Dr. Urbansky discusses the challenges faced by Chinese immigrants during the late Tsarist Empire and early Soviet Union, highlighting the racial and cultural prejudices that fueled hostilities in urban settings. His analysis explores how these early interactions shaped the experiences and perceptions of Chinese communities in a rapidly changing socio-political landscape.
Join us for a lunch and learn event with Nina Sajić.
Dr. Sajić served as the ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina to France, UNESCO, Algeria, Monaco, Andorra, and Romania. She was also a foreign policy advisor in the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. She will be at Pitt to discuss her diplomatic experiences with students and the wider community.
Light lunch will be provided.
This is an interactive discussion about the identity of immigrants to the United States. Dr. Nourbakhsh’s personal story spans Iran, the United States, NASA, Silicon Valley entrepreneurship and the life of a university professor. Dr. Nourbakhsh uses his personal background to discuss the blurring of identities for immigrants who dive deep into technology innovation in a world of increasing inequity and inequality.
Dr. Sajić served as the ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina to France, UNESCO, Algeria, Monaco, Andorra and Romania. She was also a foreign policy advisor in the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. She will be at Pitt to discuss her diplomatic experiences with students and the wider community.
Light lunch will be provided.
Responding to the record low birthrate, in 2023, then Prime Minister Fumio Kishida declared Japan “on the brink of not being able to maintain social functions.” Seeing this as a crisis of social reproduction, he announced policies to incentivize young people into having children—to reembrace the family as the center of life/livelihood. As sociality continues to downsize in Japan—to single households, solo lifestyles, childless futures—the keynote asks how these changes affect the elderly who once counted on “the family” to both care for and bury them.
Anne Allison’s research on contemporary issues in Japan spans the nightlife, popular culture, Pokémon, sexuality, gender, precarity, and death. She is the author of Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club; Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination; and Precarious Japan. Her most recent book, Being Dead Otherwise, has been awarded the John Whitney Hall Prize for 2025.
Stop by the Global Hub to learn more about financial wellness!
Are you an international student at Pitt looking to connect, or interested in connecting with international students? Stop by the Nook in the Global Hub on Tuesdays, between 2 and 4 pm during Spring semester, to chat with OIS Outreach Coordinator Zharia White from the Office of International Services!
Attention: Undergraduate students! 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 Penguins organization is committed to supporting the Asian Pacific Islander (API) community both on and off the ice. Our API Night, in recognition of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month observed in the United States during the month of May, will take place on March 18!
Join us for API Night in person at PPG Paints Arena when the Penguins host the New York Islanders. Featuring a concourse display courtesy of the University of Pittsburgh Nationality Rooms & Intercultural Exchange Programs, be here when we honor the incredible impact of our city’s Asian American and Pacific Islander community and celebrate their rich culture and history. Plus, the first 100 community members that purchase tickets through this special offer will receive a Penguins-branded API Night Rally Towel!
To purchase groups of 10 or more tickets or to request additional information, please contact Kyle Blend at (412) 255-1849.
Penguins vs. Islanders
Mar 18, 2025 7:00 PM EDT
PPG Paints Arena
1001 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15219, US
Purchase Deadline: Mar 18, 2025 5:00 PM EDT
: Join the French Club on Tuesdays and Wednesdays during Spring semester for conversational meetings and to practice French speaking and listening skills and create a francophone community on campus!
Naila and the Uprising chronicles the remarkable journey of Naila Ayesh and a fierce community of women at the frontlines, whose stories weave through the most vibrant, nonviolent mobilization in Palestinian history-- the First Intifada in the late 1980s. The film uses animation, interviews, and exclusive archival footage. Khushboo Bhutani, PhD student in Film and Media Studies, will introduce the film.
Join us for a discussion on the growing challenges to democratic ideals in an age of populism, polarization, mis/mal/dis information, and rising authoritarianism. This event will explore the interplay between democratic values and anti-democratic forces, highlighting historical and contemporary movements that both support and erode the democratic project.
Roundtable I: Provocation on Mis/Mal/Dis Information
Roundtable II: Academic Panel
Roundtable III: Provocation on Populism
For more information, visit our website: https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/esc/events/ad-mini-symposium
Registration is required
Join your classmates for Slovak conversation practice in a fun, relaxed environment!
Join us on Wednesdays in the Global Hub for casual Portuguese conversation!
Learn about what events, certificates, and concentrations the Center for Latin American Studies offers. Join us for games and free food!
This article is part of an ongoing ethnography of the Japanese television industry focusing on its attempts to experiment with live, interactive content that was manipulable via smart devices, laptops, and remote controls. Based on 18 months of fieldwork in the Japanese television industry in four major TV network offices and two production companies, it also incorporates interviews with more than 30 broadcast company employees. Using two case studies of early interactive television programming to discuss the strategies producers have used to create community and promote identification among audiences of these shows: ‘Arashi Feat. You’ was a live music event that courted a large audience through the involvement of a massively popular boy band and promoted the idea of ‘turning viewers into users’ by allowing them to play musical instruments along with the band. ‘The Last Award’ allowed participants to submit and evaluate each other’s videos live through a dedicated user interface. Through these examples, Rodwell argues that participation alters the nature of television spectacle and results in changes to the way producers address and inscribe audiences as cocreators of content. The rhetoric used by interactive television accordingly defaults to ‘we’ and ‘us’ and features accessible and relatable celebrities as surrogates for the audience.
Elizabeth Rodwell is a media anthropologist who is interested in interactivity, television, emergent technology (in general), and artificial intelligence (specifically). She is also a usability researcher (UX). My first book Push the Button: Interactive Television and Collaborative Journalism in Japan (forthcoming) examines the post-Fukushima tensions in the Japanese journalism and television industries, and seeks to account for the ways that media professionals are responding to increasingly skeptical and distracted audiences. She tracks the global debut of interactive television in Japan– a cutting-edge fusion of mediums that represented the most dramatic departure from existing television technology in several decades.
Join the French Club on Tuesdays and Wednesdays during Spring semester for conversational meetings and to practice French speaking and listening skills and create a francophone community on campus!
Join the German Club on Wednesdays during Spring semester for conversational meetings and to practice German speaking and listening skills.
Swahili Level 4 students: Join Swahili instructor Faraja Ngogo on Thursdays at 11 am-12 pm in the Global Hub to practice Swahili.
Mangia con noi! Bring your lunch and chat with us! Pitt students only, all levels welcome!
Swedish Speaking Club is a space for practicing Swedish and deepening cultural understanding alongside others who are learning.
This paper analyzes the transnational relationship between European Catholic clerics and the Brazilian working class during the military dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s. It focuses on "worker priests (padres operarios/curas rojos)," who were part of an international movement of priests who worked in factories and ministered to working-class communities. In Brazil, worker-priests created ecclesiastical communities on the industrial outskirts of Sao Paulo and in Santos, a port region of Sao Paulo state. They were severely persecuted by the military regime.
Film: ELBOW Ellbogen
Film is about a girl named Hazal, who is 17 and lives in Berlin. Her biggest wish is to be given a chance. For her 18th birthday she wants to escape the everyday grind and party with her friends. But a fatal incident changes everything. Hazal is forced to flee.
Asli Ozarslan-Kroenlein
Profession: Writer, Director
Country: Germany
Director ASLI ÖZARSLAN (*1986, Berlin) studied theatre and media at the University of Bayreuth, philosophy at the Université Sorbonne IV in Paris and documentary film directing at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. INSEL 36 (2014) and her diploma film DIL LEYLA (2016) won numerous awards. With her current debut film project ELLBOGEN she was part of the Torino Film Lab and the mentoring programme Into The Wild.
Join the Persian Club for Nowruz Festivities in the Global Hub.
Join undergraduate Pitt students for a conversation hour to practice speaking in Hindi and Urdu and connect over shared cultural experiences.
Swahili Level 2 students: Join Swahili instructor Faraja Ngogo on Fridays at 4-5 pm in the Global Hub to practice Swahili.
Following the keynote address, the German students will present their original research that they conducted as part of completing their capstone seminar.
There will be food and light refreshments
The University Center for International Studies is excited to hold its first annual Qissa (story in Arabic), a celebration of heritage, culture, and personal experiences through storytelling. We invite all Pitt students to share your internationally-focused story using various creative forms and listen to others in this unique performance setting.
