Come meet international students, make friends, practice conversational English, and have fun together, during these weekly discussion groups coordinated by the English Language Institute. Feel free to bring your lunch :)
Week of February 4, 2024 in UCIS
Monday, February 5
Join the French Club for conversation hours, on Mondays & Thursday at 5-6 pm during Spring 2024, for French speaking individuals of varying levels to practice the French language.
Tuesday, February 6
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!
Stop by the Global Hub from 4:00-5:00pm to discuss study abroad, study away and other global experiences with our peer advisors from the Global Experiences Office. Hear about their experiences abroad and pick their brains with all of you abroad questions!
Join German Club at Pitt’s weekly meetings, on Tuesdays at 6-7 pm during Spring 2024, to converse in German and learn German culture!
Wednesday, February 7
Join the Asian Studies Center for a celebration of Lunar New Year! Dumplings and thematic activities will be available to any who attend!
Join weekly Swahili Class 2 students for weekly conversation hours this Spring semester, to practice Swahili outside of the classroom.
Come practice your conversational Hungarian with students of all levels!
Caroline Savage, Director of the Office of Russian Affairs, U.S. Department of State, will hold A Discussion on Russia Today.
Registration is not required for this in-person only event.
Join weekly Bate-Papo Portuguese conversation practice for all levels, from brand-new beginners to advanced or heritage speakers!
Join Spring 2024 Kya Baat Hai weekly conversation hours, on Wednesdays from 7-8 pm, for students to practice speaking in Hindi and Urdu and connect over shared cultural experiences!
Thursday, February 8
The conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nargono-Karabakh has been simmering since the collapse of the USSR. Since, Nagorno-Karabkah has stood for the quintessential “frozen conflict” in the region. But Azerbaijan made a decisive move in December 2022—it blocked the Lachin Corridor, the main conduit for supplying the disputed area. Then, last September, Azeri forces moved in and ethnically cleansed the Armenian population, roughly 100,000 people, and dismantled local governance. All while the international community stood idle as the “frozen conflict” was resolved. What is the history of this conflict? What forces in Armenia and Azerbaijan have stoked this conflict? And why did Azerbaijan decide to ethnically cleanse Karabakh of its Armenia residents?
In this live interview with Tigran Grigoryan (The Regional Center for Democracy and Security) and Kelsey Rice (Berry College) will delve into these questions and discuss the region since the cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023.
This event will supplement The Eurasian Knot’s episode on Nagorno-Karabakh in October 2022. Then, we turned to Rafael Khachaturian (University of Pennsylvania) and Richard Antaramian (University of Southern California) for their analysis of Armenia, Azerbaijan and the implications of the conflict over Nagorno Karabakh.
Mangia con noi! Bring your lunch and chat with us! Pitt students only, all levels welcome!
Please register using this link: https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/clas/content/clas-event-registration
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.
Limited Seating Available
Last day for Registration: February 6, 2024
Only Graduates and Faculty.
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 Ph.D. 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, desecuritization 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 Scenario.
The Global Studies Center will host a series of conversations with the Pittsburgh Network for Threatened Scholars(PiNTs).These writers and artists are exiled from their countries and now call Pittsburgh home.
Haifa Subay is a graffiti and street artist whose depiction of humanitarian issues, motherhood and war, and the desire for peace gives a voice to the people of Yemen. She received a Seed Award from the Prince Claus Fund, which recognizes emerging artists whose work engages with social and political issues
Professor Abdou Seck is a decolonial scholar and activist from Senegal (West Africa). In this seminar, we will learn more about his work and what decolonial activism looks like from a West-African and Senegalese perspective! This chat will be facilitated by Dr. Pernille Røge and Dr. Oronde Sharif. Reception to follow!
More about the speaker:
Professor Abdou Seck founded and currently leads the Group for Action and Critical Study of Africa (GAEC – Africa), a decolonial group of activist scholars. Prof. Seck’s work centers on making theory accessible to people outside of academia and he engages with artists, musicians, indigenous communities, and boots-on-the-ground activists to bridge the gap between academia/theory to the populations living those lives that theory comes from. He brings critical knowledge of race and racial formation from a West African and Pan-Africanist perspective. This is all part of a larger conversation about the globalization of Africa and the Africanization of the globe – it is of critical importance to center African knowledge and uplift education about Africa in our communities and beyond.
Join the French Club for conversation hours, on Mondays & Thursday at 5-6 pm during Spring 2024, for French speaking individuals of varying levels to practice the French language.
Join the Persian Language Table every other Thursday during Spring 2024 to practice language, celebrate culture, and meet new people!
Friday, February 9 until Sunday, February 11
Friday, February 9 until Saturday, February 10
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.
Friday, February 9
David Greene, award-winning journalist and former co-host of NPR’s Morning Edition, Shannon Reed, author and frequent contributor for The New Yorker, and Sean Guillory, host of The Eurasian Knot weekly podcast and producer of the award nominated Teddy Goes to the USSR podcast, will co-teach this hands-on course where students will work as a team to research, write, and produce a broadcast-quality audio narrative telling the stories of people around the world who have come to the University of Pittsburgh with the support of the Pittsburgh Network for Threatened Scholars. The focus of the course will be production of an audio narrative, but along the way, students will gain meaningful experience in collaboration and communication, archival research, interviewing and oral histories, script writing, sound editing, and other skills. Course enrollment is limited. No previous experience with interviewing or podcasting required, but students with demonstrated interest in the topic (Threatened scholars/human rights) or who participated in the Fall 2023 Art of the Interview Masterclass are particularly encouraged to sign up for the course.
Selda Altan is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Randolph College, Virginia. Her fields of specialization encompass modern Chinese and Asian history, labor history, and comparative approaches to empires and colonialism in Asia and the Middle East. Her first monograph, Chinese Workers of the World: Colonialism, Chinese Labor, and the Yunnan–Indochina Railway (Stanford University Press, 2024), analyzes labor conflicts during the construction of the Yunnan railway (1898–1910) in the larger context of twentieth-century French colonialism and capitalist development in China. Currently, she is working on her second book project, which explores Chinese Industrial Cooperatives and the role of women in China’s resistance against Japanese occupation during World War II.
Come join the Pitt Chinese Program and the Chinese Language and Culture Club to celebrate the Spring Festival with calligraphy (spring couplets), games, paper cutting, snacks, milk tea, and prizes.
Join Addverse Poesia, an international and multilingual poetry group that discusses, reads and translates poems in at least 4 languages, for their weekly meetings!
Saturday, February 10
David Greene, award-winning journalist and former co-host of NPR’s Morning Edition, Shannon Reed, author and frequent contributor for The New Yorker, and Sean Guillory, host of The Eurasian Knot weekly podcast and producer of the award nominated Teddy Goes to the USSR podcast, will co-teach this hands-on course where students will work as a team to research, write, and produce a broadcast-quality audio narrative telling the stories of people around the world who have come to the University of Pittsburgh with the support of the Pittsburgh Network for Threatened Scholars. The focus of the course will be production of an audio narrative, but along the way, students will gain meaningful experience in collaboration and communication, archival research, interviewing and oral histories, script writing, sound editing, and other skills. Course enrollment is limited. No previous experience with interviewing or podcasting required, but students with demonstrated interest in the topic (Threatened scholars/human rights) or who participated in the Fall 2023 Art of the Interview Masterclass are particularly encouraged to sign up for the course.