News Archives

Gourevitch recounts Rwandan horror

REPORTING/A witness to genocide wrestles with the moral questions it raises “We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998) has to be one of the strangest, most repellent and at the same time revelatory book titles ever to appear on the nonfiction best-seller list. The subtitle, “Tales from Rwanda,” sets the place, but the question its author, New Yorker staff writer Philip Gourevitch, asks has universal application: How do people make choices in the midst of horror?

Editor’s Pick: The return of Ur

Since 1998, the University of Pennsylvania Museum’s celebrated exhibit, “Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur,” has toured 11 sites in 10 American cities. On March 13, it returns for a limited time to its Philadelphia home. The 4,500 year-old Sumerian collection features about 200 objects uncovered in a joint expedition in the late 1920s organized by the Museum and the British Museum. Until September 2004, visitors can marvel at treasures from Mesopotamia—present-day Iraq—such as an elaborate “Ram in the Thicket” statuette and majestic lapis lazuli and carnelian jewelry.

News briefs

One for the books Once again, the Penn’s Way workplace charitable campaign has surpassed its fundraising goal. The final tally for the charity drive, announced by President Judith Rodin at a thank-you lunch for Penn’s Way volunteers Feb. 12, is $466,761, which exceeds the $465,000 goal by $1,761. Representatives of the charitable organizations that benefit from Penn’s Way contributions called the drive a model for combined campaigns and praised the online donation system implemented this year for its ease of use.

At Work with...Lauren Oshana

Scheppele: Serious flaws in Afghan constitution

With nation-building in emerging democracies at the center of today’s international news, much attention has been paid to the important task of creating stable governments. Kim Scheppele, professor of law and sociology, has played an important part in this worldwide process, most recently as an advisor for a United Nations task force charged with helping to construct Afghanistan’s new constitution.

Faculty Feature: A hat pays a visit to its Alaskan home

The Tlingit people of Sitka, Alaska, recently welcomed home a treasured object. Nearly 90 years after it was last worn, the Raven-of-the-Roof hat—a Native American headdress from the University of Pennsylvania Museum’s collection—was flown back to its original home for use in a Coho Salmon clan memorial potlatch, or feast.

50 years after Brown, a time for conversation

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision, in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down “separate but equal” education as unconstitutional.

Out and About: Portraits of new African-Americans

In one of Filmon Mebrahtu’s films, an African taxi driver expresses frustration and fear after a Senegalese driver is killed on the job. In another, a hair braiding salon owner laments the lively social life she left behind in her native Mali. Shot in cinema verité style, Mebrahtu’s documentaries focus on the day-to-day lives of African immigrants living in Philadelphia, rather than on the turbulent political situations under which they may have lived.

Conference Call

“Women in Action: Social Transformation In Latin America” brings together international women activists and scholars to discuss the role of women as agents of social change in Latin America. The symposium will be held on Feb. 27 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Terrace Room, Logan Hall. Marysa Navarro delivers the keynote address at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 26 in the Scheuer Room, Kohlberg Hall, Swarthmore College.

Bookquick/"Sick Economies: Drama, Mercantilism, and Disease in Shakespeare’s England”

The body has long played a role in Western perceptions of the economic. In 18th-century France, physiocrats talked of the blood-like circulation of wealth, while Scottish economist Adam Smith wrote about the “invisible hand” of the market.