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Arts & Humanities

Penn Glee Club performs in Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Beijing
students singing together holding folders

The Glee Club and students in the Wagner Society Choirs of Japan’s Keio University sang together in a collaborative concert. 

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Penn Glee Club performs in Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Beijing

The Penn Glee Club performed at the famous Suntory Hall in Tokyo, an art gallery in Hong Kong, and the U.S. embassy in Beijing during a 12-day tour of Asia. Forty members went on the tour, including 25 singers, eight band members, and seven technical crew.

4 min. read

Creating a classroom democracy
Assistant Professor of History Sarah Gronningsater teaching Hamilton’s America to Penn students.

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Creating a classroom democracy

Through a Stavros Niarchos Foundation Paideia course, assistant professor of history Sarah Gronningsater and her students resuscitate early American history.

Kristina García

2 min. read

Exhibition as conversation
Exterior view of “(Ex)Urban Futures of the Recent Past” artwork.

Exterior view of “(Ex)Urban Futures of the Recent Past” at Galleria Thomas Schultz in Berlin.

(Image: Courtesy of Weitzman News)

Exhibition as conversation

For three faculty members in the Department of Fine Arts, curating exhibitions offers the opportunity to explore relationships between works of art, art and politics, history, and the environment.

From the Weitzman School of Design

2 min. read

The 500-year legacy of a political thinker
Selection of a portrait of Thomas Muntzer from 1609.

A selection from a portrait of Thomas Muntzer from 1609.

COURTESY CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART

The 500-year legacy of a political thinker

Five hundred years ago this spring, about 8,000 armed peasants gathered outside the village of Frankenhausen in what is now Germany.Their stand ended in disaster, with thousands dead from an artillery barrage, and their spiritual leader, radical theologian Thomas Müntzer, was beheaded two weeks later after a torture-filled interrogation.

3 minutes

Bringing museum filmmaking into the classroom
Sosena Solomon on stage during a Q&A at the Met with two other people.

Sosena Solomon participated in a panel conversation at The Met on May 31 with international co-hosts for the Arts of Africa: Jonathan Nsubuga, chief architect of JE Nsubuga and Associates, and Fasil Giorghis, associate professor of architecture and the chair of conservation of urban and architectural heritage at the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development.

(Image: Argenis Apolinario)

Bringing museum filmmaking into the classroom

Filmmaker Sosena Solomon taught Documentary Ethnography for Museums and Exhibitions amid filming in Africa for a Metropolitan Museum of Art redesign. The Arts of Africa galleries just reopened, including in-gallery and online films Solomon shot in 12 countries.

6 min. read

At the Venice Biennale, a convergence of innovations in materials, structures, and landscapes
Robert Gerard Pietrusko’a installation ”A Satellite Symphony.”

Robert Gerard Pietrusko collaborated on the installation ”A Satellite Symphony,” which explores how satellites frame how we understand the Earth itself; the viewing structure is constructed from trees from the Veneto region downed by storms.

(Image: Gaia Cambiaggi / Studio Campo)

At the Venice Biennale, a convergence of innovations in materials, structures, and landscapes

Several Weitzman School of Design faculty and students will exhibit at the Venice Biennale’s 19th International Architecture Exhibition.

From the Weitzman School of Design

3 min. read

‘Scattered Earth, Sounded Depth’
Eissa Attar and Alvin Luong standing in art gallery with arms around each other's shoulders

Artworks by the two master of fine arts students graduating in the Class of 2025, Eissa Attar (left) and Alvin Luong, are in a thesis exhibition at the Arthur Ross Gallery through a new collaboration with the Weitzman School of Design. 

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‘Scattered Earth, Sounded Depth’

A new thesis exhibition at the Arthur Ross Gallery features works by graduating Master of Fine Arts students Eissa Attar, from Saudi Arabia, and Alvin Luong, from Canada. On view through May 30,  “Scattered Earth, Sounded Depth,” was curated by Emily Zimmerman.

4 min. read

Performer, biomedical engineer, and soon-to-be graduate
Jordyn Harris standing among lights

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Performer, biomedical engineer, and soon-to-be graduate

A performer and dancer, fourth-year Jordyn Harris has been a work-study student for the Platt House and managed tech for myriad student shows, while also advising engineering first-years and working as a researcher at a hospital.

5 min. read

For dual architecture degree candidate Kelvin Vu, design begins with the body
Kelvin Vu performing a dance move.

Image: Kait Privitera

For dual architecture degree candidate Kelvin Vu, design begins with the body

Master of architecture and master of landscape architecture candidate Kelvin Vu, who was a professional dancer before coming to Weitzman, says “dance and landscape design are about change, flux, and dynamism.”

From the Weitzman School of Design

2 min. read

Q&A: The first American pope
The new pope, Pope Leo, waves from St. Peter’s Basilica.

Pope Leo XIV at St. Peter’s Basilica after being chosen the 267th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church on May 8.

(Image: AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Q&A: The first American pope

Melissa Wilde of the Department of Sociology, whose research has led her to the Vatican Secret Archive, among other places, discusses the new Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff, and the implications for the Roman Catholic Church.

3 min. read