We're back in person!

On Sunday, November 6, 2022, from 12:00PM to 4:00PM, the Slovak Studies Program, with the help of our generous sponsors, will host the 32nd Annual Slovak Heritage Festival in the Commons Room of the Cathedral of Learning on the University of Pittsburgh campus in Oakland. We are excited to be back in person again for a joyous day of Slovak culture, history, food, crafts, and education.

Admission is free, and masks are optional. We hope to see you at the 32nd Annual Slovak Heritage Festival at Pitt!

Stay connected with Slovak Fest:

The Slovak Heritage Festival has an active community Facebook page, and you can watch the 2020 and 2021 virtual festival videos on our YouTube channel.

If you would like to be added to the Slovak Heritage Festival email list so that you never miss a festival, please write to

The purpose of the Student Club Coalition is to give clubs related to Latin America, the Caribbean, and the diasporas, an opportunity to be officially related to and involved with CLAS, providing mutual support for student engagement. The Student Club Coalition is designed to help students develop a voice for what's important to them, to assist them in that endeavor, and to help them acquire funding for those projects and goals. The member clubs work together to support each other and their goals, and to build friendships and community along the way. Lunch provided!

In this talk, Dr. Sarrett will discuss her research on parental and professional experiences of autism in Kerala, India and Atlanta, Georgia. This work demonstrates how Westernization influences the ways non-Western cultures integrate concepts of autism into their cultural concepts of illness, family, and normality. She will discuss this work in the context of global bioethics, global disability studies, and the unidirectional nature of psychiatric influence. Register on the Zoom link!

Decarbonizing the economy requires a dramatic transformation of the global economy. Phasing out fossil fuels implies the reallocation of millions of workers who will need to find new jobs. Unions and other policymakers have therefore called for a “just transition”: a clean energy transition that takes into account the challenges faced by those whose jobs are at risk. The European Union has recognized the problem and is implementing a Just Transition Mechanism which is expected to raise 55 billion euros (about $58 billion). In the United States, states such as Colorado have designed bureaus to manage a just transition.

In this rapidly changing landscape, several questions become critical: How can such a large labor market shock be absorbed? What can we learn from the managed decline in coal in countries like Germany? How should we design just transition institutions? Are they even needed?

Moderator: Michael Aklin, University of Pittsburgh

Panelist: TBD

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

Queer Filmmaking Panel:
Featuring: Vida Skerk, the 2022-23 MEET EU Emerging Filmmaker, SCENE, and Rainbow Alliance.
The panel will discuss being queer in the film industry and creating queer content.

Calvin Hui's research focuses on fashion, media, and consumer culture in contemporary China. In this talk, Dr. Hui presents an aspiring Chinese fashion designer Ma Ke and her fashion exhibit Useless (2007). Calvin Hui is a Class of 1952 Distinguished Associate Professor of Chinese Studies at the College of William & Mary in the United States. His book, titled The Art of Useless: Fashion, Media, and Consumer Culture in Contemporary China, was published by Columbia University Press in fall 2021. The research of this book was supported by an American Council of Learned Societies fellowship.

To attend this remote lecture, please register here.

The European Studies Center in cooperation with Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies and History Department is launching a new study certificate focused on history, culture, economy, and their entanglements of and in central Europe - historically, politically and culturally the most diverse and dynamic region of Europe since 1800s that can be placed between Russian, Ottoman, German, and Habsburg empires, between Rhine and Dnepr and Baltic and Adriatic Seas. It is a place where two world wars started and genocides took place, where Cold War started and ended and where European integration emerged with its new dynamic. What insights can we gain on Europe and the world by looking at this region? The Central European Studies Certificate is for those students who are interested in exploring specific experience of Central European societies. This includes formation of identities, migration, nationalism, and collective memory, racism, religious and ethnic diversity, economy development in variety of political, artistic, and social forms.

Join us for this talk with director, designer, and puppet artist Tom Lee. Mr. Lee is the creator of the multimedia puppet piece "Akutagawa," which he will be directing in Pittsburgh this February. During this talk, he will discuss this piece and his process to puppetry as an art form. For questions about the event, please contact Elizabeth Oyler (eaoyler@pitt.edu). This talk is sponsored by the Department of East Asian Languages and Literature and with support from the Japan Iron and Steel Federation Endowments of the University of Pittsburgh and the Asian Studies Center of the University Center for International Studies.

The IISE Symposium Series offers an opportunity for comparative, international, and development education (CIDE) researchers and professionals with a unique venue in which to share innovative research, programs, and policy analyses. Symposium speakers include IISE Visiting Scholars, Senior Research Fellows and Affiliated Faculty Members, advanced doctoral students, and professionals from around the world.

The University of Pittsburgh's Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies is proud to sponsor the 9th edition of the RFF titled Homelands. This year's festival reflects on current events, while celebrating the power of film to map out new meanings into a world where people have been displaced by wars, economic crises, political instability, and natural disasters. Internationally acclaimed movies featured in a carefully curated selection, covering all forms and genres, as well as film-related events with special guests, will redefine the sense of homeland and belonging, in relation to our families, neighbors, countries of origin, and, by extension, to our planet itself.

Films will be screened online with free tickets provided to Pitt faculty and students. More information to be announced.

Join the Global Studies Center for final group presentations from the Global Health Case Competition.

2022-2023 MEET EU EMERGING FILMMAKER
In partnership with the Jean Monnet Center of Excellence at Florida International University, Center for European Studies of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and University of Pittsburgh’s European Studies Center, this year's MEET EU Emerging Filmmaker Residency goes to Vida Skerk from Zagreb Croatia.

The European Studies Center will be featuring her 2022 short film Night Ride (Noćna vožnja), a discussion with the director and reception to follow in the Frick Arts Cloister.

About: Night Ride explores quarter-life identity crisis through the perspective of a twentysomething student in Croatia. Dunja, the main character, questions her decision to move to a bigger city and regrets leaving behind the safety of her hometown where she could always count on the support of her close friend, Sara.
Exploring the “borders” and boundaries, the film is constructed as a series of dreams and nightmares which evade a linear narrative structure and retain the qualities of a more stream-of-consciousness approach, presenting to the viewer Dunja’s inner world in its most authentic, raw and honest form.

Mira Nakashima is the daughter of the acclaimed architect, furniture designer, and craftsman George Nakashima. She will speak about her father's legacy and how his cultural ties to Japan affected his method of design in both furniture and architecture.

Mira Nakashima is President and Creative Director of George Nakashima Woodworkers, who produce one-of-a-kind, hand-crafted, made-to-order furniture at their workshop in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

Registration must occur in advance https://pitt.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_d4GeVKVaVHRzbF4