Briefly Noted

Pitt Conference Will Explore “The Flip Side of Globalization”

Pitt’s 12th Annual Transcending Boundaries Conference titled “The Flip Side of Globalization” will explore the unanticipated consequences of globalization, such as outsourcing and the unequal distribution of generic drugs. A luncheon will kick off the event at 12:30 p.m.

March 23 in the William Pitt Union’s Kurtzman Room. Keynote speaker John A. Lauder is internationally recognized as a leading authority on weapons of mass destruction, nonproliferation, arms control, and homeland security. Recently retired from the federal government, Lauder has managerial, analytical, and policy experience in the Central Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, and national security.

Following the luncheon, student panel discussions will be held on the third floor of Posvar Hall.

The conference will continue March 24 with additional student panel discussions, which will focus on such topics as infectious disease, weapons proliferation, political instability, and cyberthreats.

The conference is sponsored by Pitt’s AGORA, a graduate student organization affiliated with the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs that specializes in professional and academic development; the Association of Women in Public Health; and Carnegie Mellon University’s International Development Group.

The event is free and open to the public, though registration is required. For more information or to register, visit the AGORA Web site and click on “Transcending Boundaries Conference.” —Amanda Leff

Conference on Literary Film Adaptation Set for March 23

Each year, more than half of the films produced in Hollywood and in other film-producing areas around the world are based on fictional and nonfictional literary texts. While the process of adaptation appears essential to filmmaking, film scholars have given it little attention until recently.

Pitt will address the topic during a free public conference titled “The Virtues of Fidelity: Film Adaptation as Literary Truth,” featuring four of the world’s leading film scholars, to be held from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. March 23 in the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium. For a complete conference schedule, visit www.pitt.edu/~filmst/FilmAdaptationConference/schedule.html.

The conference is being held in conjunction with the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series reading by Irish novelist and playwright Patrick McCabe at 8:30 p.m. March 22, also in Frick Fine Arts Auditorium. McCabe is the author of five novels, including The Butcher Boy (Picador, 1992), which won the Irish Times’ Irish Literature Prize for fiction and was adapted into a 1996 film directed by Neil Jordan.

Conference speakers, in order of appearance, are scheduled to include:

• Tom Gunning, the Edwin A. and Betty L. Bergman Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago, giving a lecture titled “Submerged Continents, Shipwrecks, and Dreams: Adapting Gerhardt Hauptmann in 1913”;
• Laura Mulvey, professor in the School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media at Birkbeck University of London; her talk will be titled “Max Ophüls’ Adaptation of Madame de…by Louise de Vilmorin”;
• James Naremore, Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus in Communication and Culture, English, and Comparative Literature in the Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University, delivering a lecture titled “Hearts of Darkness: Welles and Conrad”; and
• Dudley Andrew, R. Selden Rose Professor of Film and Comparative Literature and director of graduate studies in the Film Studies Program at Yale University; his lecture will be titled “The Appearance of Fidelity and the Facts of Adaptation.”

Colin MacCabe, Distinguished Professor of English and Film at Pitt and professor of English and Humanities at Birkbeck University of London, will make opening remarks at the conference.

Speaker introductions will be made by Pitt faculty members Adam Lowenstein, associate professor of English and film studies; Marcia Landy, Distinguished Service Professor of English and Film Studies; Lucy Fischer, professor of English and director of the Film Studies Program; and Xinmin Liu, assistant professor of Chinese literature in East Asian Languages and Literatures.

The free, public conference is sponsored by the School of Arts and Sciences’ Department of English, Film Studies Program, and the Graduate Program for Cultural Studies. For more information, visit www.pitt.edu/~filmst/FilmAdaptationConference/index.html. —Patricia Lomando White

Keller to Lecture on Terrorism,
Iraq, Rise of Anti-Americanism

William W. Keller, director of the University’s Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies, believes that U.S. policy in Iraq is not sustainable and will elaborate on these views in a Pitt Honors College lecture titled “Terrorism, Iraq, and the Rise of Anti-Americanism” at
2 p.m. March 23 in 1700 Posvar Hall. The event is free and open to the public.
Keller is a Pitt professor and the Wesley W. Posvar Chair in International Security Studies in the University’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. His teaching areas include internal security, terrorism, and the arms trade. Keller formerly served as executive director of the Center for International Studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was also research director of its Japan program and held the rank of principal research scientist.
Keller is the author of China’s Rise and the Balance of Influence in Asia (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007) and Hitting First: Preventive Force in U.S. Security Strategy (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006).
—Angelica Duggins