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.

This exhibit will take place from 12-3pm and 5-9pm on Saturday, April 1st. Opening remarks will begin at 7:30pm.

Marc Fogel-- a 61-year-old history teacher from Pennsylvania who taught in Moscow at the Anglo-American School-- was taken into custody by Russian authorities in August 2021 and sentenced to 14 years in prison for the possession of medical marijuana. 80 Pittsburgh creatives and counting have committed to "Making a Marc" to shed light on Fogel and other detainees. As hostage negotiations are ongoing amidst Russia's war against Ukraine, the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies invites the Pitt community to support this initiative by Pittsburgh's community of creatives. Artist Tom Mosser has been collaborating with Sasha Phillips, one of the Fogel family attorneys to make this day happen with the support of Marc's family.