Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences

Student standing on a sidewalk.

Art and activism

Combining her interests in art and activism in her summer internship, rising sophomore Srinidhi Ramakrishna is working at ArtWell, a Philadelphia nonprofit that uses art, poetry, and music to reach young people in underserved communities.

Louisa Shepard ・

Student sitting outside holding a coffee cup and smiling.

Marketing music at a Philadelphia nonprofit

Although an accomplished concert pianist, rising sophomore Teresa Xie of Chicago is not playing the ivories at the Settlement Music School during her RealArts@Penn summer internship. Instead, she is using her photography skills while learning about marketing music for the Philadelphia nonprofit.

Louisa Shepard ・

United Nations member flags raised outside of the UN building in New York

The role of UN ambassador, explained

Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, distinguished global leader-in-residence at Perry World House, describes the workings of the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.—and whether it matters that it’s no longer of cabinet status.

Brandon Baker ・

Gladys Tantaquidgeon seated on a beach with four other people and a black umbrella on the ground.

Indigenous ethnologist

Gladys Tantaquidgeon, the first Native American student in Penn’s anthropology department, published a series of academic articles, authored a book on ethnobotany and accompanied the department chair as his assistant, interviewing tribes and collecting folklore.

Penn Today Staff ・



In the News


The Washington Post

Tiny township saves, transforms historic quarantine station

Built in 1799, a quarantine station helped protect Philadelphia against epidemic diseases for nearly a century. “It’s part of American history that we never learn about,” said David Barnes of the School of Arts and Sciences who is writing a history of the building. “It gives us entry to a lost world and into the hidden story of how our country came to be and grow, how it accommodated immigrants and dealt with disasters.”

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WHYY (Philadelphia)

China’s multiple crises

Jacques deLisle of the Law School and the School of Arts and Sciences joined a conversation about pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and about U.S.-China relations during the ongoing trade war.

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The Atlantic

The mystery of ‘Skeleton Lake’ gets deeper

Kathleen Morrison of the School of Arts and Sciences weighed in on the origins of human remains found in India’s Skeleton Lake. “I suspect that they’re aggregated there, that local people put them in the lake,” she says. “When you see a lot of human skeletons, usually it’s a graveyard.”

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NPR

Understanding Kashmir

Suvir Kaul of the School of Arts and Sciences talks about political conflict between Indian and Pakistan. “I’m watching this [Indian] government doing all it can to change that kind of unitary sense of the nation and that’s what worries me enormously,” said Kaul.

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The Washington Post

Is a recession looming? Here’s what experts on the economy are watching

Ioana Marinescu of the School of Social Policy & Practice weighed in on the possibility of a recession in the near future. “I expect a recession any day now, because it’s been almost 12 years since the last trough,” she said. “However, it’s impossible to predict with high accuracy when it will happen since recessions are often precipitated by market panics coalescing around a particular event that is usually hard to anticipate.”

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