Once primarily the subject of video games and popular novels, Special Forces have once again captured America’s attention. In the wake of Operation Neptune Spear, a mission that killed al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, the now famous Seal Team Six is one facet of the growing curiosity about what these advanced and highly skilled units do on a daily basis.
World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh, YWCA Greater Pittsburgh, and Bricolage Production Company
Join us on March 19 for a salon screening of the documentary Not My Life and a discussion that builds on the topics of human trafficking and forced labor, among other related crimes, and the work being done on the local level to address these issues. Who is being exploited? What are the signs? What can you do to help?
Medieval Arabic sources are replete with stories about Muslims traveling far and wide. The abundance of such examples tempts one to believe that these traveling individuals created and maintained the pan-Islamic cultural commonwealth. Yet the Islamic written legacy is so vast that drawing decisive conclusions that traveling was indeed as widespread as our sources suggest is hardly possible.
University of Pittsburgh Women’s Studies Program, Consortium for Educational Resources on Islamic Studies, Department of Political Science, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, and Humanities Center
Microcredit (small loans to start small enterprises in the informal sector) has been praised in many quarters as a panacea for the poverty and patriarchy that poor women in Third World countries confront. Securing poor women access to credit, for enterprises in the small-scale agricultural sector and the urban informal sector is at the center of a significant chunk of “women and development” agendas today.
Islam 101 is a free weekly class that provides basic information on the tenets of Islam, and delves into deeper meanings of the beliefs
and religious practices. The class is open to people of all faiths and backgrounds and has proven to be a great resource for anyone interested
in researching other faiths and cultures. Taught by Taha Selim Ustun: Taha is an experienced interfaith lecturer who
has been promoting the understanding of Islam and Muslims for a number of years in countries such as Malaysia, Turkey and Australia. He recently
Ford Institute for Human Security, Global Studies Center, University Centers for International Studies
The presentation will focus on:
• How can conflicts be resolved in states where extremist organizations seek their own territory?
• What does the Arab Spring mean for North and West Africa and what are the prospects of developing democracy in these regions?
• What are the challenges for weak states in trying to combat terrorism and revolution from the grassroot level?
• What makes this region different for analysts to understand?
Penn Highlands Community College, Global Studies Center, University of Pittsburgh
This talk will focus on the transformation of the Syrian uprisings over the last two years and provide an analysis of both the geopolitical and grassroots forces. How can we begin to understand the conflict in Syria? Who are the different actors on the ground? What positions might we consider taking in this country?
Global Studies Center, University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University
Juan R.I. Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. He has written extensively on modern Islamic movements in Egypt, the Persian Gulf and South Asia and has given numerous media interviews on the war on terrorism and the Iraq War. He lived in various parts of the Muslim world for nearly 10 years and continues to travel widely there.
The Pittsburgh Social Movements Forum, Department of Sociology, Global Studies Center, University of Pittsburgh
Asef Baat is Professor of Global and Transnational studies at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. He previously taught at Leiden University in the Netherlands and the American University in Cairo. Among his books are: Street Politics; Poor People’s Movement in Iran; Making Islam Democratic; Social Movements and Past-Islamist Turn; and Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East.