Briefly Noted

Issue Date: 
October 20, 2008

Pitt’s Ridgway Center Sets Talk On U.S. National Security Policy

The University of Pittsburgh’s Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies will present a free public lecture at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 23 by Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, as part of the Ridgway’s speaker series.

Katulis’ work focuses on U.S. national security policy with an emphasis on the Middle East, Iraq, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Pakistan. His talk, titled “Transnational Changes to Security,” will take place in Room 1500 Posvar Hall.

Katulis is coauthor with Nancy Soderberg of The Prosperity Agenda: What the World Wants From America—and What We Need in Return (Wiley, 2008), a book about U.S. national security. At the Center for American Progress, he serves as an advisor to the Middle East Progress project. Katulis also has served as a consultant to numerous U.S. government agencies, private corporations, and nongovernmental organizations on projects in many countries, including Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Egypt, Colombia, Morocco, and Bangladesh.

This event is cosponsored by Pitt’s Global Studies Program in the University Center for International Studies and Consortium for Educational Resources on Islamic Studies, as well as the National Security Network and the Pittsburgh Middle East Institute.

Additional information is available on the Ridgway Center’s Web site, www.ridgway.pitt.edu, or through Beverly Brizzi at 412-624-7884 or brizzi@gspia.pitt.edu.

The Ridgway Center is part of Pitt’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.

—Amanda Leff

Inaugural Burkart Holzner Lecture to Address Technological Progress

In honor of Pitt Professor Emeritus Burkart Holzner, director of the University Center for International Studies from 1980 to 2000, the University of Pittsburgh will present the inaugural lecture of the Burkart Holzner Lecture Series on International Issues. The free public lecture, “Redirecting Technological Progress: Greener, Profitable, Sustainable,” presented by Ernst von Weizsäcker, dean of the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara, will be held at 11 a.m. Oct. 21, 2500 Posvar Hall.

Holzner is Distinguished Service Professor of International Studies and professor emeritus of sociology and public and international affairs at Pitt. He joined the Pitt faculty in 1960, pursuing studies in sociological theory, the sociology of knowledge, and international affairs. He taught and lectured at many universities abroad, among them the Chinese University of Hong Kong; the University of Augsburg, Germany; Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan; and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing.

“Dr. Holzner’s extraordinary contributions and commitment were instrumental in establishing the University of Pittsburgh as a leader in international education,” says Lawrence Feick, Pitt senior director of International Programs, director of the University Center for International Studies, and acting director of the Global Studies Program.

Von Weizsäcker previously served as policy director in the United Nations Center for Science and Technology for Development and was director of the Institute for European Environmental Policy in Bonn, Germany. He was the founding president of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, and Energy in the North Rhine/Wesphalian Science Center in Germany and served as its leader for nearly a decade. After its founding in 1991, the Wuppertal Institute became the largest climate policy think tank in Europe and earned von Weizsäcker recognition as one of the most respected climate policy experts on the continent.

Von Weizsäcker is a member of the Club of Rome, a global think tank devoted to improving society, and he served on the World Commission on the Social Dimensions of Globalization. Prior to joining the Bren School, he chaired the Environmental Committee of the Bundestag, the German parliament, overseeing the establishment of the carbon trading regime and the introduction of a powerful incentive system for renewable energies in Germany. From 2003 to 2004, he served as Germany’s representative to then-UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s climate policy study group, which prepared UK polices for the G8 Summit.

—Amanda Leff

Printing Press on Wheels To Visit Pitt

Having logged more than 100,000 miles across the United States in a mobile printmaking studio, artists Gregory Nanney and Joseph Velasquez are bringing their studio-on-wheels—Drive by Press—to the University of Pittsburgh on Oct. 20.

In an event sponsored by Pitt’s Department of Studio Arts in the School of Arts and Sciences, the two men will deliver a free lecture and demonstrations on the printmaking process at noon in Room B-15, Frick Fine Arts Building.

From 2 to 5 p.m., there will be a print exhibition outside the Carnegie Library entrance facing Schenley Plaza. Custom printing from a number of woodblocks will be available for one-of-a-kind wearable art or paper prints.

Nanney and Velasquez—co-owner and curator of exhibitions, respectively, at SlingShot Gallery in Madison, Wis.—loaded a printing press into a pickup truck and set out 18 months ago to educate the public about printmaking, a 600-year-old process. At the universities, museums, and art galleries they visit, Nanney and Velasquez collect contemporary prints and accept woodblocks from some of the country’s most renowned woodcut artists. Drive by Press is self-funded through small honoraria and the sale of woodblock prints on paper and T-shirts.

For more information about Drive by Press, visit www.drivebypress.org. For more information about the Oct. 20 event, call 412-648-2430.
—Sharon S. Blake