Past Events

Screening of Out of State (2017), Ciara Lacy, a documentary focusing on the lives of several Native Hawai'ian inmates of a private for-profit Arizona prison. It's an intimate look at tradition, home, and self.
Shipped thousands of miles away from the tropical islands of Hawaii to a private prison in the Arizona desert, two native Hawaiians discover their indigenous traditions from a fellow inmate serving a life sentence. It's from this unlikely setting that David and Hale finish their terms and return to Hawaii, hoping for a fresh start. Eager to prove to themselves and to their families that this experience has changed them forever, David and Hale struggle with the hurdles of life as formerly incarcerated men, asking the question: can you really go home again?

International Education is an exciting and growing professional field to pursue regardless of your area of study! Join our panelists to discuss their unique career paths, the diverse opportunities available in International Education, and the work happening in the field. There will be a Q&A following the panel.
Panelists:
Tiffany Martin: Events & Travel Manager, Duolingo
Leslie Ann Smedley: Senior Advisor & Program Manager, Pitt’s Global Experience Office
Vanessa Sterling: Director of Health & Safety, CET Academic Programs
Jeff Whitehead: Executive Director of Global Engagement, Pitt’s University Center for International Studies
Molly McSweeney, moderator, Assistant Director for Student and Community Engagement, Pitt's Global Hub.

Mai Khôi is an award-winning singer, composer, and activist. She rose to stardom in 2010 after winning the Vietnam Television Song and Album of the Year awards as one of the first female songwriters in Vietnam. As a pop star, Khôi released seven albums in genres of Vietnamese pop and dance, and made regular nationally televised performances. Several years later she became increasingly uncomfortable having to submit her work to government censors and, thinking she could reform the system from within, nominated herself to run in the National Assembly elections on a pro-democracy platform. Her campaign sparked a nationwide debate about political participation and culminated in a meeting with Barack Obama in May 2016. Her activism came at a high price, however: she had her concerts raided, was evicted from multiple residences, and was detained and interrogated by the police.
Khôi’s artistic transformation is evident in Mai Khôi Chém Gió, a genre-splicing dissident trio she founded in 2016 that combines protest music with free jazz and lost musical traditions of Vietnam’s hill tribes. She also went on to participate in Seaphony, a project that aims to create the first pan-Southeast Asian orchestra comprised of ethnic minority musicians, as a conductor, arranger, and composer. Her current project, Mai Khôi and the Dissidents, is an eclectic and experimental jazz-ish quintet that’s as likely to launch into a noisy protest song or collective improvisation as a lullaby or love ballad. She is also developing an autobiographical multimedia stage show called “Bad Activist” that combines original music, projections, archival footage, and storytelling to fiercely advocate for democracy and freedom of expression in Vietnam and around the world.
Since 2019, Mai Khôi has lived in exile in the USA. In 2019, she was a resident artist at SHIM:NYC, and in 2020, she was awarded an Artist Protection Fund Fellowship in cooperation with the University of Pittsburgh, City of Asylum, and the International Free Expression Project. Mai Khôi was an Exiled Writer and Artist in Residence at City of Asylum in Pittsburgh from 2020-2023; she has continued to reside in Pittsburgh after the conclusion of this residency.
In recognition of her work at the intersection of art and activism, Khôi has been awarded the 2018 Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent and the 2022 Four Freedoms Award for Freedom of Speech.

Yun-Oh Whang's opening Keynote for the Identity, Inclusion, and Information: The AANHPI Experience Conference.
The University of Pittsburgh observes AAPI month during January (instead of May), this conference seeks to celebrate and acknowledge what it means to be a person of AANHPI heritage at Pitt. An examination at the challenges people of AAPI descent face in Pittsburgh and a recognition of their 'belonging'.

This talk from Pitt's Graduate School of Public and International Affair's Center for Governance and Markets presents a political theory of governance of cultural diversity developed in Sadr's book, Negotiating Cultural Diversity. It argues that a pluralistic society should forge a balance between three key elements: individual autonomy, counter-homogenization measures, and intercultural dialogue.
Contemporary societies are increasingly facing a tremendous challenge in terms of finding social cohesion. A major challenge comes from disagreement over the issues related to social justice and other fundamental principles and ethical issues that should govern our societies. The challenge compounds when these disagreements intertwine with group and cultural identities such as race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation. This leads to a conflict between individual rights such as freedom of speech, freedom to practice religion, or equal opportunity with group or community preferences. A theory of governance of diversity should not only present a solution on how to peacefully accommodate deep differences, but should also present a way out on how to adjudicate disagreement between universal values and particularistic aspirations.

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.

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.