History | Penn Today

An image of a Black woman with a flower crown. Text reads "no pride without Black trans lives"

Gender and identity: A lecture on diversity

In the first in a series of diversity lectures offered through the Office of Affirmative Action & Equal Opportunity Programs, Melissa E. Sanchez of the School of Arts & Sciences spoke on “Addressing a More Complex and Encompassing Understanding of Identity.”

Before Salem, Pennsylvania’s first and only witch trial was in Delco

Kristine Rabberman of the School of Arts & Sciences spoke about the history of witchcraft trials in Pennsylvania. Studying these events “gives us a way of both understanding the range of human responses and also maybe give some ideas about how we can handle those instances of division and fear within our own societies,” she said.

Books about U.S. history are stacked on top of one another

Past confronts present at ‘History Speaking’ lecture series

Penn historians will present a series of lively discussions of historical issues that seek to better orient attendees in the current moment.

Colin Powell, wearing full military garb and standing at a brown wooden podium with a microphone, gestures to his right, sweeping his arm that direction

Q&A

Colin Powell’s legacy

Historian Mary Frances Berry and Perry World House Visiting Fellow Alice Hunt Friend share thoughts on Powell’s impact on and off the battlefield.

A generation shaped by a pandemic

Two Penn seniors travel the country to interview young adults about their experiences during the past year to create an oral history archive with stories, images, and video.

A watershed created to power New York City

Anna Lehr Mueser, a doctoral candidate in history and sociology of science, studies memory, loss, and technology in the New York City Watershed and the villages that were destroyed to construct it.

Philadelphian Alain LeRoy Locke, the Father of the Harlem Renaissance, gets new historical marker in Philly

Dagmawi Woubshet of the School of Arts & Sciences spoke about the impact of “The New Negro,” an anthology edited by Alain LeRoy Locke at the onset of the Harlem Renaissance.

Honoring William Still on his 200th birthday

A conference, a website, and more are planned on campus and around the city to celebrate the abolitionist who helped nearly 1,000 enslaved people to freedom.

Protecting and celebrating civil rights heritage and Black histories

Launched last fall, Penn’s Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights sites is fostering new and ongoing partnerships while preserving the legacy of civil rights in the U.S.

Woman pages through book. Many other books lie propped open on the table in front of her

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.

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