Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences

illegal immigration displaced persons camp concept of little boy in black and orange clothes holding fence with barbed wire in desert on state border

Locked down: Global mobility and COVID-19

At Perry World House’s 2021 Global Shifts Colloquium, Filippo Grandi, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, addressed how limits on human movement during the pandemic have affected refugees and asylum seekers.

Kristen de Groot ・

Alice Paul in her graduation gown and a handwritten page from her dissertation.

Alice Paul’s mysterious manuscript

Heather J. Sharkey and three students transcribed a hand-written manuscript of the doctoral dissertation by Alice Paul, who earned her Ph.D. from Penn in 1912. As part of a virtual symposium, they joined John Pollack of the Libraries to discuss their efforts.

Louisa Shepard ・

Newsstand featuring three publications, two of which are covid-related.

How news messages affect views on vaccination

News coverage of expert scientific evidence about vaccine safety is effective at increasing public acceptance of vaccines, but the positive effect is diminished when the expert message is juxtaposed with a personal narrative about real side effects.

From the Annenberg Public Policy Center ・

student in front of green background

Penn senior chosen as Gaither Junior Fellow

Senior Samuel Orloff has been named a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow, chosen for a one-year fellowship at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C.to work on research pertaining to U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy.

Louisa Shepard ・

Person wearing glasses speaks on a Zoom call in front of a background featuring Penn's football stadium, as five others on the call are in a vertical column on the right side of the screen

Narratives of COVID-19 in China and the world

The two-day symposium brought together scholars to discuss a broad range of topics, from racism against Chinese students studying in the United States to digital workplace surveillance of Chinese workers.

Kristen de Groot ・

Two people in black jackets wearing white face masks sit in front of marble columns, with the person on the left putting her head on the other person's shoulder, who is looking at a smartphone.

Hate crimes against Asians in Italy linked to economic woes

Research by political scientists Guy Grossman, Stephanie Zonszein, and Gemma Dipoppa shows hate crimes in Italy increased at the pandemic’s onset in areas where higher unemployment was expected, but not in places with higher infections and mortality.

Kristen de Groot ・



In the News


U.S. News & World Report

Has RSV vaccine hesitancy subsided?

A survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center finds that more Americans believe in the effectiveness of vaccines developed to protect newborns and seniors against RSV.

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The New York Times

Europe has a leadership vacuum. How will it handle Trump?

Amy Gutmann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that Germany is front and center in the economic problems currently afflicting Europe.

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Los Angeles Times

Trump offers murky worldview ahead of second term, mixing dire warnings with rosy promises

Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center says that Donald Trump is far more hyperbolic on average than traditional presidential candidates, who still routinely claim that they will do something alone that can’t be done without Congress.

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The Hill

Trust in court system at record low: Gallup

An October survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that the public’s trust in the U.S. Supreme Court has dropped to a record low.

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The New York Times

An epidemic of vicious school brawls, fueled by student cellphones

PIK Professor Desmond Upton Patton says that many schools don’t have a playbook for addressing student violence or helping pupils engage more positively online, in part because few researchers are studying the issue.

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