyuzmultfilm studio. The screenplay for the animation is based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novels The Golden Pot, The Sandman, and Klein Zaches. The Prussian writer of the early 19th century, E.T.A. Hoffman, is at the narrative center of this animation while balancing between the imaginary world of his own writing and his ordinary life as a lawyer.
This screening will be available worldwide during the duration of the panel.
Curator and Host: Olga Klimova, Lecturer and Director, Russian Program
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

Introducer: Stanislav Sokolov, Animation Director and Professor of Animation
Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography

Respondent: Lora Mjolsness, Lecturer in Russian
Department of European Languages and Studies
University of California, Irvine

Please register for the film screening here: https://watch.eventive.org/rfs/play/6074a52d576f73003755ee9d

Register for the introduction and discussion here: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Q9eiSWitQC6gZVpQRpOzZg

Join us for virtual sessions over the course of three days in May that will consider the structure, reach, and impact of China’s Belt & Road Initiative and its implications for commercial relations, dispute resolution, and the future of legal developments in Asia more generally. Three panels will focus on fundamental issues of dispute resolution in US-China business contracts; the evolving of dispute resolution forums in Asia; and the future of Hong Kong as a hub for commercial relationships in the Asian region. Two keynote addresses will consider the critical recent development of China’s International Commercial Court and the importance of Hong Kong.

This program has been approved by the Pennsylvania Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Board for six (6) hours of substantive credit. There is a $120 fee for processing CLE credit for this event. Please be sure to indicate that you are seeking CLE credit using the form provided in registration link.

For a detailed description of each day's schedule, go to: https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/asc/events/chinalaw

Register here

Can names create subconscious bias? What is the history of our given name? Does the region where our name is most popular impact how we are perceived? How do social status and laws affect our name? Why is it so challenging to ask someone how their name is pronounced?

This series aims to open a doorway to explore issues that affect us every day, and that, ultimately, reverberate through the most intimate aspects of who we are. While we will explore basic tools and name etiquette, with the kindness and respect we all deserve, we intend to reflect about what our names say about us, and how they may be used to define who we are. Please join our exploration of a crucial topic seldom discussed.

As part of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, join the Asian Studies Center and the Global Hub for "Speaking Up and Out: A Poetry Reading with Sally Wen Mao."

Sally Wen Mao is the author of two collections of poetry, Oculus (Graywolf Press, 2019), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Mad Honey Symposium (Alice James Books, 2014). The recipient of a Pushcart Prize and an NEA fellowship, she was recently a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library, a Jenny McKean Moore Writer-in-Washington at the George Washington University, and a Lannan Foundation Resident in Marfa, Texas. She has taught poetry at Cornell University, The George Washington University, Hunter College, Sarah Lawrence College MFA program, Catapult, Poet's House, and the 92 Street Y, among other places. Her poetry and prose have appeared in The Best American Poetry, The Paris Review, Poetry, Harpers Bazaar, The Kenyon Review, The Georgia Review, Guernica, and A Public Space, among others. She is a Kundiman fellow in both fiction and poetry, and most recently, she was a Shearing Fellow at the Black Mountain Institute. You can learn more about Sally's work at https://www.sallywenmao.com/.

Sally will read some of her work before a Q&A session. Audience participation is encouraged.

Register here: https://pitt.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcld-isrT8vGdES_1_qMqYQlcSQ6uQKOt8n

EU DEMOCRACY FORUM – IMAGINE THE FUTURE
Democracy cannot be taken for granted -- not in Europe, not anywhere. With this series of talks by experts on European politics and society we want to encourage discussion about the future of democracy in the European Union, its member states, and the neighborhood. As the EU Commission launches its Conference on the Future of Europe in 2021, we invite you to imagine this future with us. Our contributors will reflect on the EU’s achievements and challenges. We will hear their reflections on how to strengthen and expand democratic processes and institutions, both in Brussels and in Europe more broadly.

This reading group for educators explores literary texts from a global perspective. Content specialists present the work and its context, and together we brainstorm innovative pedagogical practices for incorporating the text and its themes into the curriculum. Sessions this year will take place virtually on Thursday evenings from 5-7:30 PM. Books and Act 48 credit are provided.

This reading group for educators explores literary texts from a global perspective. Discussion led by David Tenorio, Assistant Professor, Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature at the University of Pittsburgh. Content specialists present the work and its context, and participants brainstorm innovative pedagogical practices for incorporating the text and its themes into the curriculum. Sessions this year will take place virtually on Thursday evenings from 5-8 PM (EST). Books and 3 Act 48 credit hours will be provided.

This event is part of the What's in a Name Series. What are microaggressions? How do microaggressions associated with names affect marginalized groups, and what can we do to ensure that everyone feels respected, supported, and included in our communities? In this workshop, we will discuss how to identify microaggressions and provide tools for how to address them in the context of name pronunciation.

Screen award-winning film Minari at the Tull Family Theater. A limited number of tickets are available. Register here.

In a globalized world, the exchange rate, while expressing the exchange ratio between the currency of a country and the rest of the world, is a key price that affects nominal and real aspects of the economies. The issue is particularly complex in the developing economies that are subject to both the challenges of their internal variables and those of external financing cycles and commodity price fluctuations. Moreover, in the globalization process, prolonged misalignments in exchange rates have been associated with severe financial crises. No less is the impact of the exchange rate on the rate of inflation in these economies.

The presentation will focus on both economic as well as political economy arguments of exchange rate policies. While the traditional approach is typically dominated by the analysis of only economic factors, the more recent political economy point of view includes the behavior of different players involved in the political game. In this regard, exchange rate policies can be understood in terms of the distributional and electoral motivations that determine the regional policymaking. This approach highlights the need for considering the impact of interests, interactions, and institutions in the analysis of the topic.

In this context, the presentation will examine the role of the exchange rates in Latin America’s economy in the current global era. It aims to respond to several questions:
▪ Why should we care about the political economy of exchange rates in Latin America?
▪ What were the successes and errors of exchange rate policies in Latin America in the last years?
▪ How did the region cope with past episodes of external shocks, and particularly with the 2008 global financial crisis?
▪ What is the relevance of exchange rates in the dynamics of economic and political cycles?
▪ What main lessons can we draw for the future?

Susana Nudelsman holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Buenos Aires. She has also pursued a Certificate in International Studies, specializing in International Economics at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, and is a Master’s in International Relations candidate at Barcelona Institute of International Studies. She performs as a Consultant Member at the Argentine Council for International Relations and has collaborated with Think Tank 20 Argentina 2018. She has developed an important career in research and teaching at the University of Buenos Aires and has also been a visiting scholar and professor in various universities of the United States. She has been awarded scholarships by the National Research Council of Argentina, Fulbright Commission, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. She has published articles focused on Latin American issues and served as a reviewer for Economics journals.