 From the Director
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Dear friends of Global Studies,
Already another year has gone by! In this summer newsletter we recap a few of its highlights and preview what's to come!
As some of you may know, this past semester was the last one at Pitt for our colleague Roger Rouse, who has now retired. I can't put into words the Center's gratitude for his tireless labors on our behalf. I'm sure that any of you who have been lucky enough to engage with Roger, whether as a teacher, colleague, or interlocutor, value his sharp mind and gentle manner as much as I do. We'll miss him immensely, though we have no intention of letting him get too far away.
This has been a year of transition for the Center, as we work to solidify our position as a hub for innovative interdisciplinary scholarship at Pitt. Below you'll learn about some new additions to our team and find updates on our research initiatives (on Migrations, Global Health, Cities in Transformation, and Anthropocene: Epoch of Loss (with the World History Center).
As ever, I welcome your feedback, suggestions, and off-the-wall proposals; you can always reach me at
[email protected].
With best wishes for a productive - and restful - summer!
Michael
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Save the Date(s)
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Sept. 5 -- GAP workshop led by Dr. Karen Park. Click here for more information.
Sept. 11 -- GSC Welcome Back reception, 4130 Posvar Hall
Oct. 17 -- Humanizing the Global, Globalizing the Human, 4130 Posvar Hall
Nov. 14 -- Humanizing the Global, Globalizing the Human, 4130 Posvar Hall
Nov. 20 -- Faculty Salon
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Introducing the new UCIS Visiting Professor in Contemporary Global Issues
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The Global Studies Center proudly announces
Dr. K. Francis Lieder
as the
UCIS Visiting Professor in Contemporary Global Issues
K. Frances Lieder (Kat) received her Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. While at Pitt, she will be working on her book  manuscript, tentatively titled
The Slow, the Small, and the Affective: Feminist Performance and the Transformation of Sexual Violence Discourse in Neoliberal India
, which analyzes how feminist activists use performance to explore the effects of slow sexual violence on bodies and in the greater cultural milieu
.
Her teaching focuses on creating a new canon of performance and feminist thought that includes significant work from the Global South and insists on the already-present transnational connections in the traditional western canon. She is the honored recipient of research and writing fellowships from both the American Institute of Indian Studies and the American Association of University Women. She has published on the intersection of performance and feminism in Global South Asia in
TDR: The Drama Review
,
Asian Theatre Journal
, and Peace and Change.
Lieder is also a practicing choreographer and theatre director whose work focuses on the complexities of gender and the body.
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Global Studies Faculty Fellow
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The Global Studies Center proudly announces
Dr. Jacques Bromberg, Assistant Professor of Classics,
as the
2019-20 GSC Faculty Fellow
.
Each year, the GSC selects as its Faculty Fellow one outstanding University of
Pittsburgh colleague whose scholarship advances the Center's mission. Jacques Bromberg is Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics and a specialist in ancient Greek literature and history. As the 2019-2020 GSC Faculty Fellow, Dr. Bromberg will convene a yearlong speaker series entitled "Classics and the Global" dedicated to highlighting the ways in which the study of antiquity can inform the study of globalization, and vice versa. Speakers in the series will present public lectures throughout the year, and selected lectures will be published in the inaugural issue of Global Antiquities, a new open-access e-journal. This publication unites the sources, approaches, and methodologies of Classical Studies, Ancient History, and Global Studies and aims to spark conversations and collaborations between professionals in these and related fields.
The Faculty Fellowship is designed to promote transnational research and includes a course release; up to $15,000 toward scholarly events (e.g. workshops, conferences, exhibitions, performances, or seminars); and an additional $5,000 for related research, travel, or curricular development. Applications for the next academic year will be available
here
and are due November 1, 2019.
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Global Academic Partnership (GAP)
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Dr. Caitlin Bruce,
Assistant Professor of Communications, has been awarded a Global Academic Partnership (GAP) grant for her project Global Creative Cities: Exploring Transnational Youth and Graffiti Cultures.
Over the next two years, Dr. Bruce will be organizing a series of events (talks, workshops, and art production events) to develop an international dialogue around the themes of creative cities, youth, and graffiti practice within a global frame. Since the 1980s, graffiti has been a global phenomenon activated by transnational circuits of youth collectives. More recently, street art as an image-driven form of urban art has been yoked to city development projects as part of global adoption and localization of creative cities discourse. At a local, regional, national, and international level, street art and murals have been used for civic engagement, graffiti abatement,
self-determination,
beautification, and for urban redevelopment. There is a wave of exciting scholarship about the relationship between youth cultures, governmental apparatus, the culture industry, and activism. The constellation of graffiti, creative cities, and youth connect in specific cities across the globe, but there has been no sustained comparative work thinking these categories together.
The GAP provides $40,000 over the course of two years to support ongoing campus programming that amplifies the Global Studies Center's transnational themes and enriches the intellectual environment at Pitt. This award is generously sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the University Center for International Studies to help Pitt faculty develop interdisciplinary research collaborations, curriculum development, student exchanges, and other scholarly ties that enhance the University of Pittsburgh's international profile through institutional partnerships. Proposals for the next grant competition are due March 1, 2020. For more information, click here.
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2018-19 Highlights
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It was an extraordinarily busy year; below we feature a few highlights...
Ferguson Voices. Global Studies, the University Library System, and others partnered  to bring the traveling Exhibit Ferguson Voices: Disrupting the Frame to the ULS for the month of February. The exhibit tells the story of the people of Ferguson, Missouri, before, during, and after Michael Brown, a young black man, who was shot and killed by a white police officer in August 2014. The Center organized a variety of programs around the exhibit to highlight the global dimensions of structural racism, highlighting shared histories and contemporary transnational processes shaping race relations, law enforcement, racialized poverty, and so on. To explore the online exhibit and podcast and to learn more about our programming, visit the event page.
Year of Pitt Global: Human Rights Dialogue Series. GSC co-sponsored numerous events within the Year of Pitt Global framework. With the Ford Institute f or Human Security, the Center for Health Equity, and the Pitt Human Rights Working Group, the Center presented a series of dialogues, Human Rights in Pittsburgh and the World, that focused on new and emergent areas of global human rights and on local activism in those areas. The 11 events in the series covered a range of topics including Cities and the Sustainable Development Goals, Information Access in a Digital World, Health Equity and Racial Justice, Economic Human Rights, and the Right to Water.
GAP Symposium: De-exeptionalizing Displacement. 2017-19 GAP awardee Dr. Heath Cabot (Anthropology) organized an international symposium entitled De-exceptionalizing Displacement: Rethinking Citizenship and Mobility, on March 22-23
2019. In light of increasing forms of precarity across the globe, participants focused on sites of struggle that bridge assumed divisions
between "migrants," "refugees," and
"citizens." These
include access to housing, safety, thriving neighborhoods, healthcare, food, education,
childcare, the labor market, and other shared needs. Keynote addresses and panels asked what it would mean to de
-
exceptionalize
displacement, rethinking mobility and citizenship alike? Learn more here.
Faculty Fellow Conference. 2018-19 Faculty Fellow
Dr. Mari Webel (History) hosted a two-day
 workshop on "neglected tropical diseases" (NTDs), a cluster of infectious diseases characterized by their high morbidity and low mortality and strongly associated with poverty that impact an estimated one billion people in 149 countries worldwide. The workshop sought to catalyze new conversations on the history, present, and future of the NTDs in an innovative, multi-disciplinary gathering, with special attention to the often well-funded and well-meaning but problematic global campaigns to address them. Learn more
here.
Four E venings - Global Literary Encounters. In conjunction with the Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures program's "Ten Evenings" series, GSC hosted "Four Evenings," pre-lecture discussions that put prominent world authors and their work in global perspective. This year's discussions featured Katherine Boo's, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Dave Eggers's, The Monk of Mokha, Valeria Luiselli's, Tell Me How It Ends, and Min Jin Lee's, Pachinko. We'll announce next year's line-up in our Fall newsletter.
PA Governor's School for Global and International Studies. From June 23 to July  19, 2019, fifty high school rising juniors and seniors from around the state of Pennsylvania will reside on the University of Pittsburgh's campus for four weeks. All students in the Governor's School will take three courses each day of the program: Global Studies; Argumentation; and a Less Commonly Taught Language (either Arabic, Chinese, or Portuguese). The broad goals of the program are to help students think and act globally and to enhance their leadership skills and ability to cooperate with others in engaging the world around them during the program and after.
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Mari Webel - New Directions Fellow
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Congratulations to
Dr. Mari Webel, our AY2018-19 Faculty Fellow, who recently became Pitt's first-ever
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation New Directions Fellow. The fellowship will allow Dr. Webel to pursue her work on neglected tropical diseases through additional training in the field of public health. Read the full Pittwire story
here.
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| GSC Students |
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Congratulations to GSC's April 2019 graduates!
This year's undergraduate certificate recipients represent 21 majors from the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. In addition, six students earned BPHIL degrees in Global Studies (IAS). Our students studied abroad in 21 different countries; our new alums are heading overseas to work or study in France, China, Malta, Jordan, Korea, and Israel, furthering studies in law, medicine, public health, dentistry, international studies, and education, working with PNC, Amazon, and the Washington Office on Latin America, and seeking positions in organizations related to their various passions.
Our graduate certificate students earned degrees from the School of Education and
GSPIA.
They are pursuing work with the US Government, advancing their studies in Arabic and securing faculty positions in their home countries.
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Aniah with Professor Cynthia Salter
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Aniah McLeod ('19, Neuroscience), is our first student to graduate with the new Certificate in Global Health. She earned a B.S. in Neuroscience and double minors in Chemistry and Swahili. According to Aniah, "Together the courses for the certificate highlighted the issues in global health, explicated the risk factors and determinants, assessed the methodology used to compute the health statistics, and impartially presented the current interventions underway to combat our world's most pressing health issues." During her study abroad in Tanzania, Aniah witnessed first-hand efforts to address HIV/AIDs, maternal anemia and malnutrition, respiratory and diarrheal diseases, and more. Back on campus, She volunteered with the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force, mentored two middle school boys through Higher Achievement Pittsburgh, worked as a UTA in the Departments of Neuroscience and Chemistry, and served as a Resident Assistant. In September she plans to begin her studies at SUNY Upstate Medical University, pursing her goal to service populations in remote areas of Africa as a physician.
Our 2019 National Scholarship Recipients -- Congratulations!
Eva Bacas
(Linguistics,BPHIL/IAS/Global Studies),
was awarded a Foreign Language and Area Studies Scholarship from Indiana University Bloomington to study Quechua in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
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Fiona Eichinger ('19
Biological Sciences, BPHIL/IAS/Global Studies), received a Fulbright ETA and will teach English in Malta. She was also a Boren finalist for Jordan. While in Malta Fiona plans on exploring her research interest of mediation, particularly among refugees in host countries.
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Douglas Crocitto (Emergency Medicine) will study Swahili in Tanzania with a Critical Language Scholarship. Douglas is enrolled in GSC's Global Health Certificate.
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Leah Dehoet (GSPIA, MID) received a Boren Fellowship to study Arabic in Jordan. Leah returns to Jordan after having an internship with the UNDP in Amman in the summer of '18. She was also awarded a 2018-2019 academic year Foreign Language and Area Studies Scholarship.
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Steven Moon (Music) is a Fulbright/IIE Fellow.
In Turkey, Steven will conduct ethnographic fieldwork for his dissertation, titled "Sound, Science, Islam: Music as Healing in Istanbul" which examines the revival of Ottoman-era musical healing practices in contemporary biomedical research.
Abigail Neer ('19,
Linguistics) will teach English in Korea having been awarded a Fulbright ETA. Abigail studied Spanish and Korean and plans on pursuing her interest in Second Language Acquisition.
Sam Ressin won a Udall Scholarship for environmental leadership. Sam is the Director of Pitt Green Fund and founded Pitt's Climate Stewardship Society. He will travel to Tucson for the program, and funds awarded will defray costs of his summer research on food waste in Columbia. |
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Kareena Oner
(English Writing Chinese) will study Turkish in Azerbaijan at Azerbaijan University of Language during the summer with a Critical Language Scholarship and will continue her studies there for the 2019-2020 academic year with a Boren Scholarship.
Eric Workman (Philosophy, Economics)
will also study Turkish in
Azerbaijan at Azerbaijan University of Language during the summer with a Critical Language Scholarship and will continue his studies in 2019-2020 with a Boren Scholarship. He thanks his instructor Nur Lider for her effectiveness in teaching and continued support.
Congratulations 2019 Nationality Rooms Scholarship Recipients!
Anna Coleman (Economics, Statistics) received a Helen Pool Rush Scholarship to research how climate change is addressed in South Africa by working with environmental engineers at the University of Witwatersrand.
Lindsay Hopewell-Shanghai (Political Science) was awarded a Chinese Room Committee Scholarship to study Chinese culture, language, and economics.
Janice Im-Napo (Sociology) was awarded a Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt Grant to research what barriers hospitals and health centers in Tena, Ecuador face in offering mental health services to women who experience intimate partner violence.
Jamie Nassur (Microbiology) received the Fred C. Burhns Memorial Scholarship to participate in an internship on counseling and humanitarian action in Jordan.
Salena Ringenbach (Neuroscience) received an Indian Room Committee Scholarship to study health and first responder training in the Himalayas.
Samuel Winderman (Urban Studies) travels to the Netherlands with a David L. Lawrence Memorial Scholarship to study urban sustainability focusing on the three Ps: planet, profit, and people.
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