For just $1.00 a cup, sip on tea prepared using a traditional Samovar, and take a crack at some Russian trivia.

Victoria will discuss sustainable development perspectives as a leading expert with years of experience of fieldwork in her home country of Uganda. She has been a journalist, high-ranking government official, and development worker. Through all her roles, her focus has always been on making her community a safer, healthier, more educated, and brighter place. She founded Bright Kid’s Uganda, a children’s home, in 2000 with the mission to rescue vulnerable and economically disadvantaged children from the dire circumstances in which they are currently living, by providing housing, their necessities, and education. The hope is that these children will have a chance to fully recognize their potential and empower them to become leaders and productive members of their community.

The presentation will be followed by a Round Table Discussion hosted by Victoria for students interested in travelling to Uganda to participate in the field based learning, research and internship program over the summer. Victoria will discuss Bright Kids Uganda and other affiliated organizations that students can select for internship opportunities. The roundtable will be a great forum for students to ask questions and discuss logistics and opportunities. Victoria will outline areas of need within her organizations and those affiliated, as well as listen to student’s areas of interest to create personalized internships. Several students who have participated in the field based learning and internship program in Uganda will be present to engage with the discussions and share their own personal stories. This will be a wonderful opportunity for students to meet Victoria and learn as much as possible about the experience of living and working in Uganda!

Meet and chat with a leading expert in the field of sustainable development in Uganda, Dr. Victoria Nalongo Namusisi. Victoria has worked as a journalist, government official and development worker over the last 20 years. She founded Bright Kids Uganda, a children's home that has provided for hundreds of children since 2000. This Round Table Discussion follows her lecture, and offers students the chance to network with Victoria and learn more about internship opportunities, tips for studying abroad in Uganda, scholarships, and more.

Contributing to the Global conversation?

Join our information session to learn about our two undergraduate - Global Studies & Global Health - certificate programs! *Food and giveaways provided.

Environmental defenders are under increasing attack throughout the world, including in the Unites States and in the former Soviet Union. Administrative and criminal legal charges, bureaucratic obstacles, and physical threats are just some of the risks environmental defenders face on a regular basis, and with increasing frequency and intensity. This event brings Pitt students together with environmental defenders from the United States, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Russia to discuss the global impact of hydrocarbon development, challenges to human rights, and strategies to build a stronger international environmental movement.

Speakers:

DAVID “BROOK” LENKER is the Executive Director of the FracTracker Alliance and based in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. He oversees the strategic programmatic, operational, and fundraising activities of FracTracker and works with the board of directors to assure a well-managed, fiscally-sound organization. Previously, Brook served as Manager of Education and Outreach for the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and as Director of Watershed Stewardship for the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. He holds a Master of Arts degree in Geography and Environmental Planning from Towson University. Outside of work, Brook enjoys writing, gardening, and exploring outdoors – afoot, underwater, or by canoe or sailboat.

Dr. VADIM NI is the Chair of ECOFORUM of NGOs of Kazakhstan, a national network of environmental nongovernmental organizations. He has held this position since 2014, when he was elected by the members of the Ecoforum. He is one of Kazakhstan’s leading experts on environmental law, and, in particular, the Aarhus Convention, for which he served as a member of the Compliance Committee from October 2002 till June 2011. Vadim is currently a member of the Compliance Committee of the UNECE Water and Health Protocol, having been nominated by the Swiss Government. Vadim’s professional experience includes more than 20 years of work in the area of environmental protection. He began working as an environmental legal expert in 1997, while still carrying out legal studies. He worked as a freelance legal consultant for UNECE, UNDP, UNESCO, USAID, OSCE, World Bank, EBRD, OECD, Ministry of Environmental Protection of Kazakhstan. He also worked as an international consultant in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. His main areas of professional experience are environmental, climate change and water law. In close cooperation with Kazakhstan’s public administration, Vadim has drafted legislation, including chapters on river basin management of the Water Code and the chapters of Environmental Code on emission trading scheme, climate adaptation and public participation in Kazakhstan and many secondary regulations. Vadim participated as co-author in preparation of numerous guidance documents on the Aarhus Convention, national environmental law, basin water management, ecotourism, including Russian proofreading of the second edition of the Aarhus Convention Implementation Guide (UNECE, 2015) and preparation of the Aarhus Centres Guidelines (Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities, OSCE Secretariat, 2009). Vadim has written many articles on environmental, water and climate law, including for the European Journal of Environmental Planning Law, Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, and the Library of the Supreme Court of Kazakhstan. Vadim holds a law degree and another in chemistry. He is fluent in English and is a native Russian speaker.

ANDREY RUDOMAKHA is the founder and coordinator of Environmental Watch on the North Caucasus, an environmental nongovernmental organization based in Krasnodar Krai, Russia. Andrey has been a member of the Russian environmental movement for over thirty years and is respected leader of the movement, particularly for his work monitoring environmental violations in the North Caucasus region since the early 1990s. Andrey led the project to hold accountable the Russian government and the International Olympic Committee for violations associated with construction and preparation for the 2014 Sochi Olympics, which destroyed pristine forest and wetlands. He has also led EWNC’s efforts to stop land grabbing and construction of luxury properties on the Black Sea coast in Russia, including properties belonging to President Putin, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the former Governor of Krasnodar Krai. Andrey has been harassed, physically attacked, accused of libel, and arrested numerous times for his steadfast protection of the environment. Environmental Watch on the North Caucasus was founded in 1997. Its mission is to protect the wild nature of the Northern Caucasus, including the living environments of the Black and Caspian seas and the mountain ecosystems of the Caucasus republics.

SERGEY SOLYANIK is a consultant to Crude Accountability since 2009, and is responsible for the organization’s activities in Kazakhstan. He has been an active participant in Kazakhstan’s environmental movement since 1990. For nearly twenty years he worked at the Ecological Society Green Salvation, one of the oldest and most respected public environmental organizations in the country. Sergey has a degree in electrical engineering and a Masters in Environmental Politics from Keele University in the UK, which he studied under a Chevening Scholarship granted by the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In 2001, Sergey participated in the US government sponsored “Contemporary Issues Program,” through which he conducted research on the interactions between American non-governmental organizations and transnational corporations. Sergey’s interests include protecting the human right to a healthy environment, and monitoring and influencing the activities of transnational corporations and international financial institutions operating in Kazakhstan and throughout Central Asia. Sergey speaks Russian and English.

KATE WATTERS is the co-founder and executive director of Crude Accountability, an environmental and human rights nonprofit organization working with natural resource impacted communities in the Caspian and Black Sea regions since 2003. Kate oversees the management and development of the organization and works closely with the board of directors and staff to build sustainable and effective programs and campaigns. She also works closely with activists in affected communities to develop strategies and campaigns to protect environmental and human rights on the local, national, and international levels. She has worked with human rights and environmental defenders in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Russia since the early 1990s, has lived in and traveled extensively throughout the region, and speaks fluent Russian. She is the author of numerous reports and articles on civil society in Central Asia and the Caspian region and has been interviewed for print media, radio, and television about environment, oil and gas, and human rights in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Russia. Kate holds an MA in Russian Area Studies from Georgetown University and a BA in Russian literature from UMASS-Amherst.

In 1619, a ship carrying 20-some enslaved Africans arrived in British North America. In commemoration of the 400th anniversary of that history-shaping event, the Department of Africana Studies and the Global Studies Center will host Conversations on 1619. Too many Americans are ignorant or ill-informed about the history of slavery and enslavement, and there are too few opportunities to have frank conversations about it. Events, aimed at Pitt undergrads but open to all members of the Pitt community, provide a space for informed, moderated discussion of topics related to slavery, whiteness, racism, and the making of our country.

Global Citizen Lab is a student organization aiming at bridging students from different cultural backgrounds, and bringing global, inclusive perspectives towards social and political issues through multifaceted observation and civic engagement.

We are also dedicated to maintaining an intellectual, inclusive platform for cultural exchange and social interactions among students of all backgrounds, connecting US students with international students via cultural exchange to create a more inclusive and open-minded campus.

Information Session for graduates and undergraduates about Nationality Rooms Summer Study Abroad Opportunities.

Register here:
http://www.nationalityrooms.pitt.edu/content/register-scholarship-inform...

For just $1.00 a cup, sip on tea prepared using a traditional Samovar, and take a crack at some Russian trivia.

Interested in studying abroad in London? Join us at the Pitt Global Hub to learn about the Pitt in London and the Global Business Institute: London programs!

El ciervo encantado presents

Departures: Performance, Displacement, and Bodies in Post-Soviet Cuba

Performance: Departures
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
12:00 – 1:15 pm
Wesley W. Posvar Hall 4130
“Departures” is a performance that deals with Cuban diaspora from 1959 to the present. It goes through each of the best-known migration crisis (i.e. 1980, 1994, etc.), and beyond, exploring this unceasing phenomenon that continues to occur today. Migration (forced or voluntary) has fragmented families, couples, friendships, communities, and because its all-encompassing nature,
has become a unifying element of Cuban identity. From the personal experience of actor Mariela Brito, her friends and family, interconnected with the personal stories of the audience, “Departures” seeks to be an act of reconciliation from a balanced approach to the events that have drastically changed the lives of so many, for good and bad. Taking the Cuban experience as a departure, this performance piece calls attention to a problem with global ramifications, at a moment of acute migration crisis and desperate flight of large groups from their geopolitical realities.
Director: Nelda Castillo
Actor: Mariela Brito

Conference: Performance Art in Post-Soviet Cuba
Thursday, October 24, 2019
4:00 - 5:15 pm
306 Cathedral of Learning
Cuban performance troupe El ciervo encantado will be discussing the implications of producing performance art in Cuba today.
Reflecting on their trajectory of over 20 years of experience, two members of this group, namely director Nelda Castillo and actor Mariela Brito, will address their public intervention as an act of solidarity with Havana's LGBT parade in May 2019. Their intervention was surveilled by the police and challenged by cultural officials. Delivered in Spanish, this talk will shed critical light on the pitfalls of communism and the challenges of artistic freedom in Post-Soviet Cuba.

Event Sponsors: Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures, Center for Latin American Studies, Honors College, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Office of Diversity & Inclusion

Pamela Ohene-Nyako Afrolitt’ is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of General History at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. Her dissertation explores Black-European women’s transnational activism between 1968 and 2001. Pamela is also the founder of Afrolitt,’ a bilingual platform that uses literature from sub-Saharan Africa and its Black diaspora as a tool enabling critical knowledge and sharing. Its activities take place in Lausanne, Geneva and Accra. They range from reading groups to events around literature, as well as a blog and a web series.

1989 doesn’t usually resonate in the chronology of significant anti-apartheid activism. Yet, that year saw the rise to power of FW de Klerk in South Africa and progress (albeit halting) towards the release of Nelson Mandela and other activists of the liberation struggle from prison, the unbanning of political organizations, and the negotiated dismantling of the apartheid state.

That trajectory, however, was a contested one with an ongoing state of emergency throughout the country, numerous acts of violence, and Winnie Mandela faced organizational exile from the United Democratic Front over allegations of violence by her supporters. This talk will explore these and other themes.

Join Michael Walter, Nationality Rooms Tour Coordinator and Quo Vadis advisor, in the third installment of this workshop series featuring art materials used in the design and decoration of the Nationality Rooms. In this workshop, we will be talking about weaving and participants will have the opportunity to try their hand at weaving a bookmark on a loom.

How can theater bring us closer to the issues at the center of Global Studies? Theater requires us to have an embodied encounter with the characters we are playing and the worlds they inhabit. It challenges the limits of our empathy and understanding while engaging us in a process of creative world-building that encourages us to imagine the world differently (in both utopian and dystopian ways). In this series, we will invite participants to pick up a script and try their hand at playing different characters in plays from around the world. You don’t have to have any experience in theater or Global Studies, and you don’t have to prepare anything. Just bring your sense of fun and imagination. After the play, there will be a brief discussion of the issues it raised as they relate to Global Studies.

Join us for Manjula Padmanabhan's Harvest.

Harvest is the story of an Indian family in the near future doing anything they can to stay alive. Om sells his body for parts. His wife Jaya suppresses her own desires to play the good Indian wife. His brother Jeetu prostitutes himself. But nothing can prepare them for the experience of having their home invaded by the holographic presence of Ginny, the western woman who buys Om’s body to upgrade her own. A natural extension of the black market buying and selling of organs, Harvest imagines the logical conclusion of a world of extreme income inequality, where people live in such desperate poverty that they will sell anything for their next meal.

Improve your Polish, meet other Polish students, prepare for oral exams and learn more about Polish culture!

The Office of the Provost and Pitt Global cordially invite you to a launch party for the Pitt Global Distinction on Thursday, October 24, 2019 at the Pitt Global Hub in Wesley W. Posvar Galleria. All are welcome to join the launch party to learn more about the Global Distinction.

Pitt has recently announced a new class of credential for students called a “distinction.” Distinctions incorporate a curated, synergistic combination of curricular, co-curricular, and experiential learning activities that support a student’s growth and development in particular cross-cutting target areas. Our first offering is the Global Distinction.

Please RSVP via the following link by Monday, October 21: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/74989691185

We look forward to seeing you at the launch party.

Panelists
Dr. Matthew Johnson, Principal, AltaSilva LLC and Associate Fellow, Global Diplomatic Forum
Jonas Parello-Plesner, Executive Director, Alliance of Democracies, Copenhagen and non-resident Senior Fellow, German Marshall Fund
Michelle DeMoor, Senior Trade Advisor, Delegation of the European Union to the U.S.
Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard, Executive Director, Mr. & Mrs. S.H. Wong Center for the Study ofMultinational Corporations

Followed by reception.
Please register for free at euchinaroundtable.eventbrite.com

The international breakthrough of BTS is marked by their success in the USA with their albums, Love Yourself: Tear and Love Yourself: Answer, in May and September respectively. Their EP Map of the Soul: Persona, released in April 2019, also topped both the UK Official Chart and the US Billboard 200 Chart. The global, US, and UK reception of BTS in the past few years, has shed a light on how K-pop has been evolving and how Asian pop music genres have been received both the mainstream music industry and consumers in the west. This process has been taking place in the context of a fast-changing ecology of the creative industries, shaped by digital technolgy and social media, which in turn mobilize and above all, empower the fancom and audiences engaged in this music form.

As part of Homecoming 2019, stop by the Pitt Global Hub to contribute your answer to "What Makes Pitt Feel Like Home?," as well as try out some coffee and teas from around the world and take a stab at some global trivia!

For just $1.00 a cup, sip on tea prepared using a traditional Samovar, and take a crack at some Russian trivia.

Are you interested in a career in diplomacy? Wondering what it takes to become a Foreign Service Officer (FSO)? Would you like to study abroad, develop your skills in a foreign language, and build connections with other cultures, governments, and institutions around the world? Join us in the Global Hub for a conversation with FSO, poet, and translator Nina Murray to learn about the Fulbright Program, the Critical Language Scholarship, and internships and careers at the U.S. Department of State. Food and refreshments will be provided.

Join the Japanese Student Association at their annual Bunkasai cultural festival on Saturday, October 26th from 11am-2pm in the WPU Assembly Room. Food, art, dance, performances, and other activities will all be present.

A one-hour presentation in English by Marilena Legersky followed by a brief Q & A and refreshments in the Croghan-Schenley Room. Free event for all ages.