In the inaugural episode of Penn Today’s “Understand This …” podcast series, Professor of Education Sigal Ben-Porath and Professor of History Sophie Rosenfeld face facts.
Sigal Ben-Porath, professor of education in the Graduate School of Education, and Sophie Rosenfeld, professor of history in the School of Arts and Sciences.
Welcome to “Understand This …”
“Understand This …” is the latest podcast series from Penn Today, a journey to understand how to solve problems of the day—and of our time—by uniting minds from different disciplines across campus. In the first episode of the series, Sigal Ben-Porath, a professor of education and author of “Free Speech on Campus,” and Sophie Rosenfeld, a professor of history and author of “Democracy and Truth: A Short History,” are asked to consider this: How can we, as a society, agree again on what constitutes a fact?
Below, find jump-off points for the conversation and a stream of the podcast. Follow us on Apple Music to continue with us on the path to interdisciplinary problem-solving.
1:37: Conversation starts
4:55: “What you may or may not do with facts”
5:50: “The problem with a fact is it’s hard to even agree what one is”
15:00: Trust and mistrust of media
19:25: When to take action from facts
23:30: Social media’s influence on the dissemination of information
29:40: The loss of serendipity in the pursuit of knowledge
32:00: Rosenfeld’s course on the history of democracy and truth
34:00: What to do when someone recognizes a fact and doesn't care
40:30: Rosenfeld’s anecdote about jury duty and why Ben-Porath is feeling hopeful
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