Past Events

- Multiple
- Contemporary Craft (5645 Butler St. Pittsburgh, PA 15201)
Join the Global Studies Center as we continue our programming as part of the Global Sustainability Series by meeting at Contemporary Craft. This workshop will focus on PA Common Core standards related to agriculture, sustainability, and renewable and natural resources. It will include a faculty led presentation, a hands-on art activity that can be done with students, and a walk through the upcoming Fiber Arts International Exhibit at Contemporary Craft.
Dinner and Act 48 credits will be provided.
Date: Friday, May 13, 2022
Time: 6:00pm-8:00pm
Location: Contemporary Craft (5645 Butler St. Pittsburgh, PA 15201)
Cost: $10
Hands-on Activity:
Join Contemporary Craft instructor and paper maker Katy Dement, as she leads everyone in making simple small square Hand made paper collages. The projects will include"pocket mining" for single use plastics to include as well as imagery featuring reclaimed materials from packaging.

- Dr. Nico Slate, Professor of History and Department Head at Carnegie Mellon University
- Zoom
We are excited to continue our collaboration with the Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures "Ten Evenings" series. The Global Studies Center will be once again hosting "Four Evenings: Global Literary Encounters" pre-lecture discussions that put prominent world authors and their work in global perspective. The series is co-sponsored by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
Open to all, these evening discussions, conducted by Pitt experts prior to author events with Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures, provide additional insight on prominent writers and engaging issues. You can register for the book discussions here - https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/global/caste
Poetically written and brilliantly researched, Caste invites us to discover the inner workings of an American hierarchy that goes far beyond the confines of race, class, or gender. A book steeped in empathy and insight, Caste explores, through layered analysis and stories of real people, the structure of an unspoken system of human ranking and reveals how our lives are still restricted by what divided us centuries ago. Wilkerson rigorously defines eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, heredity, and dehumanization. She documents the parallels with two other hierarchies in history, those of India and of Nazi Germany, and no reader will be left without a greater understanding of the price we all pay in a society torn by artificial divisions.
For questions and more information, contact Maja Konitzer at majab@pitt.edu.

- Emilee Ruhland
Global Issues Through Literature (GILS) Fall and Spring 2021-22: Imagining Other Worlds: Globalizing Science Fiction and Fantasy
April 28th, 2022 - "Dark is Rising" by Susan Cooper. Co-sponsored by the European Studies Center
Facilitated by Emilee Ruhland, who graduated this spring with her Master’s in Critical and Cultural Studies from the University of Pittsburgh, and she holds an MA in English from North Dakota State University. Emilee is a medievalist and has written about Beowulf, Joan of Arc, Notre Dame de Paris, and Gothic architecture in Pittsburgh. She works in higher ed communications, most recently as the Communications Coordinator for the European Studies Center.
This reading group for K-12 educators explores literary texts from a global perspective. Content specialists present the work and its context, and participants brainstorm innovative pedagogical practices for incorporating the text and its themes into the curriculum. Sessions this year will take place virtually on Thursday evenings from 5-8 PM (EST). Books and three Act 48 credit hours are provided.
Register for the reading groups here- https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/global/gils
Contact Maja Konitzer with questions at majab@pitt.edu

- Emily Olmstead
- Virtual Format - Zoom
Emily Olmstead is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh with a Global Studies Certificate. She serves as Program Coordinator at American Councils for International Education, Tajikistan and possesses diverse global work experience. Emily is experienced in language instruction, development, and youth work, with an interest in international education, gender equality, and human rights. She will discuss her career experiences as well as insight navigating changes in global work from a currently remote position.
To Register:https://pitt.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUpf-Crqj4jHNfcF98DJhdvp2ihDYLi5W5F

- Posvar 4130
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a leading cause of death around the world, with the highest burdens in low-resource settings, and is expected to grow exponentially to cause around 10 million deaths annually in 2050. It is defined by high degrees of complexity given its international, multisectoral, ‘one health’ and ‘creeping’ features, which creates significant challenges for good governance. In addition, only 0,5% of all AMR related research comes from the social sciences, which indicates that we know relatively little about the behavioral and institutional aspects of antibiotics. It is also typically referred to as a low-salient political issue. This talk will introduce three dimensions of European governance of antibiotics; first, how experts, typically top senior bureaucrats, create an ‘administrative action space’ when politicians fail to raise the issue; second, the networking dynamics among domestic bureaucracies to create collaborative governance; and thirdly, the role and function of the EU Commission to act as a third-party enforcer in solving the large-scale collective action dilemma of AMR.
Daniel Carelli is a PhD Candidate in political science at the University of Gothenburg. His dissertation investigates how administrative traditions and bureaucratic autonomy affect inter-bureaucratic collaboration around the issue of antimicrobial resistance in Europe.

- Posvar 4130
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a leading cause of death around the world, with the highest burdens in low-resource settings, and is expected to grow exponentially to cause around 10 million deaths annually in 2050. It is defined by high degrees of complexity given its international, multisectoral, ‘one health’ and ‘creeping’ features, which creates significant challenges for good governance. In addition, only 0,5% of all AMR related research comes from the social sciences, which indicates that we know relatively little about the behavioral and institutional aspects of antibiotics. It is also typically referred to as a low-salient political issue. This talk will introduce three dimensions of European governance of antibiotics; first, how experts, typically top senior bureaucrats, create an ‘administrative action space’ when politicians fail to raise the issue; second, the networking dynamics among domestic bureaucracies to create collaborative governance; and thirdly, the role and function of the EU Commission to act as a third-party enforcer in solving the large-scale collective action dilemma of AMR.
Daniel Carelli is a PhD Candidate in political science at the University of Gothenburg. His dissertation investigates how administrative traditions and bureaucratic autonomy affect inter-bureaucratic collaboration around the issue of antimicrobial resistance in Europe.

- Tracy Wazenegger, Science and Global Issues Educator
- Zoom
This professional development opportunity for K-12 educators will focus on the book "America's Energy Gamble: People, Economy, and Planet" by Shanti Gamper-Rabindran.
This book details how any administration intent on pursuing a pro-fossil policy, when Congress fails to act as a check, can change governance rules to permanently entrench oil and gas extraction and reliance in the United States and to cripple regulatory agencies. The Trump administration’s actions which violated traditional bipartisan values of economic prudence, environmental stewardship and respect for democratic norms, damaged Americans’ health, economy and governing institutions. Americans can take steps to reset the United States to a sustainable energy pathway and a more inclusive economy. Proposed legislation that combines incentives for the deployment of renewable energy with long-term investments into revitalizing fossil fuel communities enjoys strong support among voters in fossil fuel reliant regions. Government policies that correct economic-wide signals to capture climate risks creates a more level playing field for the growth of more sustainable livelihoods.
The workshop will be led by Tracy Wazenegger, Science and Global Issues educator, and will focus on how to use the book in the classroom. Books are available on a first come first serve basis. Act 48 credits will also be available.
Shanti Gamper-Rabindran (Ph.D. MIT) is an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research examines how political, legal and financial institutions help or hinder the energy transition in the Appalachian region and globally. She currently serves on National Academy of Science study panel on the chemical economy.
Tracy Wazenegger is a science and global issues educator with 18 years of experience in the high school classroom. In addition to teaching Honors Chemistry and AP Chemistry, she has co-developed and co-taught a number of interdisciplinary units and courses focused on global issues and the environment.
Please register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfWvWAfgUbi0PwqCdkQd7SMhOt6Waiz...

- Randall Taylor, Penn Plaza Support and Action Coalition; Teireik Williams, CMU CREATElab; Jason Beery, Urbankind Institute; Moderated by Jam Hammond, Executive Director of Pittsburgh's Commission on Human Relations
- Hill District Community Engagement Center (1908 Wylie Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15219)
Join our panel of community leaders as they share examples of how Pittsburghers are working to advance housing justice in our city and to engage with our international guest, Ms. Leilani Farha, in explorations of how we can make more use of global alliances and international legal strategies in efforts to protect and promote housing as a human right.

- Leilani Farha
- 35th Floor, Cathedral of Learning

- Leilani Farha
- Alcoa Room, Barco School of Law
Many local policy makers and legal practitioners remain unaware of the extensive body of international law and precedent upholding the internationally recognized human right to adequate housing. Farha will discuss this legal context and how the United Nations is working to support governments to do better and more to realize this most basic right for all residents.

- Dr. Emily Murphy
- 501 Cathedral of Learning
Children, we are told, are becoming more anxious. But what are they anxious about? Recent studies on “climate anxiety” suggest that the current climate crisis is at the top of children and young people’s concerns and is being expressed in the form of grief. This presentation considers a growing body of climate fiction for children that links personal grief to planetary grief as a way of promoting climate activism. It examines contemporary middle-grade books that include Ali Benjamin’s The Thing about Jellyfish (2015) and Sarah Baughman’s The Light in the Lake (2019), tracing the historical and literary roots of this trend in literature for the young. Beginning in the early twentieth century, an increasing number of materials for parents and educators attempted to “teach” children how to immerse themselves in nature. But, as the archival records produced by children reveal, young people often took charge of their own relationship with the environment. Through an examination of these historical records, Dr Emily Murphy argues for a participatory approach—a method that focuses on co-production between adult and child—to the narration of these experiences as a way of broadening who we identify as young climate activists and recognizing the complex emotions associated with ecological grief.
Emily Murphy is a Lecturer in Children’s Literature at Newcastle University (UK), with research interests in international children's literature, childhood studies, and global citizenship education. Her monograph, Growing Up with America: Youth, Myth, and National Identity, 1945 to Present (University of Georgia Press, 2020), was the winner of the 2021 International Research Society for Children’s Literature Book Award. The book explores the role of the figure of the adolescent in challenging national myths about U.S. identity, and looks at both canonical American novels and young adult fiction, including Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and M.T. Anderson’s Feed, to support its argument. She has published essays in The Lion and the Unicorn, Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, and Jeunesse, and her work also appears in Prizing in Children’s Literature (ed. Kenneth Kidd and Joseph Thomas) and Connecting Childhood and Old Age in Popular Media (ed. Vanessa Joosen). Currently, she is working on a new book project entitled The Anarchy of Children’s Archives: Children’s Literature and Global Citizenship Education in the American Century, for which she has received an Ezra Jack Keats/Janina Domanska Research Fellowship from the De Grummond Children’s Literature Collection and an International Youth Library Research Fellowship.

- Posvar 4217
Recent decades have seen increasing demands from policy makers for publicly funded universities to be proactive drivers of innovation and development in the places in which they are located, particularly in less developed or peripheral regions. This has led to a resurgence of interest in concepts such as the civic university in understanding the contributions universities might make to local social and economic development. This research explores, and culminates in challenging, many of the orthodoxies underpinning the policy rhetoric around the role of universities as civic anchors. It contends that a more realistic, honest understanding of the limitations of universities’ contribution as local civic anchors coupled with a more nuanced and context sensitive approach to policy design might lead to more mutually beneficial outcomes for them and the places in which they are located.
Lecture by Dr. Louise Kempton, Newcastle University

An emerging issue that should be included in the compact provision talks. The impact of climate change is global and our collective security is at risk. It has become increasingly clear that climate change has consequences that reach the very heart of the security agenda: economic disruption, flooding, disease, famine, resulting in migration on an unprecedented scale in areas of already high tension; drought and crop failure, leading to intensified competition for food, water, and energy in regions where resources are already stretched to the limit.
Speakers:
Dr. Charles Fletcher
Interim Dean
School of Earth Science and Ocean and Technology
Chair Honolulu Climate Change Commission
University of Hawai’i at Mānoa
Dr. J. Scott Hauger
Retired Professor Daniel K. Inouye Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies
Senior Advisor to the USINDOPACOM Climate Change Impacts Program

- Leilani Farha and Dr. Michael Glass
- 106 Lawrence Hall
Screening will occur from 6 until approximately 7:40PM, followed by a discussion until 8:30PM
University members can view the film at any time through the University Library System here: https://pitt.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?context=L&vid...

- Leilani Farha and Dr. Michael Glass
- 106 Lawrence Hall
Screening will occur from 6 until approximately 7:40PM, followed by a discussion until 8:30PM
University members can view the film at any time through the University Library System here: https://pitt.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?context=L&vid...
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