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The unique subculture of Cuban punk
A young mohawked man with a leather vest featuring a red anarchy symbol styles another young man's hair into a mohawk

Mohawks, tattoos, and piercings are all familiar aspects of the punk aesthetic, setting "los frikis" apart from mainstream society. Image credit: Samuel Reina Calvo, an audiovisual technician and photographer that accompanied Torre Perez during field work.

The unique subculture of Cuban punk

Often idealized through images of painstakingly restored Chryslers and romantic, backroom rumbas, Cuba has untold subcultures that one graduate student, Carmen Torre Pérez, is analyzing through a social history of Cuban punk.

Kristina García

A unique fellowship for Middle Eastern languages
Five people sit along ancient mud walls at an archeological dig in Iraq.

Katherine Burge, second from right, sits with coworkers at an archeological dig in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2017 .

A unique fellowship for Middle Eastern languages

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, the Foreign Language and Area Studies Program (FLAS) offers undergraduate and graduate-level academic year and summer fellowships to Penn students studying Middle Eastern languages.

Kristen de Groot

First Ivy League Quechua Fulbright scholar elevates Indigenous values
Man wearing traditional Andean clothing stands in front of mosaic

Nico Suarez Guerrero stands in front of a mosaic at La Casa Latina, wearing a poncho woven by his mother. In the Andes, it is traditional for mothers to weave a poncho for each of their children, which includes colors or details specific to their home region, as a way of connecting the children with their family and heritage. (Image: Américo Mendoza-Mori.)

First Ivy League Quechua Fulbright scholar elevates Indigenous values

Nico Suárez-Guerrero of the School of Arts and Sciences is the first Quechua Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant in the Ivy League, and the only one currently in the United States.

Kristina García

Restoring Indigenous knowledge systems and languages
Dakota Play on Words handwriting sample with word diagramming.

“Dakota Play on Words” sample by Dakota scholar Ella C. Deloria. (Image: Courtesy American Philosophical Society)

Restoring Indigenous knowledge systems and languages

Penn’s Educational Partnerships with Indigenous Communities builds alliances with Native Americans.

Penn Today Staff

Renata Flores brought Quechua to YouTube, and then everything changed
Vice

Renata Flores brought Quechua to YouTube, and then everything changed

Américo Mendoza-Mori of the School of Arts and Sciences spoke about the need to bring the Quechua language into contemporary art forms. “The stereotype where indigenous people are seen as timeless or pure must be challenged. When native people are put in that box, we are fossilizing them,” he said.

Weeklong focus on indigenous languages
About 50 people gathered together some in indigenous clothing.

Américo Mendoza-Mori (second row, fourth from left), founder of The Quechua Program at Penn, organized Indigenous Language Week at Penn. 

Weeklong focus on indigenous languages

As part of the United Nations International Year of Indigenous Languages, campus groups have organized the Indigenous Languages Week Celebration, supported by a grant from the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation Foundation.
Libraries launch Diversity in the Stacks initiative
A stack of books with titles including Mothership Connection, New Suns, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaurs, The Fifth Season, The Night Masquerade, The Summer Prince

Libraries launch Diversity in the Stacks initiative

The Libraries has launched a new initiative to enhance collections that represent and reflect the University’s diverse population, and to highlight those works in a series of blog posts, starting with Afrofuturism.
Classical studies professor Emily Wilson receives MacArthur ‘genius grant’
Professor leaning against a stone wall with a tree behind her.

Emily Wilson, a classical studies professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is a 2019 MacArthur Fellow. (Photo: Kyle Cassidy) 

Classical studies professor Emily Wilson receives MacArthur ‘genius grant’

Professor of Classical Studies Emily Wilson has been named a 2019 MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, receiving what is known as the “genius grant.”
How Penn is advancing language learning inside—and out of—the classroom
A group of people looking at photos on a table

Teachers discuss pedagogy at the STARTALK workshop, hosted by the Center for East Asian Studies in July. (Photo: David Dettman)

How Penn is advancing language learning inside—and out of—the classroom

This summer, the Center for East Asian Studies and the Department of East Asian Language and Civilizations welcomed 15 teachers from around the country to learn the latest in critical language teaching.