Join Brazil Nuts in the Global Hub for weekly Bate-Papo Conversation Hours to meet other students and to practice Portuguese of all levels!
Bate-Papo Conversation Hours are every Monday during Spring semester, starting January 26 and ending April 20.
Hosted by Brazil Nuts
UPDATE: Bate-Papo's meeting on January 26 has been postponed due to weather.
Join the German Club for weekly meetings on Mondays in the Global Hub to practice German and share about German culture!
Hosted by the German Club
Join the Persian Table for a game night in the Global Hub!
In 2020, a wave of protests broke out in Thailand. Calling for political and royal reform, the youth-led movements challenged the status quo with open criticism of the monarchy and popular mobilization against the military-backed government. Among the masses of protesters, saffron robes became a distinct part of the movement as monks and novices, lovingly dubbed the "carrot gang", joined the rallies, raising a defiant slogan “Give Back Our Brows” to critique state and social interference into the code of monastic discipline. In doing so, the carrot gang made a case that political and monastic reform are inseparable, breaking with longstanding expectations that position monastics above the “polluted” realm of politics. This talk attends to the political participation and practices of these monastic youths, exploring the tension between institutional demands for obedience and emerging monastic political consciousness, the ways these young monastics resisted mechanisms of both religious and state control, and the state's response to their transgression of expected political neutrality. I argue that the activism undertaken by monastic youths is not an isolated moment of defiance but an instance of monastic ungovernability, the persistent forms of resistance that challenge state control over the sangha in Thailand. While the sangha has been subordinated under state control through legal and political mechanisms since the early twentieth century, there remains enduring political consciousness and spaces of disobedience within the sangha regarding questions of autonomy, status, and representation. By examining this youth activism as a form of monastic ungovernability, this talk demonstrates how the sangha has always been a contested site of political authority rather than a sphere insulated from political struggle. Such attention reveals a longer history of politically engaged Thai Buddhism that disrupts assumptions framing Buddhism as inherently apolitical and rigidly separating the worldly from the otherworldly.
Biography: Prakirati Satasut is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Thammasat University, where he specializes in anthropology of religion and Thai politics. He received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2019), where his dissertation examined monastic activism and state-sangha relations in post-coup Thailand. His research explores how Buddhism intersects with law, politics, and state power, with particular attention to questions of religious authority, political participation, and legal control of the sangha. As a 2025-2026 Visiting Scholar at the Harvard-Yenching Institute, he is conducting research on Buddhist protectionism in Thailand, tracing its historical development and analyzing its contemporary expressions through debates over monastic autonomy and whose responsibility it is to safeguard Buddhism, as well as through ethnographic fieldwork on monastic political mobilization.
Join us for our weekly Global Distinction Drop-In Hours on Tuesdays from 3-4 pm in the Global Hub! Come learn how to gain experience that will help prepare you for a globally-connected job market, get the Global Distinction added to your academic transcript, receive special recognition at graduation, and stand out to prospective employers.
Join the French Club on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 6-7 pm during Spring semester for conversational meetings and to practice French speaking and listening skills and create a francophone community on campus!
Hosted by the French Club
Join the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures for an information session about scholarship opportunities to support Pitt undergraduate students' study abroad at NTNU.
Join the French Club on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 6-7 pm during Spring semester for conversational meetings and to practice French speaking and listening skills and create a francophone community on campus!
Hosted by the French Club
Join the Arabic Club in the Global Hub every other Wednesday during Spring semester, starting January 28, to practice Arabic language, structured by varying geographic dialects and level of speaker proficiency!
Hosted by the Arabic Club
Join the Center for African Studies on Thursdays to practice conversational Swahili in a social environment.
Pitt students: Join Kya Baat Hai, a Hindi-Urdu conversational club that practices language and celebrates South Asian culture, for weekly conversation hours!
Black history? A bake off? What could be better!? Join us for Douglass Day at the University of Pittsburgh on Friday, February 13th from 12-4 PM in the Digital Scholarship Lab (Hillman Library G30). Douglass Day celebrates Frederick Douglass’s chosen birthday (Valentine’s Day) and represents an opportunity to discover and contribute to Black history by transcribing historical documents. This year, we will virtually join the national Douglass Day broadcast from and collaborate to transcribe material from the Colored Conventions Project!
All materials necessary for transcription will be provided by Pitt’s Douglass Day, though you are welcome to bring your own laptop!
If you wish to compete in the Douglass Day Bake Off, bring sweets to share or post a photo on social media using #DouglassDay! Ultimately, Douglass Day serves as a reminder that Black history is American history, so join us on February 13th to transcribe documents, learn about our history, and become part of it by participating in Douglass Day at Pitt!
For more information on Douglass Day or to participate virtually, visit douglassday.org
Join Pitt's Asian Studies Center in celebrating the Lunar New Year! We will welcome in the year of the Fire Horse with dumplings and a thematic craft! All are welcome and we hope to see you there!
