Learn Something New
Learn something new at IUPUI
If you don't have time to attend a live event, you can explore our catalogue of pre-recorded lectures, cooking demonstrations, dances, and more! See below to find something new to connect you to IUPUI's international community.
Cook something new
Cook previous festival recipes
Our friends in Bloomington also shared some recipe ideas!
Learn something new
Explore IU's Archives
All IU campuses have a deep history of international connections. Explore IU's Library Archives with videos like the two pictured below!
IU Center for Global Health
Continue learning more about Global Health with the AMPATH's Fireside Chats and the Global Health Research Speaker Series.
Herron School of Art + Design
Learn how the Herron School of Art + Design has remained connected to its international partners and has continued to internationalize its curricula during the COVID-19 pandemic.
OIA History
Learn more about the history of OIA and everything international at IUPUI.
Chinese New Year
Learn more about Chinese New Year courtesy of the Chinese Culture Club at IUPUI.
Study in some place new
See something new
Enjoy these photos from our IUPUI students who studied abroad. These photos are recent-year winners of the Study Abroad Photo Contest.
Read something new
Check out OIA staff's favorite international reads!
Born a Crime
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao
The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fukœ—the curse that has haunted the Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim.Don Quixote
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Don Quixote has become so entranced by reading chivalric romances that he determines to become a knight-errant himself. In the company of his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, his exploits blossom in all sorts of wonderful ways. While Quixote's fancy often leads him astray—he tilts at windmills, imagining them to be giants—Sancho acquires cunning and a certain sagacity. Sane madman and wise fool, they roam the world together, and together they have haunted readers' imaginations for nearly four hundred years.Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America
Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas
Funny in Farsi chronicles the American journey of Dumas’s wonderfully engaging family: her engineer father, a sweetly quixotic dreamer who first sought riches on Bowling for Dollars and in Las Vegas, and later lost his job during the Iranian revolution; her elegant mother, who never fully mastered English (nor cared to); her uncle, who combated the effects of American fast food with an army of miraculous American weight-loss gadgets; and Firoozeh herself, who as a girl changed her name to Julie, and who encountered a second wave of culture shock when she met and married a Frenchman, becoming part of a one-couple melting pot.The Geography of Bliss: One Grumps Search for the Happiest Places in the World
The Geography of Bliss: One Grumps Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner
Weiner spent a decade as a foreign correspondent reporting from such discontented locales as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Indonesia. Unhappy people living in profoundly unstable states, he notes, inspire pathos and make for good copy, but not for good karma. So Weiner, admitted grump and self-help book aficionado, undertook a year's research to travel the globe, looking for the "unheralded happy places." The result is this book, equal parts laugh-out-loud funny and philosophical, a journey into both the definition of and the destination for true contentment.Homegoing
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Ghana, eighteenth century: two half sisters are born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the very same castle, and sold into slavery.The Kite Runner
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons—their love, their sacrifices, their lies.Lagoon
Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor
When a massive object crashes into the ocean off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria’s most populous and legendary city, three people wandering along Bar Beach (Adaora, the marine biologist- Anthony, the rapper famous throughout Africa- Agu, the troubled soldier) find themselves running a race against time to save the country they love and the world itself… from itself. Told from multiple points of view and crisscrossing narratives, combining everything from superhero comics to Nigerian mythology to tie together a story about a city consuming itself.Man's Search for Meaning
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Based on his own experience and the stories of his patients, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. At the heart of his theory, known as logotherapy, is a conviction that the primary human drive is not pleasure but the pursuit of what we find meaningful. Man's Search for Meaning has become one of the most influential books in America; it continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living.The Namesake
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of their arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle together in Cambridge, Massachusetts. An engineer by training, Ashoke adapts far less warily than his wife, who resists all things American and pines for her family. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. Named for a Russian writer by his Indian parents in memory of a catastrophe years before, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name.Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe
Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe by Bill Bryson
Whether braving the homicidal motorist of Paris, being robbed by gypsies in Florence, attempting not to order tripe and eyeballs in a German restaurant, window-shopping in the sex shops of the Reeperbahn or disputing his hotel bill in Copenhagen, Bryson takes in the sights, dissects the culture and illuminates each place and person with his hilariously caustic observations. He even goes to Liechtenstein.Pachinko
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant--and that her lover is married--she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.The Thing around Your Neck
The Thing around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
In The Thing Around Your Neck, Adichie turns her penetrating eye on not only Nigeria but also America, in twelve dazzling stories that explore the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States.A Thousand Splendid Suns
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan's last thirty years - from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding - that puts the violence, fear, hope, and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives - the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness - are inextricable from the history playing out around them.The Tusk That Did the Damage
The Tusk That Did the Damage by Tania James
The Tusk That Did the Damage is an utterly contemporary story about an ancient and majestic elephant, and his dangerous connection to the land and the people around him. Orphaned by poachers as a calf and sold into a life of labor, Gravedigger has broken free of his chains and is terrorizing the South Indian countryside. Caught up in the violence are the studious younger son of a rice farmer drawn into the sordid world of poaching; and a young American documentary filmmaker engaged in a risky affair with the veterinarian who is her subject. In three intertwined storylines—one of them narrated by the elephant himself—Tania James crafts a heartbreaking tale of the ivory trade, exploring the porous boundary between conservation and corruption. It is a wrenching exploration of love and betrayal, duty and loyalty, and the vexed relationship between man and nature.Unaccustomed Earth
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father, who carefully tends the earth of her garden, where he and his grandson form a special bond. But he’s harboring a secret from his daughter, a love affair he’s keeping all to himself. In “A Choice of Accommodations,” a husband’s attempt to turn an old friend’s wedding into a romantic getaway weekend with his wife takes a dark, revealing turn as the party lasts deep into the night. In “Only Goodness,” a sister eager to give her younger brother the perfect childhood she never had is overwhelmed by guilt, anguish, and anger when his alcoholism threatens her family. And in “Hema and Kaushik,” a trio of linked stories—a luminous, intensely compelling elegy of life, death, love, and fate—we follow the lives of a girl and boy who, one winter, share a house in Massachusetts. They travel from innocence to experience on separate, sometimes painful paths, until destiny brings them together again years later in Rome.What is Not Yours is Not Yours
What is Not Yours is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi
The key to a house, the key to a heart, the key to a secret—Oyeyemi’s keys not only unlock elements of her characters’ lives, they promise further labyrinths on the other side. In “Books and Roses” one special key opens a library, a garden, and clues to at least two lovers’ fates. In “Is Your Blood as Red as This?” an unlikely key opens the heart of a student at a puppeteering school. “‘Sorry’ Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea” involves a “house of locks,” where doors can be closed only with a key—with surprising, unobservable developments. And in “If a Book Is Locked There’s Probably a Good Reason for That Don't You Think,” a key keeps a mystical diary locked (for good reason). Oyeyemi’s tales span multiple times and landscapes as they tease boundaries between coexisting realities. Is a key a gate, a gift, or an invitation?
Listen to something new
OIA staff doesn't just work, travel, and read internationally, we love podcasts and music. Here are some of our favorite globally themed listens.
- Aytaç Doğan
Aytaç Doğan is a Turkish musician who recorded a number of albums, including two solo kanun recitals and ensemble music. The recitals display a wide range of styles and impressive musical virtuosity, and the ensemble albums make for great party music. He is also well known for playing the kanun, a plucked string instrument played throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Balkans, and Central Asia. - Mayra Andrade
Mayra Andrade is a truly international artist: born in Cuba to a Cape Verdean family, she records music in Portuguese, Cape Verdean Creole, French, and English. Try her album “Manga” for a study session. - The Moth Podcast
The Moth creates a space for people from around the world to share their true and unscripted stories in front of a live audience. The Moth Podcast is one of the best places to tune in for captivating stories that remind us to love others and celebrate humanity. - Ravi Shankar
The sitar, a classic Indian string instrument, possesses an extraordinary versatility for expressing emotion. Check out the music of Ravi Shankar, perhaps India’s most famous classical sitar player, and his daughter Anoushka who followed in his footsteps and has recorded several cross-genre collaborations on her EP called “Love Letters.” - Rough Translation Podcast
Gregory Warner tells stories that follow familiar conversations into unfamiliar territory. At a time when the world seems small but it's as hard as ever to escape our echo chambers, Rough Translation takes you places. - Status Podcast: Immigration & People
The Status Podcast tells the human stories that immigration impacts. Every immigrant has a story, and the podcast tells those stories and how the complex reality of immigration weaves its way into the narrative.
