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!

Join CLAS ambassadors to learn more about CLAS academic offerings and related programs.

Maria Lotsmanova, former head of the document center of the GULAG History Museum, will present two short screenings: a four minute documentary on the Gulag History Museum and an eleven minute documentary short on her family history (with subtitles).
Maria Lotsmanova has until recently worked at Moscow’s Museum of Soviet Repressions (the GULAG History Museum, 2021 Winner of the Council of Europe Museum Prize), where she would run the Document Center that consults with visitors and gives regular seminars on how to find information in archives about people who were persecuted and convicted during the mass repression in the USSR. She would conduct research for museum exhibitions, publishing projects, museum storage practices and represent the Center at external venues. Her other professional interests include documentary filmmaking and photography, green activism, and sustainability projects. In 2022 Maria moved to Pittsburgh where she currently works as a gallery associate at the Carnegie Museum of Art.

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

Ambassador (ret.) Norman Eisen is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings
Institution and a CNN Legal Analyst. At Brookings, he chairs the institution’s signature anticorruption
program, Leveraging Transparency to Reduce Corruption, and is the founder and
lead editor of the Brookings Russia Sanctions Tracker. He represents Brookings as the civil
society co-chair of the Financial Transparency and Integrity cohort for the Biden
administration’s second Summit for Democracy and co-chairs the Transatlantic Democracy
Working Group. Eisen is the co-author of the Democracy Playbook, which situates anticorruption
in the broader pro-democracy framework. Eisen frequently publishes on topics
relating to Ukraine and its reconstruction.

Join the German Club for Spring 2023's weekly conversation hours, on Tuesdays from 6:30-7:30 pm!

European Security: A European Studies Seminar
Discussions of “crisis at the border” fill the news on both sides of the Atlantic. Focusing on one of the primary European receiving countries in the current migration waves, this seminar will put forward a consideration of flexicuritization as a departure from the securitization of migration. As preparation for the discussion with Prof. Dimari, participants in the seminar will read three brief articles of hers available upon registration.

Moderator:

Randall Halle, Director of the European Studies Center, University of Pittsburgh

Panelist:

Georgia Dimari, Ph.D. University of Crete

About the Speaker: Dr. Georgia Dimari is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Department of Political Science of the University of Crete where she has taught security and securitization issues. Currently, she is exploring the transformation of the Greek Migration Policy the post-2015 period. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Crete, an MA in American Studies from the University of Turin, and a BA in International and European Studies from the University of Piraeus. She researches security, securitization of migration, de-securitization and migration policy, and the securitization of Covid- 19 in Greece. She participated in the research program (CA 10076) “Impact and categorization of the prospects of integration of refugees into the Greek productive system.” co-funded by the European Social Fund and national funds, and currently in the program “Management of Migration in Greece: Construction of a Pilot Model (Start-up) for Forecasting Migration Flows and Development of Policy Scenarios for Greek Immigration Policy” funded by the Research & Management Committee of the University of Crete.

SPEAKER:
Milada Anna Vachudova
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Professor Vachudova will explore how the rise in support for populist parties has shaped party systems in Europe over the last decade, focusing on ethnopopulist parties -- parties that make strong anti-pluralist appeals, vilifying individuals, groups and institutions labeled as culturally harmful. When in power, ethnopopulist parties use these appeals to justify the concentration of power -- and this playbook has helped bring authoritarian rule to Hungary while Poland stands on the brink. She unpacks why ethnopopulism has become a challenge to liberal democracy in Europe, how oppositions have responded -- and why EU member governments have shown such complacency and cynicism in countering it. This has led to the risk of a decoupling of the EU from the regime type of liberal democracy. Yet Russia's war against Ukraine is changing political contestation related to liberal democracy and to relations with Russia in key states including Poland and Germany. Professor Vachudova will close by reflecting on Ukraine's challenge to the European Union -- and whether and how the EU enlargement process can be revived as a tool of EU foreign policy.

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.

This is the first event as part of the series Race, Rebellion, and Global Solidarity. The Battle of Algiers is a 1966 Italian-Algerian war film co-written and directed by Gillo Pontecorvo. One of the most extraordinary films ever made, The Battle of Algiers is an emotionally devastating account of the anticolonial struggle of the Algerian people and a brutally candid exposé of the French colonial mindset. It was shot on location in a Roberto Rossellini-inspired newsreel style: in black and white with documentary-type editing to add to its sense of historical authenticity, with mostly non-professional actors who had lived through the real battle. There is no registration for this screening.

Join the Spanish Club for Spring 2023's weekly conversation hours, on Wednesdays from 6-8 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!

Join the weekly Italian get-together as they watch highlights from the Festival di Sanremo - one of the highlights of the year for Italians!

The start of Russia's war in Ukraine in 2014 has impacted regional security in the Black Sea through the occupation of Crimea. The massive invasion of 2022 has led to even more profound implications. Yet, Russia has failed to convert the control of Ukrainian territories into lasting strategic advantages. The recent liberation of Kherson and fear in Moscow that Ukraine might go into Crimea indicate a shift in the situation. The talk will shed light on the humanitarian impact of war, the disruption of global trade, and the larger security implication for the Black Sea region and Europe, more broadly.

Volodymyr Dubovyk is Associate Professor at the Department of International Studies, Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University in Ukraine. He has conducted research at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (1997, 2006-2007) and the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland (2002), taught at the University of Washington in Seattle in 2013 as well as at St. Edwards University and the University of Texas in 2016-17. He is the co-author of Ukraine and European Security (Macmillan, 1999) and has published numerous articles on US-Ukraine relations, regional and international security, and Ukraine's foreign policy.

Javier Corrales - Amherst College, Raul Sánchez-Urribarri - La Trobe University, Jennifer Cyr - Universidad Torcuato Di Tella

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.

Flavio Limoncic, Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio De Janeiro

Free Chol Soo Lee tells the story of a Korean American death row inmate convicted of a 1973 Chinatown gangland murder in San Francisco. and the activists who led a pan-Asian American movement to free him.

The revolutionary prospect of socialism inspired homosexual emancipation and the growth of toleration toward same-sex relations in the first quarter of the twentieth century in many countries, including the UK, US, Hungary, and USSR. However, the development of LGBTQ+ rights within socialism was never linear and even.

The conference seeks to address those discrepancies and the reasoning behind them. It aims to discuss the LGBTQ+ experience and its political, social, and cultural implications under state socialism from a global perspective. What was the place of queerness under socialism? Was socialist ideology generally more responsive to queer people’s agenda and empathic towards them? How did legislation relate to same-sex activity change over time in socialist countries? How did the Cold War and geopolitical tensions between socialist and capitalist counties influence and inform sexual politics toward queer people and their perception? Why did some socialist countries, such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, and the GDR decriminalize homosexuality as early as the 1960s and the Polish People’s Republic never criminalize it? What strategies of networking and concealment did sexual and gender non-conformists adopt in the socialist countries where homosexuality was still illegal, such as Soviet Republics, China, and Cuba? What was the attitude towards gender and sexual dissidents among the left-leaning movements in capitalist countries? Why decriminalization of homosexuality and homosexual emancipation that followed it was subsequently cut off in some post-socialist countries such as Russia?

The main goal of the symposium is to reflect on the broad spectrum of topics related to the conjunction of queer and socialist ideology from a global and comparative perspective. The symposium aims at the broader public, including students, scholars, and activists.

The Undergraduate Model European Union is an annual event that gives students a chance to learn about the workings of the European Union through preparation for and participation in a hands-on two-day simulation of a meeting of the European Council. Model EU enhances students’ understanding of the issues and challenges facing the 27 member nations of the EU. Awards will be given to the most effective delegations and best individual position papers.

Discourse and Decolonization: Perspectives from Outside the Anglophone Academy is the second panel of the Decolonization in Focus Series.

The Russian war in Ukraine has had innumerable impacts, from the personal to the 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.

Join the Global Studies Center and Dr. Eve Darian-Smith for a lecture on her book followed by a discussion with attendees. Dr. Darian-Smith serves as the Chair of the Department of Global and International Studies and is a professor of Global Studies at the University of California, Irvine. She has published several award-winning books focused on global issues. Trained as a lawyer, historian and anthropologist, Dr. Darian-Smith is a critical interdisciplinary scholar interested in issues of postcolonialism, human rights, legal pluralism, and socio-legal theory. Her current work focuses on authoritarianism and crises of democracy. In Global Burning: Rising Antidemocracy and the Climate Crisis, Dr. Eve Darian-Smith contends that using fire as a symbolic and literal thread connecting different places around the world allows us to better understand the parallel and related trends of the growth of authoritarian politics and climate crises and their interconnected global consequences. Copies of her book will be available for purchase at the event!

Are you looking to gain experience that will help prepare you for a globally-connected job market? Stop by Drop-In Hours to learn more about getting the Global Distinction added to your academic transcript, receiving special recognition at graduation, and standing out to prospective employers!

The Global Studies Center and Postindustrial, a multimedia outlet focused on reimagining industrial communities, is hosting a 4-part series that will allow a small group of students to develop journalism skills while learning about global issues in the context of Appalachia. Students will get the opportunity to learn about podcast production and journalistic writing from Postindustrial journalists that have a wealth of knowledge and experience in reporting on global issues as they relate to our region. By the end of the series, students will have the tools to produce narrative written work, created a podcast episode, and learned about other podcast production techniques. These skills will be situated in discussions about the impacts of the war in Afghanistan, slow violence, and extractive economies featuring conversations with individuals who experienced those impacts firsthand both at home and abroad. This event is solely in person.

Join Dr. Eve Darian-Smith as she leads this teaching workshop for K-16 educators. The focus of this workshop will be on helping educators develop global studies into their curriculum by specifically thinking about incorporating issues around planetary warming as a theme (and its global intersectionality with racism, public health, biospecies extinction, and access to natural resources). The workshop will be hybrid in Posvar Hall and Zoom. Room location is to be determined.

Dr. Darian-Smith serves as the Chair of the Department of Global and International Studies and is a professor of Global Studies at the University of California, Irvine. She has published several award-winning books focused on global issues. Trained as a lawyer, historian and anthropologist, Dr. Darian-Smith is a critical interdisciplinary scholar interested in issues of postcolonialism, human rights, legal pluralism, and socio-legal theory. Her current work focuses on authoritarianism and crises of democracy. 

Organized under the auspices of The Journal of Asian Studies to help increase the range, breadth and quality of journal article manuscripts, the theme for this workshop is "Boundary Pushing." Significant new work in Asian Studies often runs counter to or across traditional categories of scholarly conversation. For this reason, work that pushes boundaries is often difficult to frame effectively for publication. The workshop is designed and conducted by the editors of JAS to help early career scholars prepare manuscripts for successful peer review. This roundtable session, open to the public, will include editors of the Journal of Asian Studies and editors from other well-established journals in related fields for a vibrant discussion on boundary-pushing writing and scholarship in Asian Studies. To register please click here.