Week of October 31, 2021 in UCIS

Thursday, April 8 until Friday, April 8

8:00 am Conference
Georgia Consortium: Exploring the Complexities of Vietnam
Location:
Online via Zoom
Sponsored by:
Asian Studies Center
See Details

Register here.

Sunday, October 24 until Tuesday, November 30

12:00 pm Cultural Event
Celtic Culture Celebration
Sponsored by:
Nationality Rooms and Intercultural Exchange Programs
See Details

Please join us for a virtual event created by the Welsh, Scottish and Irish Rooms as they showcase unique aspects of their culture. Enjoy a brief Powerpoint presentation of each room and pre-recorded videos exclusively made for this event on each culture's history, art, music, poetry, dance and more?

Friday, October 29 until Wednesday, November 3

(All day) Exhibit
Día de los Muertos y Día de los Santos Festivities
Location:
Global Hub - 1st Floor Posvar
Sponsored by:
Center for Latin American Studies and Global Hub
See Details

Come and learn about the Day of the Saints and how to set up an Alter/Ofrenda. The Alter/Ofrenda will be displayed in the Global Hub through November 3.

Everyone is welcome to bring photos of the dearly departed you wish to honor, along with ofrendas, mementos and artificial flowers to embellish the alter for those who are no longer among us. 

The Alter/Ofrenda will be built by Lisa DiGioia Nutini, Owner of Mexico Lindo and Mexican Folk-Art Dealer.

Sunday, October 31

3:00 pm Student Club Activity
Korean Conversation Hour
Location:
Global Hub - 1st Floor Posvar
Sponsored by:
Global Hub along with Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
See Details

Come brush up on your Korean skills in a casual, out of the classroom environment!

Monday, November 1

1:30 pm Lecture
After State Collapse: Afghanistan Following the Taliban's Return to Power
Location:
William Pitt Union, Lower Level Room
Announced by:
Center for Russian East European and Eurasian Studies on behalf of Center for Governance and Markets, Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies and Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA)
See Details

Presented by The Matthew B. Ridgway Center and The Center for Governance and Markets. The event will also be livestreamed on Youtube – please check the Center for Governance and Market's twitter account on the day of the event to watch remotely.

After State Collapse: Afghanistan Following the Taliban’s Return to Power
William Pitt Union – Lower Level Room
November 1, 2021
1:30pm

Speakers:
Jennifer Murtazashvili – Director, Center for Governance and Markets
Michael Kenney – Director, Matthew B. Ridgway Center
Akram Umarov – Senior Research Fellow, University of World Economy and Diplomacy (Uzbekistan), and Fulbright Scholar with the Center for Governance and Markets
James Pickett – Associate Professor, Department of History
Ahmad Idrees Rahmani – Independent Analyst and Afghanistan Policy Expert
Moderated by: Haider Ala Hamoudi – Professor and Vice Dean, School of Law

4:30 pm Lecture
Belonging Otherwise: Chinese Undergraduate Students at South Korean Universities
Location:
211 David Lawrence Hall or via Zoom
Sponsored by:
Asian Studies Center
See Details

Following the South Korean government’s drive in the 1990s for globalization and deregulation of higher education, Korean universities aggressively recruited Chinese students as both symbolic and economic resources. The number of Chinese students studying at Korean universities consequently increased 57-fold between 2000 and 2019 (from 1,200 to 68,537). This presentation will share the findings from interviews with some of these Chinese students, who chose South Korea with academic and cultural aspirations but often found that neither Korean students nor the university itself welcomed them into classes or communities. As a result, Chinese students have not adapted to Korean university in the ways imagined by the normative framework, but instead make their study-abroad experience livable by constituting material, technological, and imagined modalities of belonging. These modalities of “belonging otherwise” reveal South Korea as a node of commercialized, non-elite, inter-Asian student mobility, and illuminate Chinese students’ strategies in this new regime of study abroad.

Jiyeon Kang is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies and Korean Studies at the University of Iowa. Her research interests are youth culture, student mobility, and digital technologies in both South Korea and the U.S., with a focus on the communicative dynamics and cultural norms emerging in internet and campus communities. Her first monograph, Igniting the Internet: Youth and Activism in Postauthoritarian South Korea, examines the emergence of internet-born candlelight protests as a movement repertoire in South Korea and studies popular political dynamics in the postauthoritarian, highly networked nation. Her current project on Chinese international students in the U.S. and South Korea explores “belonging” online and in campus communities, referring not simply to a sense of attachment but to transforming social and ethical modes of survival and adaptation in inhospitable environments. Her research has appeared in journals in Asian studies, communication studies, and globalization.

To register, click here

5:00 pm Student Club Activity
Brazil Nuts Bate-Papo
Location:
Global Hub - 1st Floor Posvar Hall
Sponsored by:
Center for Latin American Studies and Global Hub along with Department of Hispanic Languages & Literatures
See Details

Join Brazil Nuts for their weekly Portuguese conversation hour at all levels!

6:00 pm Student Club Activity
Pitt French Club Meeting
Location:
Global Hub - 1st Floor Posvar Hall
Sponsored by:
Global Hub along with Department of French & Italian
See Details

Join members of the French Club to and have casual conversation in French! All levels welcome.

Tuesday, November 2

11:30 am Information Session
ESC Funding Opportunities Info Session
Location:
Global Hub in Posvar Hall
Sponsored by:
European Studies Center
See Details

Join the European Studies Center for an information session on student funding available at ESC. There will be two opportunities to attend a session.

In-person at the Global Hub in Posvar Hall:
Tuesday, November 2nd.
Graduate Students: 11:30am-12:15pm
Undergraduate Students: 12:30pm-1:15pm

Virtually via Zoom:
Monday, November 8th.
Graduate Students: 2:30-3:15pm
Undergraduate Students: 3:30-4:15pm

11:45 am Information Session
UCIS Graduate Certificate Offerings
Location:
Posvar, 3rd Floor Commons Area
Sponsored by:
Asian Studies Center, Center for African Studies, Center for Latin American Studies, Center for Russian East European and Eurasian Studies, European Studies Center and Global Studies Center along with Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA)
See Details

Stop by and learn about earning a graduate certificate with Pitt's University Center for International Studies (UCIS). Tailor a program of study based on your career interests that will enhance your GSPIA degree. Don't let this no cost opportunity pass. Center advisors will be available to discuss certificates, funding, resources, and more!

8:00 pm Student Club Activity
Chinese Language & Culture Club
Location:
Global Hub - Conversation Table
Sponsored by:
Global Hub along with Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
See Details

Join the Chinese Language & Culture Club for their biweekly meetings where we will build our Chinese language skills and participate in fun cultural activities!

Wednesday, November 3

12:00 pm Lecture
The Things of Late Soviet Life
Location:
Zoom
Sponsored by:
Center for Russian East European and Eurasian Studies
See Details

What made Soviet people "soviet"? This question has dogged scholars for decades. But one innovative approach to digging into the "soviet" of Soviet life is through material objects and spaces during the late socialist era. Soviet things influenced Soviet people's gender roles, habitual choices, social trajectories, and imaginary aspirations. And, in turn, Soviet people used objects to shape their sense of self as part of a global experience of modernity that went beyond communist propaganda. How did objects make Soviet people and society "Soviet"? This live interview with Alexey Golubev will ponder this elusive question.

Register via Zoom: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dokkOr_GSTCXOf5nZPYfvg

12:00 pm Panel Discussion
Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Peripheries
Location:
Zoom
Announced by:
Center for Russian East European and Eurasian Studies on behalf of World History Center
See Details

Join Pitt’s World History Center on Wednesday November 3 at 12:00 pm for a virtual roundtable about peripheral, contested, and extractive geographies in the Ottoman and post-Ottoman Empire, moderated by University of Pittsburgh professor Gregor Thum. The roundtable features: Ana Fumurescu (Graduate Student Fellow, World History Center), Ari Şekeryan (Research Affiliate, World History Center) and Ana Sekulić, Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (REEES) Postdoctoral Fellow.

The roundtable participants will discuss their current research and how it relates to Ottoman and post-Ottoman spaces. A discussion will follow about the concept of Ottoman/post-Ottoman space and the degree to which it is a useful concept to make sense of the space and its societies.

This event is part of a series titled "The Limits of Networks in World History: Peripheries and Beyond." Please see the attached PDF for more information about the series.

Register here: https://pitt.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0lfuivpzgjGd3s-BTtLBVTNCshoMK8vdbO

4:00 pm Cultural Event
CANCELLED: Laber Rhabarber: German Conversation Hour
Location:
Global Hub - Living Room
Sponsored by:
Global Hub along with Department of German
See Details

Join the German Department for Laber Rhabarber, a weekly German conversation hour that is open to all!

4:30 pm Lecture/Presentation
Let's Talk Africa with Gamby Camara
Location:
4130 Posvar Hall, 230 S Bouquet St
Sponsored by:
Center for African Studies along with Department of Africana Studies
See Details

Join the newest visiting lecturer from the Africana Studies Department, Dr. Gamby Camara, for a conversation about the links between the New Negro Movement of Harlem, the Négritude Movement of Paris, and today's authors and filmmakers of African descent, like Ryan Coogler and Ava DuVernay, who use art and literature for social change.

6:00 pm Student Club Activity
German Club Stammtisch
Location:
Global Hub - Conversation Table
Sponsored by:
Global Hub along with Department of German
See Details

A weekly conversation table for people interested in German culture and language, all proficiency levels are welcome!

7:00 pm Student Club Activity
Mesas de Conversación
Location:
Global Hub - 1st Floor Posvar
Sponsored by:
Center for Latin American Studies and Global Hub along with Department of Hispanic Languages & Literatures
See Details

Spanish conversation at all levels

7:30 pm Lecture
The Great Exodus from China
Location:
via Zoom
Sponsored by:
Asian Studies Center along with Taiwan Ministry of Education
See Details

The Great Exodus examines one of the least understood forced migrations in modern East Asia—the human exodus from China to Taiwan following the Nationalist collapse and Chinese Communist victory in 1949. Peeling back layers of Cold War ideological constructs on the subject, the book tells a very different story from the conventional historiography.

Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang (楊孟軒) is Associate Professor of East Asian History in Department of History, University of Missouri-Columbia. Dominic completed his PhD in Department of History, University of British Columbia (2012). He has been a recipient of multiple SSHRC awards (Canada) and Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation grants, as well as the Taiwan Fellowship. His first book The Great Exodus from China won the Memory Studies Association First Book Award in 2020, and in 2021, was selected as a Finalist for the International Book Award in the category of History: General. For his research, Dominic also received University of Missouri Provost’s Outstanding Junior Faculty Research and Creative Activities Award in 2020. To register, click here

Thursday, November 4

12:00 pm Lecture Series / Brown Bag
Effective Social Media Strategies in a Global World
Location:
Zoom
Sponsored by:
European Studies Center and Global Hub
See Details

This workshop series is aimed at Pitt staff, faculty, and students working in international education or who hope to work in international organizations and who want to learn more about engaging audiences through social media. In this session, the focus is on creating a successful social media strategy that supports the mission, vision, and goals of an organization that has a global and international focus.

Rose Kouwenhoven, s a digital communications expert specialized in digital marketing, branding, and web optimization for international organizations.

A part of the Demystifying Social Media for International Education and Engagement series.

4:30 pm Lecture
Global Urban Justice: The Rise of Human Rights Cities
Sponsored by:
Asian Studies Center, Center for Russian East European and Eurasian Studies, European Studies Center and Global Studies Center
5:00 pm Lecture Series / Brown Bag
CULTNA: “História Social da Beleza Negra”
Location:
Zoom
Sponsored by:
Center for Latin American Studies
See Details

Cultura Negra no Atlantico (CULTNA) é uma iniciativa que congrega o Laboratório de História Oral e Imagem (LABHOI) da Universidade Federal Fluminense e da Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, e o Center for Latin American Studies da University of Pittsburgh. Uma vez por mês, trabalhos recentes serão debatidos com especialistas e estudantes interessados no tema. As discussões serão realizadas em português. Neste encontro, serão discutidos os capitulos 3 e 6 do livro "História Social da Beleza Negra", de Giovana Xavier, com a própria autora. Evento em português. O evento será às 18:00 horas em São Paulo e às 17:00 horas em Pittsburgh.

8:00 pm Student Club Activity
Persian Language Table
Location:
Global Hub - 1st Floor Posvar
Sponsored by:
Global Hub along with Less-Commonly-Taught-Languages Center
See Details

Join the Persian Language Table every other Thursday at the Global Hub!

Friday, November 5 until Sunday, November 7

(All day) Cultural Event
80th Anniversary Celebration of the Greek Nationality Room Dedication
Sponsored by:
Nationality Rooms and Intercultural Exchange Programs
See Details

In 1928, a group of energized students at the University of Pittsburgh, answered the call of Mrs. Ruth Crawford Mitchell and stepped up to accept the challenge of creating the Greek Nationality Room. They enlisted regional immigrants of Greek descent, some in position of leadership of the then young – but so energetic – Greek community, to join them in this challenge. Over the next 15 years, the students, all who eventually graduated and began successful careers, were able to dedicate the Greek Nationality Room in 1941, 80 years ago.

Friday, November 5

9:00 am Cultural Event
Diwali
Location:
Global Hub - 1st Floor Posvar
Sponsored by:
Global Hub
See Details

Stop by the Global Hub and taste some treats in honor of Diwali! Diwali is a festival of lights and is one of the largest celebrations for Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and Buddhists around the world.

1:00 pm Film
Queer Taxonomies: Gender and New Post-Soviet Cinema
Location:
Virtual
Sponsored by:
Center for Russian East European and Eurasian Studies
See Details

This film symposium will contribute to a broader understanding of sexual normativity in Russia, whether our working understanding of that category operates with a notion of “queer” as endlessly fluid or whether it is identified with fixed boundaries across historical breakpoints. Join us for the screening of two films and follow-up discussions with filmmakers and scholars on three questions. We will explore how our understanding of queer theory is rooted in definitions within contemporary US culture, ask whether queerness lends itself to a transregional definition, and consider what Russian queer cinema can reveal about unacknowledged Anglo-American assumptions.

Friday, 5 November, 1 PM EST

The Man Who Surprised Everyone (Russia, 2018, dir. Natasha Merkulova and Aleksei Chupov)

Introducer:
Stasia Korotkova, Founder, Queer Screen

Discussants:
Todd W. Reeser, Chair, Department of French and Italian, University of Pittsburgh

Dan Healey, Professor of Modern Russian History, University of Oxford

2:00 pm Presentation
Case Study Competition and Presentations
Location:
Posvar Hall Room 1500
Sponsored by:
Global Studies Center along with Center for Global Health and Center for Bioethics and Health Law
See Details

The Global Studies Center, Center for Global Health and the Center for BioEthics and Health Law will host Pitt’s 2nd annual Global Health Case Competition. Graduate and undergraduate students team up to address a global health scenario and present to a panel of experts.

3:15 pm Lecture Series / Brown Bag
Panoramas: Mental Health in Haiti
Location:
Zoom
Sponsored by:
Center for Latin American Studies
See Details

Join the Panoramas team for their next roundtable on Friday, November 5 @ 3:15 PM EST. This event will be held over Zoom and is open to all. OCC Credit will be offered!
Panoramas intern Nadiyah Fisher will discuss mental health in Haiti.

Read Nadiyah's article: https://www.panoramas.pitt.edu/health-and-society/religion-healthcare-an...

4:30 pm Student Club Activity
Addverse+Poesia Meeting
Sponsored by:
Global Hub
See Details

Addverse+Poesia is a transnational and multilingual student organization dedicated to celebrating Black/Indigenous and LGBTQIA+ writers, poets, etc. Join us for your weekly meetings on Fridays from 4:30-6PM!

Saturday, November 6

1:00 pm Film
Queer Taxonomies: Gender and New Post-Soviet Cinema
Location:
Virtual
Sponsored by:
Center for Russian East European and Eurasian Studies
See Details

This film symposium will contribute to a broader understanding of sexual normativity in Russia, whether our working understanding of that category operates with a notion of “queer” as endlessly fluid or whether it is identified with fixed boundaries across historical breakpoints. Join us for the screening of two films and follow-up discussions with filmmakers and scholars on three questions. We will explore how our understanding of queer theory is rooted in definitions within contemporary US culture, ask whether queerness lends itself to a transregional definition, and consider what Russian queer cinema can reveal about unacknowledged Anglo-American assumptions.

Saturday, 6 November, 1 PM EST

Come On, Scumbags (Kazakhstan, 2013, dir. Madina Mustafina)

Introducer:
Madina Mustafina, Director and Cinematographer

Discussants:
Frank G. Karioris, Faculty, The Branson School

Nick Davis, Associate Professor of English, Northwestern University