Elías Chavarría-Mora is a political science PhD candidate at the University of Pittsburgh, focusing on comparative political behavior. He has an MA from the same university and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Costa Rica. His dissertation focuses on the use of social media for electoral campaigning by political parties. Prior research has mostly focused on protest politics and party competition and has been published in Latin American, Spanish, and American journals.

Oxana Shevel
Associate Professor, Political Science
Tufts University

Discussion:

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine’s spirited and effective resistance caught many observers by surprise amidst expectations of Russia’s quick victory. This talk will focus on the profound identity transformation within the Ukrainian society that began following the Euromaidan revolution and the start of Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014. Examining sources and consequences of these identity shifts sheds light on the sources of Ukrainian resistance, the nature of Putin’s miscalculations about Ukraine, and the likely future of post-war Ukraine, Russia, and their relations with each other and with Europe.

Education
PhD in Political Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States, 2003
MPhil in International Relations, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 1994
BA in English and French Philology, Kyiv State University, Kyiv, Ukraine, 1992

Join the French Club for Spring 2023's weekly conversation hours, on both Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5-6:30 pm!

Note: French Conversation Hour will not meet in the Global Hub on Thursday, April 13.

Join the Spanish Club for Spring 2023's weekly conversation hours, on Wednesdays from 7-8 pm!

Join the Arabic Language and Culture Club for this weekly get-together and safe space for Arabic speakers to have a conversation and work on their language skills!

Mangia con noi! Bring your lunch and chat with us! Pitt students only, al levels welcome!

Join us for a conversation with Ezequiel Gonzalez-Ocantos (University of Oxford), Paula Muñoz (Universidad del Pacífico), Nara Pavão (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco), and Viviana Baraybar Hidalgo (University of Oxford) about their book Prosecutors, Voters, and the Criminalization of Corruption in Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2023). Hosted by Alisha Holland (Harvard University).

Join the French Club for Spring 2023's weekly conversation hours, on both Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5-6:30 pm!

Note: French Conversation Hour will not meet in the Global Hub on Thursday, April 13.

Join the Persian Club for weekly conversations on Thursdays at 8-9 pm during Spring 2023!

The West Coast Model European Union is an annual simulation of a European Council summit, bringing together undergraduate students from across the United States and Canada. Students, in teams of two, play the roles of representatives of European Union Member State delegations. Participants negotiate two issues of concern for the country holding the Presidency, Sweden (holding the presidency from January-June).

The University of Pittsburgh will send a team of students to this simulation.

The 2023 High School Japanese Speech Contest returns! Japanese language learners of all levels compete against other area students in the speech contest, and non-language students can compete in the poster contest. Each year over 80 students participate. There are speech levels and a poster session. Students are required to write a speech on the chosen topic for the speech contest or make a presentation for the poster session.

For over 20 years, the University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center and the Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania have hosted a speech contest event with local High Schools and Middle Schools with Japanese language classes where students can practice and utilize their language abilities. Pitt and CMU faculty assist in evaluating speeches and student groups help provide Japanese-related cultural activities.

Impact Beyond the Ivory Tower is the fourth panel of the Decolonization in Focus Series.

The Russian war in Ukraine has had innumerable impacts, from personal to political, local, national, and global. One of the many sea changes wrought by the war has been the reckoning within Slavic/Russian & Eurasian Studies over the outsized role Russia has played and continues to play in the field and what could and should be done about it. The invited panelists in this series will consider the relationships of power that have long dominated the region, how they have impacted the field of study, and what, if anything, could and should be done about it.

The series will have six wide-ranging panels featuring speakers from various disciplines and institutions. Panelists and participants will be encouraged to consider why decolonizing Russian & Eurasian studies matters, how to implement concrete change in their classrooms, and how to conceive of the future of expertise within the field. All sessions will be convened using Zoom, live-streamed via YouTube, and recorded to be made available for later viewing.

Drop-In Hours to learn more about getting the Global Distinction added to your academic transcript, receiving special recognition at graduation, and standing out to prospective employers!

Please join us for a lecture by Dr. Carla Nappi, Andrew W. Mellon Chair, Department of History, in which she discusses her book, "Translating Early Modern China: Illegible Cities". Nappi's book presents a significant new interpretation of the history of translation in China. If you wish to attend this lecture via Zoom, please register here.

Come and practice your Hungarian and meet others interested in the language! All levels welcome.

This working group will meet in person every three weeks for the 2022-2023 academic year to discuss new scholarship about Eurasian borderlands. Faculty, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates are welcome to join. No prior expertise in Eurasia is necessary.

Join Pitt’s National Consortium for Teaching About Asia (NCTA) and Global Studies Center at the Carnegie International art exhibition on March 9, 2023 from 5:00-9:00 p.m. for an innovative workshop for K-12 educators in which we will learn how artists from around the world process trauma through their art. This in-person evening program includes; admission to the exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art; dinner and an overview of the Carnegie International exhibition; a docent guided tour of six selected installations from the exhibition; and a round table discussion with area educators on art and social-emotional learning in the classroom. The program is free and will include Act 48 hours for area educators. Registration is limited. 

Join Brazil Nuts for their weekly Portuguese language conversation table during Spring semester, every Monday from 4:30-5:30 pm in the Global Hub!

For more information and the conference schedule, please go to https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/asc/china-in-revolution.

Join CLAS ambassadors to learn more about CLAS academic offerings and related programs.

Please join PittGlobal at a 10 Year Anniversary Celebration of the Sheth International Achievement Awards as we honor our 2022 winners:

• Dr. Nicole Constable, 2022 Sheth Distinguished Faculty Award for International Achievement winner
• Dr. Fatima Waziri-Azi, 2022 Sheth International Young Alumni Achievement Award winner

Join us in celebrating the accomplishments of these prestigious global leaders at an in-person awards ceremony.

Castilleja is a PhD candidate in Biological Sciences. She is an ecologist whose research focused on forest dynamics and biodiversity. She teaches a minor in her department and is getting a graduate certificate in Latin American Studies. Her work has been funded by Mellon, Gutierrez, and Aguirre fellowships at Pitt and by the Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowship for her tropical field work.

Come and practice your Hungarian and meet others interested in the language! All levels welcome.

Join the German Club for Spring 2023's weekly conversation hours, on Tuesdays from 6:30-7:30 pm!

UCIS presents a national scholarship alumni panel to offer unique perspectives on international scholarship experiences such as the Fulbright and Boren programs. Students will gain information on these global opportunities, receive application tips, and more!

Join the Portuguese Mini Series for the second session! All levels welcome. Prizes included!

For more information and a detailed schedule for this conference, please go to https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/asc/china-in-revolution.

Join the Center for African Studies and the Center for International Legal Education in welcoming Dr. Fatima Waziri-Azi for her lecture "Human Trafficking and the Nigerian Society." Lunch will be provided!

Registration: https://calendar.pitt.edu/event/lets_talk_africa_with_dr_fatima_waziri-a...

University of Pittsburgh School of Law alumna Dr. Fatima Waziri-Azi (JD ’11) was named the 2022 recipient of the Sheth International Young Alumni Achievement Award. Since graduating from Pitt Law, Waziri-Azi’s work in her home country of Nigeria has been dedicated to safeguarding the human rights of the marginalized, especially women and girls, and advocating for disadvantaged urban poor and rural communities in Nigeria by undertaking sustainable institutional reforms focused on people-centered access to justice.

TBD

From 1941 to 1945, Germany aged a war of extermination on the Soviet Union. This war produced many images: in propaganda posters, the opponents emphasised their own strength while at the same time defaming the enemy as the spawn of evil; both sides attempted to create trust virtually, encouraging the enemy's soldiers to defect. Konrad Tschäpe will show how these images of the other were entangled and communicated with each other- despite the destruction, violence, and war crimes committed.

Discussão do livro "A coleção adandozan do museu nacional". Evento em Português.

Join the French Club for Spring 2023's weekly conversation hours, on both Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5-6:30 pm!

Note: French Conversation Hour will not meet in the Global Hub on Thursday, April 13.

Join the Spanish Club for Spring 2023's weekly conversation hours, on Wednesdays from 7-8 pm!

Join the Arabic Language and Culture Club for this weekly get-together and safe space for Arabic speakers to have a conversation and work on their language skills!

Mangia con noi! Bring your lunch and chat with us! Pitt students only, al levels welcome!

The University Center for International Studies (UCIS), with funding from Pitt's Title VI National Resource Centers, has embarked on a four-year initiative to increase the number of LAC courses offered on campus. Join us to learn more about LAC and how you can combine your personal world language proficiency with your non-language teaching/research expertise and provide students with exciting opportunities to enhance their learning. Any faculty, administrators, and students who are interested in LAC courses are welcome.

In the fifth installment of the Global Issues Through Literature Series (GILS), educators will convene to discuss Daria: A Roma Women's Journey, a full graphic novel based on fieldwork conducted in Eastern Europe highlighting some of the issues that Roma women face everyday.

GILS is a reading group for K-16 educators to 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. This year’s theme is Graphic Novels in Global Context: Social Justice Through Illustration and Text. See registration for more information!

Dr. Sunnie Rucker-Chang is an Associate Professor who works, writes, and researches on the social construction of race and culture as it relates to privileged and marginalized communities in Central and Southeast Europe. In her research, Rucker-Chang focuses on how literature and film contribute to culture and nationalist identities, especially in the creation and maintenance of racialized communities in Southeast Europe. Her other research interests include émigré and exile literature and the application of post-colonial thought to post-socialist contexts. Her research has been funded by the American Association of University Women, Taft Research Center, and University Research Council.

She is Co-director and Co-PI of the Howard University Undergraduate Think Tank. This program addresses the issue of systemic racism and discrimination by supporting and promoting the advancement of students and scholars from underrepresented and underserved populations in the field of REEES.]Howard University Undergraduate Think Tank, a program that "addresses the issue of systemic racism and discrimination by supporting and promoting the advancement of students and scholars from underrepresented and underserved populations in the field of REEES." She is also Co-director of the University of Cincinnati STARTALK Russian language programs.

Join the French Club for Spring 2023's weekly conversation hours, on both Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5-6:30 pm!

Note: French Conversation Hour will not meet in the Global Hub on Thursday, April 13.

In this four-part weekend micro-course (spanning four semesters), we will examine the power of technology on humanity and its implications on social justice in four areas: governance, environment, education, and health. Please note that students do not need to complete all four parts and are welcome to participate in any and all micro-course offerings. The focus will be on the impact technology has on the future of schooling and work. This will include a discussion as to how technology can improve the efficiency and safety of the workforce through automation while also creating further divides between those who have educational access and those who do not. The effects of technology on education and the common language of the world, including how it impacts native languages and cultures, will also be discussed. This course requires a permission number that will be provided by contacting the instructor, Veronica Dristas, at dristas@pitt.edu.

This workshop session will share the World Historical Gazetteer website, its interactive features, and resources to show how to incorporate the study of place names into course curriculum. The World Historical Gazetteer is a digital project that shows how ideas about places are embedded in their names. Ideas and actions change names and meanings associated with them. This workshop will illustrate this concept by introducing new classroom technology. Workshop participants will learn about the inception of and rationale for the creation of the World Historical Gazetteer and its teaching page focused on topics related to Asian Studies. They will then be walked through the features of the website including the search function for historical place names and collections of place name data. Participants will be asked to engage with a new pilot feature, the self-authored collections, which will allow them to create their own custom map of places that are important to them. Participants will be invited to offer suggestions for place name searches and will also be invited to explore individual lesson plans and supporting materials on the website.

Syllabus Design and Critical Pedagogies in the Classroom: How Do We Teach Differently? is the fifth panel of the Decolonization in Focus Series.

The Russian war in Ukraine has had innumerable impacts, from the personal to the political, local, national and global. One of the many sea changes wrought by the war has been the reckoning within Slavic/Russian & Eurasian Studies over the outsized role Russia has played and continues to play in the field and what could and should be done about it. The invited panelists in this series will consider the relationships of power that have long dominated the region, how they have impacted the field of study, and what, if anything, could and should be done about it.

The series will consist of six wide-ranging panels featuring speakers from various disciplines and institutions. Panelists and participants will be encouraged to consider why decolonizing Russian & Eurasian studies matters, how to implement concrete change in their classrooms, and how to conceive of the future of expertise within the field. All sessions will be convened using Zoom, live-streamed via YouTube, and recorded to be made available for later viewing.

Are you looking to gain experience that will help prepare you for a globally-connected job market? Stop by Drop-In Hours to learn more about getting the Global Distinction added to your academic transcript, receiving special recognition at graduation, and standing out to prospective employers!

Soviet ideology treated religion as an enemy, a tool of oppression and an expression of backwardness. Militant atheism, the prohibition of religious rituals, and the repression of religious communities aimed to create a secular, rational, and scientific society. Yet, religion mattered in Soviet people’s lives. And with institutional religion restricted, many people expressed their spirituality through “lived religion” - the practice of religion and spirituality in everyday lives. What were the practices of lived religion in the context of state socialism? And how did it converge and diverge with the return of institutionalised religion and spiritual lift after the collapse of communism? REEES Spring 2023 Series, Religion in (Post-Socialism) Societies, will explore the role of religion in socialist and post-socialist societies in eight online discussions on religion and its relations to repression, nation-building, indigenous cultures, and memory.

This is a part of REEES’s Spring 2023 lecture series.

Join the Hindustani Club for weekly conversations on Fridays at 5:30-6:30 pm!

The Spring Festival of the Egg is a family oriented event welcoming the coming of Spring in many ethnic traditions as featured by members and friends of the Nationality and Heritage Room Committees at the University of Pittsburgh. Activities include: Egg Decorating, Palm Weaving Demonstrations, The Festival Of Colors, Spring & Easter Customs, Special Children's Egg Decorating, Easter & Springtime Coloring Pages, Jelly Bean Guess, Egg Festival Marketplace and more.

This event is eligible for Outside of the Classroom Curriculum Credit for Pitt Students. Please refer to https://www.studentaffairs.pitt.edu/occ/how-to-complete-the-occ/.

Aesthetic Capitalism: a mode of capitalism that rested on, and was fueled by, creating and appealing to sensory and emotional experience. In analyzing aesthetics as a social process, rather than a design feature of commodities, this talk explores how aesthetic capitalism emerged and ow it altered people's aesthetic experience in the United States and Japan from the 1870s to 1940s.

Join Brazil Nuts for their weekly Portuguese language conversation table during Spring semester, every Monday from 4:30-5:30 pm in the Global Hub!

Join CLAS ambassadors to learn more about CLAS academic offerings and related programs.

Come see undergraduate student Juliana Geyer present and defend her thesis, which examines the limits of hegemony through the context the United States’ failure to change international physical integrity norms during the War on Terror. It provides possible explanations for US failure and comments on the resistance of the international human rights regime as well as the limits of hegemonic power that this case study uncovers!

As North and Central America increasingly experience climate change and disasters (fires, hurricanes, drought, rising waters from the Great Lakes and Atlantic Ocean), the US has come to realize what our European colleagues have been experiencing as they have been at the forefront of the accelerating trend of global displacement related to climate change. The pre-covid years of 2015-2016 saw the highest peak of immigration into Europe. Last year President Biden signed an executive order 14013 “Rebuilding and Enhancing programs to resettle refugees and planning for the impact of climate change on migration”. With the release of the report, it was the first time the U.S. Government officially reported on the link between climate change and migration. While no nation offers asylum to climate migrants, the UN High Commission on Human Rights has published legal guidelines for offering protection to people displaced by the effects of global warming. Additionally, several of the 169 targets established by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) lay out general goals that could be used to protect climate migrants. The panel will be an informal discuss of how Europe’s experience with climate change and migrants can inform the United States.

The organizer and moderator of the Panel is Mary Rauktis, School of Social Work, University of Pittsburgh

The Panel members are:

Carla Malafaia, University of Porto, Portugal,

Cosmin Nada, University of Porto, Portugal,

Sheila Velez Martinez, School of Law, University of Pittsburgh

What is disrupted through the process of destruction? What space is reconstructed when the rubble of destruction is destroyed? And how do the communities conceptualize and experience the rubble of destruction and reconstruction of religious sites and sacred objects in their everyday life? This talk will establish a dialogue with these questions by exploring how destruction and government-led tourist-centric reconstruction of Buddhists' religious spaces (bihars) have affected the religious practices and social relationships of Buddhist communities in Ramu, a town of a Muslim-majority country, Bangladesh. It will reveal what relation violence against sacred sites bears to violence against the people who built, inhabited, or identified with that sacred space.

Come and practice your Hungarian and meet others interested in the language! All levels welcome.

Join the German Club for Spring 2023's weekly conversation hours, on Tuesdays from 6:30-7:30 pm!

Mesa-redonda: A diversidade linguístico-cultural no mundo lusófono / "Cultural Linguistic Diversity in the Lusophone World". Virtual roundtable with Kaio Carvalho Camona (Universidade Agostinho Neto - Angola), Gustavo Cerqueira Guimarães (Universidade Eduardo Mondlane - Moçambique), and Camila Oliveira Macêdo (Universidade de São José - Macau-China). Moderated by Ana Paula Carvalho (Portuguese Program Coordinator, University of Pittsburgh) and Naiara Sales Araújo Santos (Leitora do Instituto Guimarães Rosa, University of Pittsburgh). Event will be held in Portuguese.

This event has been canceled.

Radical populism represents the greatest challenge to liberal democracy across Europe. The emergence of this
phenomenon has impacted both established democracies, such as the United Kingdom when we think of Brexit, and new
democracies, such as Hungary and Poland. Populist actors have also played a role in the COVID pandemic and in the
context of Russia's war on Ukraine, as they mobilize people against mainstream policies that attempt to manage these
crises. Despite the general importance of populism as a political phenomenon, including at the EU level, its history and
impact vary widely across Europe. It is important to understand the specific causes and effects of the success of populism,
because not all forms of political radicalism or authoritarianism are populist. The talk will address these questions and
show that populism is closely related to the decline in legitimacy of established institutions and traditional elites in times
of social and economic change. Drawing especially on the case of Austria, where radical populism has been long
established, the lecture and discussion will provide an overview of this phenomenon and the state of political science
research.

The Orphanage, which screened at the "Director's Fortnight at Cannes" (2019), follows 15-year-old Qodrat (Qodratollah Qadiri), who at the beginning of the movie lives on the streets of 1989 Kabul and gets by on scalping cinema tickets and peddling key rings. After being picked up from the streets he is sent to the Soviet operated juvenile detention center known as "the orphanage," where he daydreams of action-packed Bollywood heroics as the Soviets maintain control and the Mujahideen fight to take back their land.

A Q&A with director Shahrbanoo Sadat will follow the screening.

Join the French Club for Spring 2023's weekly conversation hours, on both Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5-6:30 pm!

Note: French Conversation Hour will not meet in the Global Hub on Thursday, April 13.

Join the Spanish Club for Spring 2023's weekly conversation hours, on Wednesdays from 7-8 pm!

Join the Arabic Language and Culture Club for this weekly get-together and safe space for Arabic speakers to have a conversation and work on their language skills!

Mangia con noi! Bring your lunch and chat with us! Pitt students only, al levels welcome!

Congratulations to the Fall 2022 Concurso de Escritura Panoramas winners! Join Panoramas as we celebrate these students' work: Ronald Rohlsen - "Entendiendo a los partidarios de Pinochet", Reagan Russel - "El aceso inadecuado al agua potable y sistemas de saneamiento en Honduras", Isabel Sichlau - "Haciendo la sostenibilidad sostenible".

Description: Join the French Club for Spring 2023's weekly conversation hours, on both Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5-6:30 pm!

Note: French Conversation Hour will not meet in the Global Hub on Thursday, April 13.

Free screening and open to the public. A crime-thriller about judicial cover-ups and corruption in Argentina, told through flashbacks. Pizza provided!

Join the Persian Club for bi-weekly conversations on Thursdays at 8-9 pm during Spring 2023!

Try out the Afro-Brazilian martial art with a workshop led by the Capoeira Association of Pittsburgh!

Are you looking to gain experience that will help prepare you for a globally-connected job market? Stop by Drop-In Hours to learn more about getting the Global Distinction added to your academic transcript, receiving special recognition at graduation, and standing out to prospective employers!

A conversation with renowned Brazilian Poet Salgado Maranhão.

Woman on the Roof is an incisive critique of womanhood in Poland that resonates with global audiences. At 60 years old, Mirka is struggling to find direction as she enters her twilight years. She stages a sudden act of defiance – an attempted bank robbery. Mirka’s journey through cold state bureaucracies uncover a world where she struggles to belong. Woman on the Roof offers insights on an increasingly alienating world. What happens in our twilight years and how do we navigate it? How do our own positions in the world shape the ways in which we grow old?

This annual national competition provides US high school, middle school, and college students the opportunity to demonstrate their Russian language knowledge while meeting with other students of Russian and conversing with native Russian speakers. Students will receive recognition for their demonstrated language proficiency, improve their chances of getting international and study abroad scholarships, and enhance their professional resume.

Saturday, March 25, 2023 | In-Person

Participation
All students participating in the Olympiada of Spoken Russian must have a sponsor, who will register the student in advance of the event and chaperone the student at the event.

Registration Deadline: Monday, February 20, 2023
To register your school, please complete the school registration form, and please use the student registration form to enter your students in the competition.

Questions?
Olga Klimova | vok1@pitt.edu

Join the members of the Romanian Nationality Room Committee in a celebration of World Poetry Day!

REGISTER FOR LIMITED SEATING: pi.tt/nriep-world-poetry-day

FEATURED PERFORMERS:

Cristana A. Bejan-- Award-winning Romanian-American historian, theatre artist, and poet

Prof. Dr. Marius Leordeanu-- Professor at Politehnica University of Bucharest, Research Scientist at Institute of Mathematics

Laura Bianca-- Romanian-American singer and songwriter

Mircea F. Lupu-- Romanian-American guitarist

LIGHTREFRESHMENTSAND RECEPTION TO FOLLOW with the Romanian Nationality Room Committee.

PARKING AVAILABLE AT Soldiers and Sailors Parking Garage: 4390 BigelowBlvd., Pittsburgh, PA15213

Within the first 100 years following the fall of Constantinople, many of the teachers of the geography inside which Greek people lived, fled to the west, north, and east. Greece was largely orphaned of education opportunities. Together with the church clergy, the cadre of the few remaining teachers began the monumental task of rebuilding the education of the Greek people. By the start of the Revolution, this cadre of the Teachers of the People swelled to more than 1000 lesser-known educators-heroes whose role in the Greek peoples? struggle for Independence is just beginning to be discovered.

Join us to commemorate the lesser-known Teachers of the People:

MARCH 25, 2023 | 7 P.M. "The Lesser-Known Teachers of t he People: An Introduction and a Reflection for Modern Times"

MARCH 26, 2023 | 7 P.M. "The Awakening of Hellenic National Identity and the Education of the Greek Nation"

March 27, 2023 | 7 P.M. "Chrysostom Tsiter of Austria: Unveiling Three Great Teachers of the Greek People - Anastasios Gordios, Chrysanthos Aitolos, and Fragkiskos Kokkos"

March 28, 2023 | 7 P.M. "Epistemiologic Mythology and the "Legend" of the Hidden School: The Examples in Attica"

March 29, 2023 | 9 P.M. "A Musical Tetraodeon to the Kollyvades Fathers as Teachers of the Greek People"

Come and see BPhil Candidate Tobin Richter present and defend his thesis. Tobin interprets the novels One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel García Márquez 1967) and The Old Drift (Namwali Serpell 2019) as decolonial texts which call for the dismantling of the cultural, political, and economic inequalities created by colonialism, which continue to relegate the Global South to a subordinate position in the modern world. He focusses on cultural decolonization which he defines as a practice of rejecting Eurocentric and racist interpretations of the history of the Global South and its people, asserting the value of histories, traditions, and forms of expression devalued by the Global North, and theorizing what an equitable world could look like. To show how this definition operates in the two novels, he reads them through the theories of decolonial thinkers like Aníbal Quijano and Ngugi wa Thiong'o. This research examines literature's role in contesting hegemonic narratives and imagining alternatives to dominant social, political and economic models.

Dr. Ivo Rollis is a Visiting Scholar from Latvia in Political Science. He is funded by the Baltic-American Freedom Foundation Fellowship Program.

Dr. Ivo Rollis worked in a senior management position at the European Integration Bureau during the peak of Latvia’s accession to the European Union (1999–2004). After Latvia’s accession to the European Union, as a public sector consultant he supported the governments in the Western Balkans and European Neighborhood Policy countries on European integration and public administration reform issues in the European Union, World Bank, United Nations Development Program and the European Union member states bilaterally funded technical assistance support projects. Currently, he is a Council Member of the lead Center for Public Policy “PROVIDUS” in Latvia where he supports the dialogue with the government on public administration efficiency, modernization and crisis resilience issues.

The Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership invites you to attend a celebration in honor of Dr. Kakenya Ntaiya in recognition of her exemplary work and advocacy to support women and girls in Kenya and around the world. Ntaiya is the founder of the Kakenya Center for Excellence (KCE) with the mission to educate girls and end harmful traditional practices including FGM and child marriage.

Ntaiya earned her PhD in education from the University of Pittsburgh. She is the recipient of many awards and accolades, in 2013 she received the University of Pittsburgh's prestigious Sheth International Achievement Award, given to young alumni for their contributions around the world. She was honored with the Global Women’s Right Award from the Feminist Majority Foundation, was recognized by Women in the World as a “Woman of Impact,” and named a CNN Hero. Kakenya was honored with a Vital Voices Global Leadership award in 2008 and as a National Geographic Emerging Explorer in 2010. She was named as one of Newsweek’s “150 Women Who Shake the World” in 2011, and was counted among the Women Deliver 100: The Most Inspiring People Delivering for Girls and Women. Learn more at kakenyasdream.org

Join Brazil Nuts for their weekly Portuguese language conversation table during Spring semester, every Monday from 4:30-5:30 pm in the Global Hub!

Small welcome reception for scholars, educators & students as broadly conceived writers

Join CLAS ambassadors to learn more about CLAS academic offerings and related programs.

Come and practice your Hungarian and meet others interested in the language! All levels welcome.

Join two Pitt alumnae for a student-moderated discussion about their journeys from undergraduates to their work in Pittsburgh and Kenya. During this gathering in the Global Hub, you will hear from Founder and CEO of Kakenya's Dream, and 2023 Exemplary Leader award recipient Kakenya Ntaiya, and from Pitt alumna and Executive Director of Alliance for Refugee Youth Support and Education (ARYSE) Jenna Baron, about how these women's time at Pitt shaped their professional journeys. As we share a lite bite together, you will learn more about important skills for inspiring the next generation of changemakers and how Pitt can help you get there.

Register here: https://pitt.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_71FZ2nySjZoVzVk

Compensation, the first feature by award-winning filmmaker Zeinabu irene Davis (Cycles and A Powerful Thang), presents two unique African-American love stories between a deaf woman and a hearing man. Inspired by a poem written by Paul Laurence Dunbar, this moving narrative shares their struggle to overcome racism, disability and discrimination. An important film on African-American deaf culture, Davis innovatively incorporates silent film techniques (such as title cards and vintage photos) to make the piece accessible to hearing and deaf viewers alike, and to share the vast possibilities of language and communication.

An ASL interpreter will be present at the event and there will be a Q&A/discussion with director Zeinabu irene Davis and screenwriter Marc Chery after the film (moderated by Professor Liz Reich). Refreshments provided!

Want to learn about fan cultures of East Asia? Interested in the online culture of k-pop fans? What is Otaku and how does it help define Japanese fandom? This semester's lecture series will explore the fan cultures of East Asia and their influence on contemporary fan cultures across the world. In this lecture, Dr. Jade Kim, Texas A&M International University, will discuss K-Pop online fan culture.

Join the German Club for Spring 2023's weekly conversation hours, on Tuesdays from 6:30-7:30 pm!

Join the African Languages Student Association for their March Meeting.

As the European Studies Center welcomes high school students for this event, the Global Hub will serve as a space to welcome these students to the University of Pittsburgh, and to allow them to learn more about international and global opportunities at Pitt and interact with Pitt students. The award announcements will take place in the Global Hub starting at 11:30 am.

Welcome, high schoolers, and Pitt students, please stop by to say hello!

The Euro Challenge is a competition for high school students on European economic and monetary policy. It gives participants the opportunity to learn about the Euro, the single market, and other important concepts central to the European Union and macro/microeconomics.

Daniela Fargione, Fulbright Fellow from Italy and Associate Professor of American Literature, University of Turin, Italy.

We are living at the cusp of extinction, an impending event marked by a baffling paradox: while it has mass-death proportions, it prodigiously escapes our gaze. In the backdrop of this dramatic (and seemingly invisible) contraction of bio- and cultural diversity, a whole repertoire of well-intended, even passionate narratives resort to the conventions of elegy and tragedy to foster a restoration ecology (Heise 2010). Not only do these narratives amplify the urgency to tell stories that imagine human rebirth, but they also imply potential escapes from loss and death. This complacent anthropocentric standpoint urgently calls for a reconfiguration of the ontological “exceptionality” of the human and solicits alternative, more inclusive perspectives. As a consequence, the traditional approaches to the humanities need to be reconsidered as well, including the questions that we ask about ourselves and the ways in which we explore the world to find adequate answers. What emerges is the need to rely on a novel interdisciplinarity, where scientific disciplines are in dialogue with the humanities in new and exciting ways.

Reception to Follow.

TBD

Description: Join the French Club for Spring 2023's weekly conversation hours, on both Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5-6:30 pm!

Note: French Conversation Hour will not meet in the Global Hub on Thursday, April 13.

Join the Spanish Club for Spring 2023's weekly conversation hours, on Wednesdays from 7-8 pm!

Join the Arabic Language and Culture Club for this weekly get-together and safe space for Arabic speakers to have a conversation and work on their language skills!

SUNYMEU is a simulation of the end of the six-month presidency of the Council. SUNYMEU simulates the agreement of Council Conclusions, which in the EU serves to guide the EU institutions (the Commission, the Council, and the European Parliament) over the next several months. SUNYMEU 2023 simulates the Swedish Presidency (January-June 2023). SUNYMEU is open to all undergraduate and graduate students from anywhere in the world.

The University of Pittsburgh will send a team of students to this simulation.

This working group will meet in person every three weeks for the 2022-2023 academic year to discuss new scholarship about Eurasian borderlands. Faculty, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates are welcome to join. No prior expertise in Eurasia is necessary.

Mangia con noi! Bring your lunch and chat with us! Pitt students only, al levels welcome!

Soviet ideology treated religion as an enemy, a tool of oppression and an expression of backwardness. Militant atheism, the prohibition of religious rituals, and the repression of religious communities aimed to create a secular, rational, and scientific society. Yet, religion mattered in Soviet people’s lives. And with institutional religion restricted, many people expressed their spirituality through “lived religion” - the practice of religion and spirituality in everyday lives. What were the practices of lived religion in the context of state socialism? And how did it converge and diverge with the return of institutionalised religion and spiritual lift after the collapse of communism? REEES Spring 2023 Series, Religion in (Post-Socialism) Societies, will explore the role of religion in socialist and post-socialist societies in eight online discussions on religion and its relations to repression, nation-building, indigenous cultures, and memory.

This is a part of REEES’s Spring 2023 lecture series.

APEC is an integral piece of the Biden Administration's Indo-Pacific Strategy. In this presentation, U.S. Senior Official for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APCE) Matt Murray will unpack why APEC emerged, how it works, what it has achieved, and what the U.S. as host economy aims to prioritize this year.

Description: Join the French Club for Spring 2023's weekly conversation hours, on both Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5-6:30 pm!

Note: French Conversation Hour will not meet in the Global Hub on Thursday, April 13.

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.

After the initial submission of papers, selected participants are grouped into panels according to their research topics. The participants then give 10- to 15-minute presentations based on their research to a panel of faculty and graduate students. The presentations are open to the public.

For more information and to apply, please visit: https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/creees/urs.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: January 8, 2023
Limited travel grants are available to help defray travel expenses for accepted participants located outside of the Pittsburgh region.

SYMPOSIUM: March 31, 2023

Come and see BPhil candidate Jasmine Al Rasheed as she presents and defends her thesis. Jasmine explored the impact of intersectional identity in employment experiences of global, female Muslim migrant communities. She conducted a case study in Pittsburgh, interviewing members of the community and compared her findings with research done in the EU. Her research examines gender and religious identity in migrant communities.

The Future of SEEES Expertise: How Can We Anticipate Tomorrow’s Differences? is the sixth and the last panel of the Decolonization in Focus Series.

The Russian war in Ukraine has had innumerable impacts, from personal to political, local, national, and global. One of the many sea changes wrought by the war has been the reckoning within Slavic/Russian & Eurasian Studies over the outsized role Russia has played and continues to play in the field and what could and should be done about it. The invited panelists in this series will consider the relationships of power that have long dominated the region, how they have impacted the field of study, and what, if anything, could and should be done about it.

The series has six wide-ranging panels featuring speakers from various disciplines and institutions. Panelists and participants will be encouraged to consider why decolonizing Russian & Eurasian studies matters, how to implement concrete change in their classrooms, and how to conceive of the future of expertise within the field. All sessions will be convened using Zoom, live-streamed via YouTube, and recorded to be made available for later viewing.

Jain faith and practice has flourished for more than 2800 years in the midst of a host of different faiths. Haribhadra Virahanka (6th century C.E.) provided a template for what in modern times is called interfaith understanding: acknowledge differences and find commonalities. In his text known as the Yogabindu, he identified karma, yoga, worship (puja), and mantra as practices common to all India's faiths. He also noted and explained religious differences, particularly in regard to notions of soul and self. In this presentation, Dr. Christopher Chapple, Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology and founding Director of the Master of Arts in Yoga Studies at Loyola Marymount University, will explore how his method might inform the contemporary academic discipline of Religious Studies.

Registration is not required for in-person attendance at this lecture. To attend this lecture remotely via Zoom, please register here.