University of Pittsburgh

Thank you for your interest. We are unfortunately at capacity for this event. Please complete registration below (same as the book discussion registration) to participate in a future book discussion.

Join a book discussion lead by Rosemary Juel Bertocci, Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Saint Frances University and Dr. Dr. Francis Rohlf, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Mt. Aloysius College.

Associate Professor of History, Dr. Rian Thum's research and teaching are generally concerned with the overlap of China and the Muslim World. He argues that the Uyghurs- and their place in China today- can only be understood in the light of longstanding traditions of local pilgrimage and manuscript culture.

Blending performance footage, personal interviews, and archival film, director Morgan Neville and producer Caitrin Rogers focus on the journeys of a small group of Silk Road Ensemble mainstays from across the globe to create an intensely personal chronicle of passion, talent, and sacrifice. Through these moving individual stories, the filmmakers paint a vivid portrait of a bold musical experiment and a global search for the ties that bind.

Dr. Morgan Liu is a cultural anthropologist studying Islamic knowledge and practice in post-Soviet Central Asia, focusing on Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. He is interested in ethnographic approaches to the state, post-socialism, space, and agency. Liu takes a comparative look at notions of just society across the Middle East, Russia, and Asia.

Georgetown University professor, Dr. James Millward, discusses the ancestors of the guitar, viola, mandolin, and other members of the stringed instrument family that hail from Central Eurasia and traveled both east and west along what we call the "Silk Road." Silk Road interactions involved more than the conveyance of a thing from point A to point B; these conversations laid the shared substratum of old world civilization and continue to resonate today.

Amnesty International will host discussion on Syria and the refugee crisis with Dr. Luke Peterson, Department of History, University of Pittsburgh

This talk explores the relationship between national securitization, liberal warfare, and transnational linkages and encounters between the U.S. and the North Africa/Middle East region. Drawing on over a year of research in Israel/Palestine, this talk examines how the tethering of U.S. terrorism law and policy to foreign aid transactions is giving rise to expansive networks of surveillance and enforcement far beyond U.S. borders.

This talk explores the relationship between national securitization, liberal warfare, and transnational linkages and encounters between the U.S. and the North Africa/Middle East region. Drawing on over a year of research in Israel/Palestine, this talk examines how the tethering of U.S. terrorism law and policy to foreign aid transactions is giving rise to expansive networks of surveillance and enforcement far beyond U.S. borders.

Join us as Ustadh Wisam Sharieff gives a talk at the University of Pittsburgh. Ustadh Wisam Sharieff is the founder of Advocating Qur’anic Literacy (AQL), an institute focused on educating communities on how to read, memorize, and understand the Qur’an. He graduated from the Qur’an Academy in Lahore, Pakistan with a bachelor’s degree in Arabic grammar and a minor in Arabic literature. His studies include studying personally with Dr. Israr Ahmed (R) for one year, studying a summer in Makkah, and earning his ‘ijaazah in Egypt in the Hafs ’an ‘Aasim’s recitation.

Join us for an afternoon of conversation and storytelling where sisters from all faith traditions will be sharing life experiences and stories (not only religious ones) to one another to try to feel connected on a human level. This afternoon will hopefully bring many heartfelt memories of smiles and laughter along with empathizing with one another about our individual journeys through life.