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The Divine Comedy’s ‘universal message’
Woman pages through book. Many other books lie propped open on the table in front of her

Romance languages professor Eva Del Soldato pages through a volume illustrated by 19th-century French artist Gustave Doré, whose vivid illustrations popularized Dante for a new generation.

The Divine Comedy’s ‘universal message’

Seven centuries years after Dante Alighieri's death on Sept. 14, 1321, his “Divine Comedy,” a poem in which an autobiographical protagonist journeys through hell, purgatory, and paradise, is still widely influential.

Kristina García

Penn commemorates 20th anniversary of 9/11
People hold white flowers up during moment of silence

Penn commemorates 20th anniversary of 9/11

On Friday, the University community gathered at the Love Statue on campus to remember the precious lives of those lost on that tragic day in 2001.

Lauren Hertzler

Archiving empire with religious studies’ Megan Robb
Three people stand in front of Cohen Hall

Professor Megan Robb (center) worked with a team of students including Michael Goerlitz (left) and Juliana Lu (right) to create a digital archive centered on Elizabeth Sharaf-un-Nisa, an 18th-century Mughal woman who cohabited with a European man working for the East India Company, bearing children, marrying him, and ultimately living out the remainder of her life in England. 

Archiving empire with religious studies’ Megan Robb

A long-unseen archive centered on an 18th-century Mughal woman will soon be publicly accessible, thanks to the work of religious studies professor Megan Robb of the School of Arts & Sciences and a team of Penn students.

Kristina García

Harun Küçük brings science, philosophy, and history to the Middle East Center
Hasan Küçük stands with his hands in his jeans pockets in front of the wooden double doors and red brick facade of Fisher-Bennett Hall

Harun Küçük, a historian of early modern Ottoman science, is the new faculty director at the Middle East Center. 

Harun Küçük brings science, philosophy, and history to the Middle East Center

The newly appointed faculty director says his aim “first and foremost is to maintain all the good things that the Center’s already doing.”

Kristen de Groot

Daniel Morales-Armstrong’s ‘Inclusive City’
Masked adults sit four to a table with papers and folders during a brainstorming session.

Participants and Inclusive City students facilitate charrette brainstorming sessions. (Image: OMNIA)

Daniel Morales-Armstrong’s ‘Inclusive City’

The William Fontaine Fellow of Africana Studies and History helms a course designed to lead students in a collaborative engagement with a local Philadelphian community.

Blake Cole

African American in the ‘raceless’ Soviet Union
Person in glasses miles at the camera with green trees behind

African American in the ‘raceless’ Soviet Union

History Ph.D. candidate Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon’s work looks at how the African American experience in the Soviet Union shaped Black identity and how the presence of people of color shaped Soviet understandings of race.

Kristen de Groot

Metal artifacts in Southeast Asia challenge long-held archaeological theory
A photo of a metal artifact in the shape of a spear on a black background. In the foreground is a scale that runs from 0 to 5 cm.

An individual can create a stone tool or a pot without assistance, but creating a metal tool like the spear here is a group endeavor—and a complex one. Artifacts like this found in Thailand showed that such metal technology could be developed and exchanged using an economic model based on communities making decisions about how to participate in regional exchange systems. (Image: The Ban Chiang Project)

  • Q&A

    • Metal artifacts in Southeast Asia challenge long-held archaeological theory

    According to the Penn Museum’s Joyce White and Elizabeth Hamilton, prehistoric communities, rather than the ruling elites, in Thailand were the deciders in how to use metal resources.

    Michele W. Berger

    Unexpected finds bring fresh excitement to the archives
    A table in the archives office with an old painting, historic newspaper clippings, and old pamphlets from Penn Medicine archives.

    Image: Penn Medicine News

    Unexpected finds bring fresh excitement to the archives

    Stacey C. Peeples’ discovery of a trove of historic papers, newspaper clippings, and various ephemera adds to the rich history she curates as lead archivist at Pennsylvania Hospital.

    From Penn Medicine News