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Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences
Penn Museum series highlights ‘Black History Untold: Revolution’
With “Black History Untold: Revolution,” the Penn Museum’s virtual programming offers a different perspective.
Amateur music-making in the early republic
Glenda Goodman, an assistant professor of music, explores how hand-copying musical compositions and amateur performance shaped identity and ideas in the post-Revolutionary War period.
When the message matters, use science to craft it
An interdisciplinary initiative called the Message Effects Lab aims to understand, tap into, and develop communication around what motivates specific behaviors for specific populations. Its first projects center around COVID-19 testing and vaccines.
More thoughts on the state of American democracy
In part two of this series, five Penn experts offer their insights on public health, election legitimacy, student loan debt, and more.
Historian Mia Bay on ‘Traveling Black’
The professor of history’s new book explores the intertwined history of travel segregation and African American struggles for freedom of movement.
Benjamin Shestakofsky finds interconnections between humans and machines
Drawing on field research, the assistant professor of sociology ,examines the specific real-world conditions under which software systems replace, complement, or create human labor.
$5 million Mellon grant for work on dispossessions in the Americas
The School of Arts & Sciences’ Tulia Falleti leads the interdisciplinary project.
2015 graduate Joyce Kim awarded Gates Cambridge Scholarship
As Penn’s 32nd Gates Scholar since the program started in 2001, Kim will pursue a Ph.D. in sociology of education at the University of Cambridge.
Five questions about the new White House press secretary
In a Q&A, Barbie Zelizer of the Annenberg School for Communication discusses Jennifer Psaki’s first weeks on the job, plus what a shift back to a traditional press briefing means for journalism during the Biden presidency.
Dissecting chaos: An interdisciplinary look at the attack on the U.S. Capitol
Faculty from five schools at the University took part in a virtual panel discussion to unpack the policies, messages, and conditions that led to the events of Jan. 6.
In the News
Unemployment is high. Why are businesses struggling to hire?
Ioana Marinescu of the School of Social Policy & Practice co-authored a study that found that every 10% increase in unemployment benefits received corresponds to a 3% decline in jobs applied to. “Right now what seems to be happening is that job creation is outpacing the search effort that workers are putting forth,” she said.
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Zoom burnout is real, and it’s worse for women
Emily Falk of the Annenberg School for Communication said the results of a recent Stanford study, which found women scored higher than men on all types of fatigue associated with video calls, were unsurprising but that Zoom itself may not be fully responsible for burnout. “It’s correlational data, and there could be other potential variables at play here,” she said. “When we’re feeling exhausted right now, how full is our emotional or mental tank to begin with?”
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Study reveals alarming trend in US death rates since 2000
Samuel Preston of the School of Arts & Sciences spoke about rising mortality rates in the U.S. over the last two decades. Preston and his colleagues attribute the shift in part to this country’s lack of a universal health care system.
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‘Haunted countries deserve haunted stories.’ How America’s history of racial housing discrimination inspired Amazon’s new horror series THEM
Camille Z. Charles of the School of Arts & Sciences spoke about how discriminatory housing practices like redlining shaped U.S. neighborhoods in the 20th century. “If you take the redlining maps that were used before the passage of fair housing legislation and overlay them on present-day maps of pretty much any major city in the U.S., and certainly any city that has any meaningful Black population, they look really similar in the sense that Blacks are still largely shut out of those neighborhoods that they were legally shut out of during that time period,” she said.
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7 ways to prevent ‘Sunday Sads’ and end your weekend on a high
Cassie Mogilner of the Wharton School said doing chores on Saturday and scheduling recreation for Sunday can help combat dread about the weekend ending, creating “moments of unencumbered joy” on Sundays.
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