Past Events

In the spring of 2024, the World History Center’s Global Appalachia working group and the Global Studies Center will host a series of book discussions focusing on the region of Appalachia from a global perspective. The series theme is Interdisciplinary Perspectives on a Region in Motion. Participation in all three events in the series is not required but encouraged. All events will take place from 1:00-2:30pm (EST). Copies of the books will be available for those planning to attend the event.
Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hamby uncovers the tragic resurgence of black lung disease in Appalachia, its Big Coal cover-up, and the resilient mining communities who refuse to back down

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 :)

Join us for an important lecture and complimentary lunch with Dr. Miranda Schreurs.
Open the newspaper on any day and you will be confronted by tragedy. Wars are raging in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Waves of migrants are fleeing insecurity in the search for better lives. Floods, hurricanes, droughts, and extreme temperatures linked to climate change are wreaking havoc around the planet. Growing numbers of people are struggling to make ends meet. These developments are giving new significance to the concept of security and posing great challenges for political, economic, and societal decision-makers. This talk will discuss the threats these crises pose for Europe and the United States with a particular focus on climate change as a security threat but also climate change mitigation as a security amplifying mechanism. Both in Europe and the United States efforts to address climate change and reduce dependencies on fossil fuels are beginning to show effects. Climate mitigation efforts have been sped up in reaction to the Russian war in Ukraine with visible effects. To what extent and how quickly further progress on addressing climate change can be achieved will depend on many factors, including our ability to overcome growing domestic political polarization and reduce global geopolitical tensions.
Prof. Miranda Schreurs (PhD University of Michigan) is Chair of Climate and Environmental Policy at the Bavarian School of Public Policy, Technical University of Munich. She investigates environmental movements, green politics, and climate policymaking both comparatively and internationally. She has lived and researched in Europe, the United States and Asia. She also specializes on the politics surrounding the disposal of highly radioactive waste. In 2011, Prof. Schreurs was appointed by Chancellor Angela Merkel as a member of the Ethics Committee for a Secure Energy Supply. In 2016, she was appointed by the German Bundestag as a member of a committee established to bring citizens’ voices and ensure greater transparency in the search for a disposal site for highly radioactive waste. She was a member of the German Council on the Environment (2008-2016) and served both as Vice Chair and Chair of the European Advisory Council on Environment and Sustainable Development. She was a Fulbright Fellow to Japan and Germany and spent three years studying at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She also worked as a professor of comparative politics at the University of Maryland. From 2007 to 2016 she was Director of the Environmental Policy Research Center and Professor of Comparative Policy at the Free University of Berlin.

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 :)

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.

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

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 :)