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Africana Studies

How Manchester helped shape Africa’s future
The Voice (U.K.)

How Manchester helped shape Africa’s future

Tukufu Zuberi of the School of Arts & Sciences says that the new Black History & Culture Collection from Getty Images represents an invitation to reorder and represent Black stories in Black spaces.

Penn in Latin America and the Caribbean
Antonia M. Villarruel addresses the audience while Emily Hannum, Tulia Falleti, and LaShawn Jefferson look on. A sign behind the group reads: Perry World House.

From left to right: Antonia M. Villarruel, Margaret Bond Simon Dean of Nursing at Penn Nursing, Emily Hannum, Professor of Sociology and Education and Associate Dean, School of Arts & Sciences, Tulia Falleti, director of the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies, Class of 1965 Endowed Term Professor of Political Science, and Senior Fellow Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, and LaShawn Jefferson, executive director of Perry World House, at the conference opening plenary.

Penn in Latin America and the Caribbean

This year’s Penn in Latin America and the Caribbean conference hosted by Perry World House focused on the theme of “Shared Narratives: Arts, Culture and Conflict in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

Kristina García

‘Music connects’ for Summer Institute students
Timothy Rommen next to a piano and a podium teaching a class full of students.

Timothy Rommen (right) teaches a class on Dominica’s popular music, one of several in this year’s Center for Africana Studies Summer Institute for Pre-Freshmen.

‘Music connects’ for Summer Institute students

The Summer Institute for Pre-Freshmen brings new students together with experienced faculty and graduate students to discuss cultural themes in Africana studies.

Kristina García

Wale Adebanwi on democratic reform in Africa
Illustrations of chat boxes, African American hands holding a handful of stones, and an African American person in profile.

Image: Kingsley Nebechi

Wale Adebanwi on democratic reform in Africa

The Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies teaches an undergraduate course, Popular Culture and Youth in Africa. He discusses successes and challenges of democratic reform in post-Cold War Africa.

From Omnia

Toni Morrison and the adventure of the 21st century
Herman Beavers converses with students

Beavers has been teaching Morrison’s work for over 30 years. “In a moment with ever-present discussions about how—and sometimes, if—we value human bodies, reading Morrison’s novels offer an opportunity to think about how we can not only occupy place but also cohabit with our neighbors, whether they look like us, share our point of origin, or reflect our values,” he says.

Toni Morrison and the adventure of the 21st century

In Herman Beavers’ English 101 class, students take an in-depth look at Toni Morrison, reading her 11 novels, writing thesis papers, and presenting on topics of interest to the class.

Kristina García

The changing face of portraiture at Penn
portrait in leidy labs

Homepage image: A portrait in Leidy honors Nathan Francis Mossell, who, in 1882, became the first African American student to earn a medical degree from Penn. With its placement in the accessible portion of the building’s stairway, this new portrait gallery is highly visible to students, staff, faculty, and visitors who spend time in the Biology Department.

The changing face of portraiture at Penn

Efforts around campus aim to diversify those honored in portraits and rethink how to approach representation through art.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Du Bois College House celebrates 50 years
interim president wendell pritchett greets students

First-year students Mataeya McFadden, Sarah Oburu, and Danielle Uter chat with Interim President Wendell Pritchett at the Du Bois College House 50th anniversary kickoff. 

Du Bois College House celebrates 50 years

For five decades, the living and learning space has served as a home away from home for students, and the community has evolved into a family.

Lauren Hertzler

Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka on art and culture
two people sitting in chairs on stage talking

Playwright, novelist, and poet Wole Soyinka (right), the first African to win the Nobel Prize fo Literature, was the inaugural speaker for the Distinguished Lecture in African Studies. The event at the Penn Museum included a Q&A with Wale Adebanwi (left) a professor of Africana studies in the School of Arts & Sciences.

Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka on art and culture

Wole Soyinka, the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, spoke as the inaugural guest for the Distinguished Lecture in African Studies.
The pandemic’s psychological scars
swirly painting of faces and heads

(Homepage image) “What we needed to do for our physical health—quarantining, staying away from other people and social situations—even when that kind of avoidance is the right thing to do, it makes people more anxious,” says Elizabeth Turk-Karan of the Center for the Study and Treatment of Anxiety. What remains to be seen is how these emotions and many others will play out as the pandemic recedes.

The pandemic’s psychological scars

It’s been a long and uncertain road, with some groups shouldering a disproportionately greater burden of mental anguish from COVID-19. Yet now there’s a glimmer of hope. Has the page finally turned?

Michele W. Berger