10/23
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Roadside Fossil Find Provides Key to the Development of Limbs in Animals
PHILADELPHIA --- Scientists from the University of Pennsylvania and the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia have discovered dramatic new evidence of how arms and legs developed from the fins of ancient fish. The evidence was discovered in a rock found in a pile of boulders lying along a busy highway in north-central Pennsylvania.The scientists reported their findings in the Jan. 8 issue of Nature.
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Alum's Moving Documentary Played at IH
An award-winning film at International House caught our eye. Annenberg School of Communication alumna Nilita Vachani documents the life of a domestic worker who struggles to support her own children in Sri Lanka by taking care of someone else's child in Greece. First prize winner at the Festival dei Popoli in Florence, an important documentary film festival, "When Mother Comes Home for Christmas" was screened at numerous international festivals before arriving at Annenberg Feb. 19.
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On the Shelf
As Penn faculty publish books, an occasional column appears on these pages to inform the University community of new releases. Modernism as Déja Vu All Over Again A collection of essays by Jean-Michel RabatŽ, Marjorie G. Ernest Term Professor of English, questions whether modernism and postmodernism can be separated from the past, from the future and from each other.
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Faculty Creak Past Students
The first student-faculty basketball game, the Provost's "Stanley" Cup (named after Provost Stanley Chodorow), offered 16 students a chance that every college kid wants--to go up against the faculty and show them who's boss. And that is exactly what they were doing in the first half of the game. College senior Jugdeep Bal left his teammates and his competitors frozen in awe as he snagged a rebound (top).
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New Eatery Sates Midnight Snack Attacks
Tonight's grand opening of a new campus nightspot is six months ahead of schedule, with hoopla and food, all because--you asked for it. When students responded to a Dining Services survey last spring, they expressed a strong desire for a late-night dining spot in the Quad. Dining Services began to develop plans for a new facility, targeting the fall of 1997 for the opening.
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Old English Politics Endure in Modern Sexual Politics
Once upon a time--1702-1714 to be exact--there was an English queen named Anne. To engage the affection of her subjects, she ordered her publicists to promote her as the mother of the nation. Anne had a precedent for her action. Queen Elizabeth had also promoted herself as mother of the nation. She had cashed in on her virginity: virgin queen as virgin mother, with the nation as the Son. At her coronation, Anne went even further with the metaphor, and presented herself as a nursing mother to the nation.
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Education's Challenge: Economic Change and the Alienation It Brings
When the American Federation of Teachers met in Philadelphia Feb. 22, they asked Sociology Professor Elijah Anderson, Charles and William L. Day professor of social science and director of the Philadelphia Ethnography Project here at Penn, to deliver the keynote address. Anderson has written a synopsis of his speech for the Compass.
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Beavers on Race and Manhood
Even though he is walking through our biggest cultural minefield, Herman Beavers, director of Penn's Afro-American Studies Program, is calm, soft-spoken, and, as he puts it, "a pretty straightforward guy." Beavers, you see, has made it his scholarly business to examine how we explain and define what it means to be black and male in America. "When we talk about black men, we conflate masculinity and race in very tangled ways," Beavers explained in the course of a wide-ranging conversation about his research findings and views about race.
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Insanity Defense: Fair or a Cop Out?
What was John du Pont thinking at the instant he pulled the trigger and shot wrestler Dave Schultz? Did du Pont think he was in danger? Why did he kill Schultz? These are among the questions the jury must wrestle with to decide if du Pont was legally insane. More broadly, what exactly is the insanity defense and is it being used legitimately in our criminal justice system?
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More to Say from Herman Beavers
My interview with Herman Beavers was one of those occasions when I wished I had used a tape recorder, for not long after it began, it turned into a conversation that ranged from the cultural to the personal, with Beavers often drawing connections between our individual background and experiences and the issues he explores in his work. Beavers spoke easily and at length on a range of subjects of current import. Here are some of his observations. --Sandy Smith