From the Director: Dr. Michael Goodhart
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Global Studies Faculty Fellow
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Dr. Shalini Puri, Professor of English, has been selected as the 2021-22 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. Dr. Shalini Puri, Professor of English and recipient of the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award, works on postcolonial and cultural studies of the global south with a focus on the Caribbean. Her research spans memory studies, environmental humanities, feminism, marxism, nationalism, indentureship and slavery, fieldwork, the arts, and everyday cultural practices. Puri is also a co-founder of the Pitt Prison Education Project. Her current project, “Writing on Water: Postcards from the Caribbean Anthropocene,” explores the representations and silences of the Caribbean water crisis. It tries to shift discourses of human rights and the Anthropocene by drawing on the sensory and embodied approaches of the arts. To this end, Puri works not only on crisis-driven genres but on a wider range of genres and practices that offer sustenance and insight.
As part of her ongoing work to diversify the modalities, reach, and settings of the public humanities, Puri will organize several events with artists and scholar-practitioners that will be open to the public. She will also teach a graduate seminar that explores the world water crisis through the lens of the Caribbean and studies the possibilities and limitations of allyship with the global south from a location in the global north.
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Global Academic Partnership (GAP)
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Dr. David Sanchez, Assistant Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering and Assistant Director of Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation, has been awarded a Global Academic Partnership (GAP) grant as part of a team project, “Sustainability in Micronesian Island Nations”
Partnering with leaders across Micronesia this project will develop interdisciplinary and indigenous dialogue/scholarship around the dynamics of several global phenomena (threats to indigenous culture, climate change, environmental degradation, and of particular interest the geopolitical tussle between Chinese and US colonization) converging rapidly in Micronesia.
Representing a significant portion of the “Blue Continent”, and serving as a microcosm for other countries, it is imperative to understand how these global dynamics play out, not only for Small Island Developing States (SIDS), but for all countries as they attempt to manage both the tradeoffs and synergies embedded in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as part of the 2030 Agenda. Over the next two years the partnership will co-create two conferences through planning workshops led by Micronesian leaders and scholars. The two conferences will focus on (1) Future Strategies for a Sustainable Micronesia: Resilience and Opportunity (Fall 2021) (2) Examining the relationship between Traditional Healing and Cultural and Environmental Sustainability (Fall 2022).
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, 2022. For more information, click here.
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Mark your Calendars for our
Fall 2021 Mini-Course!
Transforming Cities: Cities & Social Justice Mini-Course
October 22-24, 2021
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GAP Update: Global Horror Studies Archival and Research Network
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The University of Pittsburgh’s Horror Studies Working Group (HSWG), directed by GAP grant recipient Dr. Adam Lowenstein, is the umbrella organization that works to link horror studies initiatives unfolding in four different sectors: the Global Studies Center (home of the Global Horror Studies and Archival and Research Network); the University Library System (home of the George A. Romero Collection and the Horror Studies Archive); the University Honors College (home of the “Horror Genre as Social Force” scholar community); and the George A. Romero Foundation (home of vital partnerships and collaborations related to all of these sectors).
2020-2021 was a busy and successful year for all of the horror studies initiatives, including the official founding of the Global Horror Studies Archival and Research Network (GHSARN). The GHSARN held its first workshop in January, hosted by Pitt, followed by a roundtable panel at the international Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference in March. The GHSARN also co-sponsored an ambitious slate of Women in Horror programming, including a talk with trailblazing Mexican-Canadian horror director Gigi Saul Guerrero; a panel devoted to the British TV horror landmark Ghostwatch with director Lesley Manning joined by director Aislinn Clarke and scholar Stacey Abbott (University of Roehampton, UK); a showcase from the Final Girls Berlin film festival, one of the world’s premiere events for women horror filmmakers, with the festival’s curators as well as featured directors from all over the world; and a semester-long screening series devoted to Malaysian and Singaporean horror with visits from director Amanda Nell Eu and scholar Rosalind Galt (King’s College London, UK).
Upcoming projects in development for the GHSARN include a three-part set of linked conferences on global horror studies that focus on Asian horror through the national lens of Japan as well as J-horror’s global influence. These conferences, coordinated by the GHSARN, are planned to be hosted in three different countries at three different times but with virtual connections joining all three. In July 2021, Japan’s Kyoto University will host a conference on J-horror and the global archival dimensions of horror studies, including Pitt’s Horror Studies Archive and the George A. Romero Collection. In September 2021, the University of Pittsburgh will host a conference on J-horror in contexts across the Asian and global spectrum. In April 2022, Australia’s Swinburne University of Technology plans to host a conference on the connections between Asian and Australian horror. All three conferences will include scholars, students, and noted filmmakers, as well as opportunities for participation from the international community of researchers and fans through virtual forums. For the latest information and updates, please visit and subscribe to the official newsletter of the Horror Studies Working Group.
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In Review: Michele Reid-Vazquez's "Transnational Dialogues in Afrolatinidad" Faculty Fellowship
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Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez of Africana Studies postponed all of the in-person activities developed for her fellowship, including the planned conference. Seeing an opportunity for greater engagement, she pivoted to online activities. Organizing three “Transnational Dialogues in Afrolatinidad” webinar panels featuring twelve scholars on different thematic topics, the events drew several hundred viewers and nearly a thousand registrants. These panels can be viewed on the Global Studies Center's YouTube page. Reid-Vazquez also provided two personalized internship experiences to two students and is currently working on developing a Afrolatinidad Studies Consortium and scholarly podcast project.
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Dr. Michael Glass' Upcoming Book:
Urban Violence, Resilience, and Security: Governance Responses in the Global South
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The book addresses how human security is provided through regular and irregular planning mechanisms in urban Latin America and Africa, despite the presence of chronic violence. The book was developed during two workshops funded via a Global Studies Center Global Academic Partnership (GAP) grant that brought an interdisciplinary group of emerging and established scholars to the University of Pittsburgh in 2016 and 2017. The collaboration fostered an approach to urban violence, resilience, and security that avoids an understanding of human security bound to Westphalian principles of democracy, or that considers cities of the global North to epitomize conditions of security, safety, and sustainability. Instead, the ten empirical chapters drawn from intensive fieldwork in Latin America, Africa, and Asia push the debates about urban violence and disorder beyond simple indicators of vulnerability and resilience to instead provide a deeper and more geographically grounded perspective on the twenty first century’s urban condition across the Global South. The book will be published by Edward Elgar in January 2022.
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Teacher and Community Happenings/Events
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Four Evenings -- Global Literary Encounters
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.
Open to series subscribers and the Pitt Community, 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. Registrations coming soon here.
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
October 14, 2021
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
December 2, 2021
Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
February 17, 2022
Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
May 5, 2022
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Global Issues Through Literature Series (GILS)
Imagining Other Worlds: Globalizing Science Fiction and Fantasy
This reading group for K-12 educators explores literary texts from a global perspective. Content specialists present the work and its context and with participants brainstorm innovative pedagogical practices for incorporating the text and its themes into the curriculum. Sessions will continue to take place on Thursday evenings from 5:00-8:00 PM. Books and Act 48 credit hours are provided free of charge.
Save the following dates - registration and titles coming soon here.
October 21, 2021
November 18, 2021
January 20, 2022
February 24, 2022
April 28, 2022
May 26, 2022
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GSC Students: On the Move!
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Congratulations to GSC's April 2021 graduates!
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Catch our video ceremony here.
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Congratulations Class of 2021! On April 30, our Center honored our 2021 graduates with over 50 students receiving either a global studies certificate (26 undergraduate, 5 graduate) or a global health certificate (22). The students plan to venture all parts of the globe, teaching English in Taiwan and Spain, assuming positions in Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver, Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Erie, or enrolling in graduate programs including at Georgetown, Emory, Johns Hopkins, Boston University and Pitt.
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VIH Program for Women in Global Leadership
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Caroline Weiss is a 2021 awardee of the VIH Program for Women in Global Leadership. This summer, she plans to use the funds for a global experience focused on sustainability and climate mitigation. Studying environmental policy in the cultural and economic context of another country will empower Caroline to strengthen her global competencies and improve her independent research skills. Weiss is also a Pitt Governor's School for Global and International Studies Alum!
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National Award Recipients
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Jennifer Wallace (’21 Political Science & Communications) was awarded a Fulbright to teach English in Yilan, Taiwan starting in August, 2021 to continue learning how elementary schools abroad implement foreign language curricula.
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Dijana Mujkanovic (GSPIA PhD Candidate) was awarded a Boren Fellowship to study Hebrew in Israel.
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National Science Foundation Grant Awardee
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Maja Lynn ('22, Anthropology/BPHIL/IAS/Global Studies) has received a grant from the National Science Foundation to travel to Berlin and complete fieldwork for her BPhil thesis. She will be interviewing activists and museum professionals about their role in conversations surrounding the repatriation of human remains stolen during the Herero genocide.
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GLOBAL STUDIES CENTER | www.ucis.pitt.edu/global
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