Events

Japanese-English language social hour with students studying foreign language (English or Japanese)

The Women’s International Club of the Nationality Rooms and Intercultural Exchange Programs at the University of Pittsburgh cordially invites you to a tea and conversation to commemorate the birthday of Ruth Crawford Mitchell. Pitt graduate and Quo Vadis alumna Emily Wilk will share her research on the fascinating life of Ruth Crawford Mitchell.
Ruth Crawford Mitchell (June 2, 1890 – February 7, 1984) joined the University of Pittsburgh in 1924 as a lecturer on the history of immigration. Years later, Ms. Mitchell became an advisor to the then-Chancellor John G. Bowman, guiding him on the building of the Cathedral of Learning and the development of the Nationality Rooms. Ms. Mitchell worked closely with the Pittsburgh ethnic communities to raise funds for the building of the Nationality Rooms, over which she had major oversight during the design, drafting, and creation between 1926 through 1956 as the first director of the Nationality Rooms and Intercultural Exchange Programs.

Depois de um excelente início com a discussão de Torto Arado, daremos continuidade ao nosso Clube do Livro com a leitura de O Avesso da Pele, de Jefferson Tenório (editora Companhia das Letras). O livro está disponível no Kindle por cerca de 5 dólares. Excepcionalmente este mês, nosso encontro será na segunda quarta feira do mês, no dia 8 de junho, às 18h, no City of Asylum.

The Alliance for Learning in World History is thrilled to announce its call for applications for "New Approaches to Frontier History" a professional development workshop for world history teachers at all levels. The virtual event will be held on Saturday, June 11 from 10:30 am - 4:00 pm. All accepted participants will receive a $200 stipend. The event provides teacher's with the opportunity to workshop their own syllabus or assignment that engages with indigenous history. Accepted participants will be invited to attend a curriculum workshop cosponsored by Pitt's Asian Studies Center. Applications are due April 15, 2022.
The event will feature three keynote addresses from experts in the field of frontier history:
Dr. Veronica Castillo-Munoz, UC Santa Barbara, “Teaching about the Border: Border Crossings and the Making of the US-Mexico Borderlands”
The U.S.-Mexico border is over two thousand miles long and ranks among the longest borders in the world. Understanding the formation of communities that facilitate border crossings and cultural interactions between these two nations is now more important than ever. This workshop will focus on the best practices to teaching about the border as well as the broader history and experiences of border people.
Dr. James Hill, University of Pittsburgh, “Whose Frontier Is It? Decolonizing Narratives in World History”
This talk seeks to reframe frontier histories from the perspectives of Indigenous peoples. As a first step, capturing the historical views of the colonized towards colonizer is an admirable goal. However, decolonizing efforts should not stop there. A fully decolonized history should demonstrate how Indigenous peoples have adapted to and coped with colonialism, countering narratives of their disappearance and erasure. Indigenous peoples have moved beyond mere survival by refashioning themselves to endure and thrive in a postcolonial landscape.
Dr. Matt Matsuda, Rutgers University, “Water’s Edge: Histories and Frontiers in Pacific and Oceanian Worlds”
Histories of the Pacific world have, over the last decades, been shaped by examinations of frontiers and places of encounter, both insular and connected. Scholars have pursued “unending frontiers,” “oceans unbounded,” “waves across the South,” and a “sea of islands” to illuminate new ways of telling histories and underscore long silenced voices and pasts. We will begin by mapping millennia of the translocal, examine traditions of navigation and diaspora, look to commerce and conquest, seek out lives and legacies of acculturation and persistence, understand imperial power and migrations, and the promises and perils of labor, migration, and a changing oceanic environment. We’ll pay respects to a canoe, a sea creature, a saint, a warrior, and a woman who cared for children, all living in and making their presence known across the centuries.
Email ALWH@pitt.edu with any questions

The annual Brussels-Lux Study Tour is a week-long opportunity for educators across the U.S. to learn more about the European Union. With funding from the EU Delegation and the U.S. Department of Education, K-12 educators and faculty teaching at community colleges and minority-serving institutions (Title III- or Title V-eligible) are able to gain first-hand knowledge and experiences to further their understanding of Europe and the European Union.

Deadline to Apply April 22
Have you wished for the opportunity to work with colleagues at your school to globalize a unit, lesson, or module? Are you looking for an opportunity to have your students examine political, economic, social, cultural, ecological questions from multiple lenses? As part of the Summer Institute for Global Educators 2022 at the University Center for International Studies, we are excited to offer you the virtual space and resources to do such work! Science and French teachers might team up to offer a lesson on global warming in the francophone world; or Art, English, and Social Studies teachers might develop a unit on responses to the global refugee crisis in art and literature. We are looking forward to hearing your ideas! Synchronous and asynchronous daily sessions will be offered with time built in for participating educators to collaborate and develop activities, lesson plans and/or modules from the Institute’s offerings.
Apply as a team of 2-4 teachers from different subject areas at the same school. This opportunity is open to elementary, middle, and high school educators and administrators. Individual educator stipends and curriculum material grants will be provided to participating teams. Additional questions can be directed to Maja Konitzer at majab@pitt.edu.
Submit proposals here!

The Working Group on Comparative Slavery (Afro-Latin American Research Institute at Harvard University and The Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh) invite you to submit an abstract for the international conference Plantation Societies in Comparative Perspective at the University of Pittsburgh on October 14-15, 2022. Abstracts should be sent by June 12 and the final paper by October 1 to plantation.societies@gmail.com.