Dan Shortridge’s beats in the School of Arts & Sciences (SAS) include Political Science; History, International Relations; East Asian Languages and Civilizations; Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures; Francophone, Italian, and Germanic Studies; Russian and East European Studies; and Economics, as well as the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy, The Lauder Institute (Wharton/SAS), Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies (PORES), McNeil Center for Early American Studies, Penn Institute for Economic Research, the Center for Study of Contemporary China, Center for East Asian Studies, Christopher H. Browne Center for International Politics, Fels Institute of Government, and Center for the Study of Ethnicity, Race, & Immigration. In addition, he covers Penn Carey Law, the SNF Paideia Program, and for Penn Global he covers the China Research and Engagement Fund, Penn Washington, and Perry World House.
SNF Paideia Fellows visit Athens, Greece, in 2025.
(Image: Photo by Annalise Howard, courtesy of the SNF Paideia Program)
Paideia Fellows build dialogue in Athens
Penn’s SNF Paideia class of 2025 fellows capped off a three-year experience on a trip to Greece, where they met with local residents, toured historic sites, and discussed local issues with global impact.
A TV screen shows Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaking a day after Japan's parliamentary elections, in which his party lost its majority. Ishiba said he will remain in his role.
The Yomiuri Shimbun via AP Images
Japan’s election outcomes
Political scientist Daniel Smith discusses the results of the Japanese parliamentary elections and the effects on the country’s future.
A selection from a portrait of Thomas Muntzer from 1609.
COURTESY CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART
The 500-year legacy of a political thinker
Five hundred years ago this spring, about 8,000 armed peasants gathered outside the village of Frankenhausen in what is now Germany.Their stand ended in disaster, with thousands dead from an artillery barrage, and their spiritual leader, radical theologian Thomas Müntzer, was beheaded two weeks later after a torture-filled interrogation.
Guardrails versus leashes: Finding a better way to regulate AI technology
With artificial intelligence evolving faster than human imagination, traditional avenues of regulation may not work as well as they have for other business sectors.To safely and efficiently oversee AI, governments need to turn to a more flexible system, not immovable guardrails but more adjustable “leashes,” Penn Carey Law professor Cary Coglianese writes in a new article.
Melissa Teixeira discusses the final assignment with her Inflationary Times history class.
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Exploring inflation and economics through the lens of history
In Inflationary Times, a history course from Melissa Teixeira, students grappled with big-picture concepts of debt, money, and currency across the globe and through time.
Pope Leo XIV at St. Peter’s Basilica after being chosen the 267th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church on May 8.
(Image: AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Q&A: The first American pope
Melissa Wilde of the Department of Sociology, whose research has led her to the Vatican Secret Archive, among other places, discusses the new Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff, and the implications for the Roman Catholic Church.
Benjamin Nathans, the Alan Charles Kors Endowed Term Professor of History, has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his book “To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement.”
(Image: Matthew Hamilton)
Benjamin Nathans wins 2025 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction
Nathans, the Alan Charles Kors Endowed Term Professor of History in the School of Arts & Sciences, has taught at Penn since 1998.
