Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences

Barely one minute into his Penn Lightbulb Café talk on “The Anatomy of Violence,” University of Pennsylvania professor Adrian Raine pointed to a slide projected on the screen behind him that showed the cracked skull of a 19th–century railroad worker Phineas Gage, alongside a sepia-colored image of the maimed man.

“Preach!” is a common refrain heard among audience members when Tukufu Zuberi gives a public talk. “Preach,” someone will say in affirmation when he speaks passionately about Africa’s central role in world affairs or rails against racism. The University of Pennsylvania professor of sociology and Africana studies is a public intellectual who extends his teaching around the world across multi-media platforms.

Katharyn Hanson stood on stage at the World Café Live in Philadelphia in front of a crowd of several dozen. Behind her flashed images of antiquities and artifacts that make up much of the cultural legacy in places like Syria and Iraq.

Katharyn Hanson stands on stage at the World Café Live in Philadelphia in front of a crowd of several dozen. Behind her flash images of antiquities and artifacts that make up much of the cultural legacy in places like Syria and Iraq. Sprinkled throughout are photos of explosions, dark gray plumes masking former heritage sites.

Demographers Samuel Preston of the University of Pennsylvania and Andrew Stokes of Boston University set out to solve a puzzle: Why is it that study after study shows obese or overweight people with cardiovascular disease outliving their normal

When John Medaglia joined the University of Pennsylvania a year ago as a postdoctoral fellow, he didn’t yet have a precise path. Now it’s a little clearer, thanks to a prestigious honor given out to just 16 young scientists across the country.

New research out of the University of Pennsylvania is filling in gaps between two prevailing theories about how the brain generates our perception of the world.

Through her research, an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania is unearthing a nearly 100-year-old murder mystery, a government cover-up and silenced justice in Northern Ireland. 

In 1915, the University of Pennsylvania's Trustees fired economist Scott Nearing in retaliation for his activism in the campaign against child labor. Nearing's termination sparked a national debate and helped to rewrite the history of academic freedom in America.

The words people use on social media can reveal hidden meaning to those who know where to look.