School of Arts & Sciences

Exterior of Silverman Hall at the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law

Controversial jurist’s name to be removed from Law School building

Following a yearlong evaluation and inclusive process, the name of Roger Brooke Taney, former chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, will be removed from a decorative medallion on the exterior of Silverman Hall.

How historical racism influences modern poverty and racial inequality

Sociologist Regina Baker finds that Black people in southern U.S. states with significant institutionalized historical racial practices experience worse poverty today. These states also have a wider poverty gap between Black and white populations.

Replica of a torso with a brain embedded in place of the digestive system.

Helping the brain to heal the gut

In the second edition of her book on irritable bowel syndrome, Penn psychologist Melissa Hunt explores advances made in the past decade. Her aim is to offer accessible, effective, self-help psychological treatment for those who suffer from the disorder.

Conference meeting with dozens of people seated and looking at a presentation in a church-like setting

Penn and the Science History Institute to serve as new hosts of History of Science Society

The arrangement highlights Philadelphia as a hub for history of science scholarship and will provide mentoring opportunities for Penn students.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen at the end of a long table

Putin, personalism, and the war in Ukraine

Christopher Carothers of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China discusses how Putin managed to personalize power for himself and what that means for Russia’s neighbors and the world.

Left, Donovan Schaefer; right: Book cover of the book, Wild Experiment: Feeling Science and Secularism After Darwin.

Donovan Schaefer says there is no division between thinking and feeling

In his new book, “Wild Experiment: Feeling Science and Secularism after Darwin”, the assistant professor of religious studies posits that thinking and feeling are intertwined.

Guobin Yang and the cover of the book called "The Wuhan Lockdown by Guobin Yang." The image shows a person fully covered in what appears like a hazmat suit next to a person in a hospital bed. They are outside.

Frontline voices from the pandemic’s early days

In his new book, “The Wuhan Lockdown,” Guobin Yang uses personal diaries from that city’s residents to recreate how it felt at the epicenter of what was then a scary and unknown new virus.

Following the trail of Elizabeth Thomas, fossil hunter

Claire Conklin Sabel, a doctoral student in Penn’s History and Sociology of Science department, uncovers the findings of 18th-century amateur naturalist Elizabeth Thomas, along with illustrator Alix Pentecost-Farren, who brings Thomas’ work to life.

Thrower Cam Landis stands in front of the Penn Museum, where the anthropology museum is based.

Faith, athletic drive, and the Midwestern spirit

May graduate Cam Landis, an anthropology major from Madison, Ohio, played on the offensive line for the football team, walked on to the track team as a thrower—and delved into his Jewish roots at Hillel.

A view of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a long building of orange brick and blue angled roofs. The Schuylkill River flows in the foreground.

Art museums plant seeds of human flourishing

Researchers from the Humanities and Human Flourishing Project in the Positive Psychology Center at Penn have found that art museums are associated with wide-ranging benefits to human health.

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