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Kristen de Groot
News Officer
krisde@upenn.edu
History
The Great War and memory
The Great War and memory
History professor Warren Breckman took his Penn Global Seminar students to the Western Front area of northern France and Belgium to look at World War I through the intersections of personal and public memory.
Controversial jurist’s name to be removed from Law School building
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
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.
Putin, personalism, and the war in Ukraine
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.
Penn and the Science History Institute to serve as new hosts of History of Science Society
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.
Following the trail of Elizabeth Thomas, fossil hunter
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.
Baseball history, American history
Baseball history, American history
Sarah Gronningsater’s popular course links the two in a study of the sport from the Civil War to Jackie Robinson to the current day.
Undergraduate research projects look at migration from multiple angles
Undergraduate research projects look at migration from multiple angles
The Wolf Undergraduate Humanities forum takes on the topic of migration, with individual research projects ranging from slavery debates within the Jewish Orthodox community to Southeast Asian refugee youth.
Engaging in intersectional conversations on race and racism
Engaging in intersectional conversations on race and racism
In the spring, students engaged with complex topics, both intellectually and civically, as part of American Race: A Philadelphia Story, a Stavros Niarchos Foundation Paideia Program course.
Talking about Chinese diasporas
Talking about Chinese diasporas
History Ph.D. candidate Sarah Yu’s class transformed students into tour guides and podcasters as they honed their public speaking skills while learning about Chinese migration.
Media Contact
In the News
The New York Times
A secret city with a secret African American history
Mary Frances Berry of the School of Arts & Sciences comments on a reported 7,000 African Americans from the Deep South who were recruited to work on the Manhattan Project starting in 1942.
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Voice of America
Controversial Russian opera star takes stage in Paris
Kevin Platt of the School of Arts & Sciences does not support a blanket boycott of Russian artists.
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The New York Times
Histories of travel segregation and Chinese migration win Bancroft Prize
Mia Bay of the School of Arts & Sciences has been awarded the Bancroft Prize for her book “Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance.”
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The Atlantic
What Russia is stirring up at Chernobyl
Adriana Petryna of the School of Arts & Sciences wrote about how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could impact Chernobyl, the site of a 1986 explosion at a nuclear facility. “By seizing the plant as part of a brutal invasion, Russia is stirring up radioactive particles and also Chernobyl’s painful legacy: Ukrainians’ memory of the Soviet Union’s disregard for their lives,” she wrote.
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The New York Times
One graceless Tweet doesn’t warrant cancellation
Elle Lett, a postdoc in the Perelman School of Medicine, wrote about how the word “freak” has been used to dehumanize Black women. “There is a history that dates back to the antebellum South” of “fetishizing, hypersexualizing and otherizing Black women in freak shows and displays to media and even medical textbooks,” Lett wrote. “Black women are consistently dehumanized in America. By using ‘freak of nature,’ you separate Black women from the rest of human existence.”
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The Washington Post
Putin’s war aims to undo the traumas of the 1990s for Russians
Sasha Zborovsky of the School of Arts & Sciences writes that territorial expansion is part of Putin’s attempt to rebuild a national identity with no regard for Ukrainians.
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