Register here.
Events in UCIS
Thursday, April 8 until Friday, April 8
Thursday, January 6
Ecuador is one of the most bio-diverse countries in the world. Our partner organization is located on a 1300-acre preserve along the Napo River in the Amazon Rainforest. The program is designed for students interested in Biology, Ecology, Environmental Science, Environmental Studies, and Culture. In the June Session, you will explore Health and Nutrition of the Quichua People, Ecuador’s progressive healthcare system, and indigenous medicine. In July, you will build a solid foundation in tropical forest ecology.
Come learn about the different sessions of this unique program. Students don't need to have studied Spanish to participate in Pitt in Ecuador as all courses are taught in English. It is the perfect location and program to explore new ways of preserving biodiversity in the Amazonian forest and the sustainability of Amazonian communities.
Learn more by registering for our information session.
Monday, January 10
Come learn about the field-based summer internship and research program in Uganda and Kenya for graduate students from all departments. Dr. Louis Picard from GSPIA and Dr. Anna-Maria Karnes from the Center for African Studies will talk about the program and answer questions.
Thursday, January 13
French casual conversation table. Open to all students of all levels of proficiency.
Colombia & Bolivia, 2020 | Documentary
This film deals with the "Embera Chami" society, an Amerindian community, where machismo is very present. This film denounces in a way the excision undergone by these women, which he will folow on a daily basis, and in particular Luz, hidden, masked, whose only hands, feet and hair are shown, singing of the pain of their bodies and that of having had to leave her village, following her refusal to keep quiet about her genitals removal.
She sings about her physical and psychological pain. These traditional songs accompany us through the film, as a prayer, bringing hope to the women and allowing them to speak. The body is taboo here, and the term "ablation" here extends far beyond a "little thing."
The violence of this practice is treated ina poetic, gentle way, contrasting with the theme. This documentary gives the women the chance to express themselves, the director gives them a voice.
Part one of series on innovations in contemporary Japanese architecture
Pavilions built for international fairs are unique structures able to materialize the fantasy of other worlds within the immediate realm of the visitors. Typically designed to represent the aesthetics and architectural character of foreign nations, these pavilions attain international meanings outside of their respective countries and respond to different regional contexts. This talk examines the evolution of this unique trans-national building type over the course of more than 150 years through three pavilions that link Japan with the West: British architect/designer Thomas Jeckyll’s Japanese-inspired pavilion designed for the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the 1954-55 Japanese Exhibition House designed by Junzō Yoshimura for the Museum of Modern Art in New York that was later moved to Philadelphia, and the 2002 Serpentine Pavilion built in London by Japanese architect Toyo Ito.
Friday, January 14
Join Vera Heinz cohorts Ambria Richardson, Bridgit Smith, Monique Hurlock, and Ty'Anne Nelson and guests discuss the importance of learning a second language
Saturday, January 15 until Friday, January 28
Starting January 15 see Linda Hoaglund’s mediation on art and its place in memory and history. The film will be available January 15-29. Screening is free but viewers must register to get the link.
Hoaglund’s "Things Left Behind" explores the transformative power of the first major international art exhibit devoted to the atomic bomb. The exhibition, at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, featured large-format color photographs of clothing once worn by those who perished, taken by renowned Japanese photographer Ishiuchi Miyako. The film weaves together visitor responses to the exhibition with interviews that feature Ishiuchi to create a cinematic reverie about art's potential to recast historical memory.
Sponsored by SCREENSHOT: Asia, University of Pittsburgh Asian Studies Center, and University of Pittsburgh National Consortium for Teaching about Asia.
Monday, January 17
Portuguese language practice at all levels. We will be meeting virtually on Mondays in January until January 31st.
Meeting ID: 940 1046 1344
https://pitt.zoom.us/j/94010461344
Tuesday, January 18
Join the Chinese Language & Culture Club every other Tuesday to practice the Chinese language and participate in Chinese cultural activities,
The first meeting on 1/18 will be virtual: https://pitt.zoom.us/j/94596594820
Wednesday, January 19
This installment of Conversations on Europe is part of the Critical Area Studies of Europe Initiative.
For the 2021-22 academic year, the European Studies Center has announced its annual programmatic theme: “Recovering Europe.” Many of this year’s virtual roundtables will speak to this theme. In the Fall semester, sessions will explore economic and public health issues related to Europe’s recovery from the pandemic. In the Spring semester, sessions will consider different, and often uneven, attempts to reckon with and recover from the enduring legacies of European colonialism. The series will be bookended by sessions devoted to important elections impacting Europe.
Audience participation is encouraged.
Event information will be updated to include panelists and moderator.
Co-sponsors:
Miami-Florida Jean Monnet European Center of Excellence at Florida International University
EU Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne
Center for European Studies at the University of Florida
Center for European Studies at the University of Texas – Austin
Center for European and Transatlantic Studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology
Co-funded with support from the Erasmus + Programme of the European Union
Part two of series on innovations in contemporary Japanese architecture
Part two of series on innovations in contemporary architecture featuring professor Jonathan Reynolds
The 17th Century imperial villa at Katsura has loomed large in the modern imagination. It has by turns been praised as a masterpiece of Japan’s rich artistic heritage and been embraced as a precocious expression of modernist aesthetics ideals. Photography has played an especially important role in making this at times remote architecture and garden complex accessible to a world audience. This talk will discuss some of the most influential photographic interpretations of Katsura, paying special attention to the two remarkable and distinctive portfolios produced by the Japanese photographer Ishimoto Yasuhiro.
Thursday, January 20
French casual conversation table. Open to all students of all levels of proficiency.
In the presentation, Dr. Frantsuz will explore how various types of inequities shape health in Russia and post-Soviet countries. The talk will emphasize the methodology and challenges in researching this problem and will investigate the specifics of how inequalities impact major health differentials in various cultures and states depending on their institutional arrangements.
Speaker: Dr. Yuri Frantsuz is a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of New Mexico and a Research Fellow at the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is also a faculty member at the Smolny College of Liberal Arts and Science and the St. Petersburg University of Humanities and Social Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Minnesota. His areas of research interest include social and political demography, sociology of health, and social inequality and health.
Moderator: Professor Nancy Condee, Director
Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Global Issues Through Literature (GILS)Fall and Spring 2021-22: Imagining Other Worlds: Globalizing Science Fiction and Fantasy
This reading group for K-12 educators explores literary texts from a global perspective. 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 three Act 48 credit hours are provided.
January 20th event will focused on the book Hardboiled Wonderland by Haruki Murakami - https://www.cityofasylumbooks.org/book/9780679743460
This discussion will be led by Dr. Ethan Segal, Michigan State University Professor, and is co-sponsored by the National Consortium for Teaching About Asia at the University of Pittsburgh
Register for the reading groups here- https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/global/gils
Contact Maja Konitzer with questions at majab@pitt.edu
Friday, January 21
Monday, January 24
Portuguese language practice at all levels. We will be meeting virtually on Mondays in January until January 31st.
Meeting ID: 940 1046 1344
https://pitt.zoom.us/j/94010461344
Tuesday, January 25
Dr. Priya Sirohi discusses her career as professor, writer, researcher, and scholar of cultural rhetoric. Her research conducts case studies between the English East India Company and Mughal India, to illuminate the significance of Early Modern economics that continue to define contemporary globalization. She holds a doctorate from Purdue University with secondary concentrations in Public Rhetoric and Cultural Rhetoric
To Register:
https://pitt.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwtf-CspjwiEtxRiV3pytpt-Wsd4D48pZL5
Wednesday, January 26
He will discuss the role racism has played in shaping U.S. Foreign policy toward Haiti, as well as the solidarity expressed by Haiti toward other Latin American countries (the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivar, and Mexico) to achieve their independences.
Esports have grown exponentially all around the world in the past decade or so. More recently, the pandemic spurred future growth of the game industry and culture especially in East Asian society. The 2022 Asia Pop series—Gamified: Gaming Culture in East Asia starts on Wednesday January 26 at 5 pm EST. The virtual keynote lecture by Dr. Dal Yong Jin, Distinguished Professor at Simon Fraser University will focus on the emergence and transformation of Korean eSports culture from the perspective of the spectators. Register here.
Thursday, January 27
French casual conversation table. Open to all students of all levels of proficiency.
Sutapa Biswas will be presenting about her work--the latest being a film titled Lumen--and the legacy of British colonialism in South Asia. Her work includes painting, drawing, film, video, and photography, and draws from art history, literature, and film. Andrew Nairne, the director of the University of Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard, where Biswas currently has a major exhibition, described her art as “work(ing) through the intuitive, through the poetic, and through the personal.” Please join us online on Thursday January 27 at 2:00 pm EST for this virtual event. Register here
he Pittsburgh EU Film Festival 2022 kicks off with a virtual screening of our MEET EU Shorts. Audience members are encouraged to vote for their favorite short. The winner will be announced at the end of our festival.
More details, including the entire festival schedule can be found on our website: https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/esc/film-festival
Friday, January 28
This session features emerging scholars who inhabit marginalized identity positions, including scholars with non-normative genders and sexualities, racial and ethnic minorities, and immigrants and international students. Join us to understand the ways in which marginalized identities fundamentally shape the academic experience and explore how othering works within universities and in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (SEEES). While emphasizing the inherent intersectionality of identity positions, this session introduces the broad matrix of ways in which emerging scholars in SEEES navigate their particular locations as underrepresented subjects.
MODERATOR:
Emily Couch, PEN America
PRESENTERS:
Kellan Baker, Whitman-Walker Institute
Nadja Greku, Central European University
Christy Monet, University of Chicago
Raushan Zhandayeva, George Washington University
REGISTER IN ADVANCE: https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/crees/intersectionality-in-focus-spring-2022
This session is part of the series "Intersectionality in Focus: From Critical Pedagogies to Research Practice, and Public Engagement in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies." Class, ethnicity and race, dis/ability, gender and sexuality, and other identity markers interweave to produce inequality differently in Eastern Europe and Eurasia than in the Americas or Western Europe. Yet, it is these very differences that provide a rich ground for intellectual conversations in our field.
SPONSORS:
Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies, University of Chicago
Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, University of Kansas
Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, University of Michigan
Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, University of Pittsburgh
Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, University of Texas at Austin
Center for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Ohio State University
Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University
Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center, Indiana University, Bloomington
Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, University of California, Berkeley
Robert F. Byrnes Russian and East European Institute, Indiana University, Bloomington
Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Topics include:
Disability-related accommodations
Recruitment and advising
Funding Considerations
Case Scenarios
Discussion leader: Monica Malhotra (Program Manager, National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange)
Mobility International USA (MIUSA); www.miusa.org
Please note: we want to create an accessible experience for people with disabilities. Will you need any disability-related accommodations to participate in this webinar (e.g. captions/CART, American Sign Language interpreting, etc.)? If so, please reach out to Taylor Pipkin (tlp66@pitt.edu).
Diamantino, the world’s premiere soccer star, loses his special touch and ends his career in disgrace. Searching for a new purpose, the international icon sets out on a delirious odyssey where he confronts neo-fascism, the refugee crisis, genetic modification, and the hunt for the source of genius.
Directed by Gabriel Abrantes & Daniel Schmidt
Portugal, France, Brazil | Portuguese language with English Subtitles | DCP
Get Tickets Here: https://trustarts.org/production/78039
Mask Policy
All guests must wear a mask over the nose and mouth at all times while inside the Harris theater. Masks can be temporarily removed when a guest is eating and/or drinking while remaining in their seat at the Harris Theater. For complete information on health and safety policies of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, visit TrustArts.org/Welcome.
The film, directed by Gregory Magne, tells the story of Anne Walberg, a celebrity in the world of fragrance, whose professional success has turned her into a quick-tempered diva. Guillaume, her new chauffeur who is freshly divorced, is the only person who is unafraid of her.
Directed by Grégory Magne
France | French language with English Subtitles | DCP
Get Tickets: https://trustarts.org/production/78050
Mask Policy
All guests must wear a mask over the nose and mouth at all times while inside the Harris theater. Masks can be temporarily removed when a guest is eating and/or drinking while remaining in their seat at the Harris Theater. For complete information on health and safety policies of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, visit TrustArts.org/Welcome.
Saturday, January 29
Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is receiving increased focus in schools due to the pandemic. Participants in this free film screening and workshop for K-12 educators will learn about lessons based in the humanities that encourage reflection, empathy, and an understanding of others. Participants will be given access to Linda Hoaglund’s film, Things Left Behind, to view prior to the program. Things Left Behind confronts the tragedy of Hiroshima through the photographs of renowned Japanese photographer Ishiuchi Miyako. Viewers travel with Ishiuchi to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial archive as she selects artifacts to photograph for her exhibit at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, Canada. Notably, this was the first major international art exhibition devoted to the atomic bomb. Ishiuchi’s large-scale images of clothing and objects left by those who perished in the explosion take the historical event and distill it to human proportions, enabling viewers to focus on a single person and the impact of their loss. Viewers experience the exhibition through the creation of the photos, the installation, display in Vancouver, and the attendee's reaction to the photographs.
We welcome K-12 educators of all disciplines to join Dean David Kenley of Dakota State University and author of Teaching About Asia in a Time of Pandemic and educators Kachina Leigh and Michele Weaver who have co-taught at Muhlenberg High School in Laureldale, PA and currently teach art and psychology, respectively, to discuss how to bring this film into the classroom. Filmmaker Linda Hoaglund will also be joining us to discuss the making of Things Left Behind and answer questions. All participants will be given a copy of the film as well as have access to a series of lessons appropriate to teachers of art, history, and literature as well as ideas on how to bring this film into other courses of study.
Links to the film online will also be sent to registered participants two weeks in advance, and you will be asked to watch the film prior to the workshop. Participants in the January 29 workshop will receive a complimentary DVD of the film after the workshop.
The film is inspired by the true story of herbalist Jan Mikolasek, who dedicated his life to caring for the sick in spite of the immense obstacles he faced in his private and public life. Born at the turn of the 20th century, Mikolasek wins fame and fortune using unorthodox treatment methods to cure a wide range of diseases. Already a local institution in Czechoslovakia before World War II, the healer gains in reputation and wealth, whether during the Nazi occupation or under the Communist rule. One after the other, every regime will want to use his skills and in return gives him protection. But how high shall be the costs to maintain this status as the tide turns?
Directed by Agnieszka Holland
Czech Republic, Ireland, Slovakia, Poland | Czech language with English Subtitles | DCP
Get Tickets: https://trustarts.org/production/78054
Mask Policy
All guests must wear a mask over the nose and mouth at all times while inside the Harris theater. Masks can be temporarily removed when a guest is eating and/or drinking while remaining in their seat at the Harris Theater. For complete information on health and safety policies of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, visit TrustArts.org/Welcome.
The last year in the life of Bettino Craxi, as told by Gianni Amelio. An undisputed protagonist of international politics and, until recently, revered in Italy, Bettino Craxi is now in Hammamet, far from his homeland. Overwhelmed by the populist surge that toppled the formerly governing democratic parties which rose to power during the first fifty years of the Italian Republic, and caught up in a series of judicial inquiries, President Craxi can no longer return to his homeland as a free man. A master at commanding respect in the political arena, Craxi is also surrounded by opportunists; he is down but not out; and he is left to fend for himself in a home on a hill, where he lives out his final months like a caged beast. HAMMAMET is also the touching story of a father and a daughter, Anita, who stands by his side after everyone else has fled. Craxi is ill and in dire need of life-saving treatment. Anita goes to lengths that only the greatest love can justify as she struggles to make her father relent and set aside his ideas at least at this crucial time in his life; he must agree to return to Italy to be treated, at the cost of losing a freedom he believes he deserves. The conflict between his ideas and his familial love – between political motivations and those of the man – will be fierce and, eventually, fatal.
Directed by Gianni Amelio
Italy | Italian language with English subtitles | DCP
Get Tickets: https://trustarts.org/production/78058
Mask Policy
All guests must wear a mask over the nose and mouth at all times while inside the Harris theater. Masks can be temporarily removed when a guest is eating and/or drinking while remaining in their seat at the Harris Theater. For complete information on health and safety policies of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, visit TrustArts.org/Welcome.
Emi, a school teacher, finds her career and reputation under threat after a personal sex tape is leaked on the Internet. Forced to meet the parents demanding her dismissal, Emi refuses to surrender to their pressure. Radu Jude (Aferim!) delivers an incendiary mix of unconventional form, irreverent humor and scathing commentary on hypocrisy and prejudice in our societies.
Directed by Radu Jude
Romania | Romanian language with English subtitles | DCP
Get Tickets: https://trustarts.org/production/78062
Mask Policy
All guests must wear a mask over the nose and mouth at all times while inside the Harris theater. Masks can be temporarily removed when a guest is eating and/or drinking while remaining in their seat at the Harris Theater. For complete information on health and safety policies of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, visit TrustArts.org/Welcome.
Sunday, January 30
Please join us for a conversation with Grégory Magne, director of Les Parfums, as part of our Pittsburgh EU Film Festival 2022.
Audience participation is encouraged.
The film, directed by Gregory Magne, tells the story of Anne Walberg, a celebrity in the world of fragrance, whose professional success has turned her into a quick-tempered diva. Guillaume, her new chauffeur who is freshly divorced, is the only person who is unafraid of her.
Directed by Grégory Magne
France | French language with English Subtitles | DCP
Get Tickets: https://trustarts.org/production/78050
Mask Policy
All guests must wear a mask over the nose and mouth at all times while inside the Harris theater. Masks can be temporarily removed when a guest is eating and/or drinking while remaining in their seat at the Harris Theater. For complete information on health and safety policies of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, visit TrustArts.org/Welcome.
Diamantino, the world’s premiere soccer star, loses his special touch and ends his career in disgrace. Searching for a new purpose, the international icon sets out on a delirious odyssey where he confronts neo-fascism, the refugee crisis, genetic modification, and the hunt for the source of genius.
Directed by Gabriel Abrantes & Daniel Schmidt
Portugal, France, Brazil | Portuguese language with English Subtitles | DCP
Get Tickets Here: https://trustarts.org/production/78039
Mask Policy
All guests must wear a mask over the nose and mouth at all times while inside the Harris theater. Masks can be temporarily removed when a guest is eating and/or drinking while remaining in their seat at the Harris Theater. For complete information on health and safety policies of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, visit TrustArts.org/Welcome.
Monday, January 31
Cassie Quigley (Education) and Stephen Quigley (English) will launch their Finnish Nature Studies kiosk in Global Hub. The interactive kiosk plays a short trailer to their film project, "[Un]disciplining Environmental Education" and links audiences to their more recent work incorporating code and computer science education into traditional Finnish nature studies curriculum. Both projects examine how [un]disciplining environmental education can inform environmental policy. Various parts of this research have been funded by the European Studies Center, the University Center for International Studies, Pitt’s Year of Data and Society, and the Grable Foundation.
Please join us for a conversation with Andreas Voigt, director of Borderland/Grenzland as part of our Pittsburgh EU Film Festival 2022.
Audience participation is encouraged.
Portuguese conversation at all levels
Come join the German Club to practice your language skills and learn about German culture!
Three decades after making his first film about the region, one of the pivotal East German documentarians returns to the borderlands where the outer limits of Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic intersect. Voigt once again encounters a people with a porous cultural identity, where family histories are intertwined with an array of dialects and legacies.
Directed by Andreas Voigt
Germany | German language with English subtitles | DCP
Get Tickets: https://trustarts.org/production/78065
Mask Policy
All guests must wear a mask over the nose and mouth at all times while inside the Harris theater. Masks can be temporarily removed when a guest is eating and/or drinking while remaining in their seat at the Harris Theater. For complete information on health and safety policies of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, visit TrustArts.org/Welcome.