Nina Jablonski • The Colors of Human Skin Wolf Humanities Center 2026-09-20 | Nina Jablonski • The Colors of Human Skin
Truth in Crisis Panel 3: Borders Wolf Humanities Center 2026-07-13 | What are "borders"? How do they relate to truths central to identity and survival? The experts on this panel demonstrate through studies on migration, translation, enforcement, and depiction that borders, more than just demarcators of terrain and territory, are sites of individual, institutional, and national crises that impact what types of lives are legible and livable.- Alex Brostoff, Assistant Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies, Georgetown University; Thirteen Truths in Thirteen Titles; or, Cuíer Clarice, Queer Migrations - - Spencer Small, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Wolf Humanities Center, University of Pennsylvania; The Ethical Pact and Soviet Holocaust Writing: Between the Novel and the Document - Ana Lolua, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Wolf Humanities Center, University of Pennsylvania; Negotiating the Empire in Georgia under Stalin: The Case of the Georgian State MuseumPanel discussion also features Hardeep Dhillon, Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Pennsylvania
Truth in Crisis Panel 1: Institutions of Learning Wolf Humanities Center 2026-07-13 | How do we come together to examine, verify, and convey truth? How are these collective processes institutionalized, and then troubled? Exploring different mediums, methods, and social contexts, the experts on this panel reveal existential crises faced by institutions centered on learning as they contend with the concept of truth, and what this means for collective building and conveying of knowledge. - Ege Yumusak, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania; Collective Distraction at the University - Julia Alekseyeva, Assistant Professor, Departments of English and Cinema and Media Studies, University of Pennsylvania; Towards a Critique of Cinema-TruthPanel discussions also features Emily Ng, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of PennsylvaniaFor more info, visit wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/truth-crisis
Truth in Crisis Panel 2: Land and its Technologies Wolf Humanities Center 2026-07-13 | How do people perceive, measure, and convey to each other the truth of terrain, environment, climate and atmosphere in crisis? The experts on this panel examine how technical projects in the 20th- and 21st-century sought to render land and rivers in flux, in change, in disaster into images, models, and data, and how these fraught processes continue to inform infrastructure, policy, and shared reality.- Samuel Driver, Visiting Assistant Professor of Russian, Dickinson College; Present, Looming, and Enduring: Temporalities of Environmental Crisis in the Work of Rodchenko, Nigaryan, and Mikhailov - M. Susan Lindee, Janice and Julian Bers Professor of the History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania; Rivers in Exact Miniature: Modeling Truth in the Mississippi Basin Panel discussion also features Nikhil Anand, Daniel Braun Silvers and Robert Peter Silvers Family Presidential Professor of Anthropology, University of PennsylvaniaFor more information, visit wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/truth-crisis
Diane Lillo-Martin · The Truth About Sign Language Acquisition Wolf Humanities Center 2026-06-05 | Wolf Humanities Center2025–26 Forum on TruthFebruary 11, 2026Presented in collaboration with ASL and Deaf Studies in Penn's Department of LinguisticsThe natural sign languages used in deaf communities are rich and structured, in the same way that languages around the world are. Even still, there are many misconceptions about whether or not it is appropriate for hearing parents of deaf children to sign with them. This presentation will show what it looks like for a child to become a bimodal bilingual, using two languages in two modalities (speech and sign), and how hearing parents can be part of this journey.Dr. Diane Lillo-Martin received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of California, San Diego and joined the Department of Linguistics at the University of Connecticut in 1986. She is currently a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Linguistics and Head of the Linguistics Department. She is also an affiliated faculty member of the CT Institute for Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and a former fellow of the UConn Humanities Institute. Dr. Lillo-Martin’s main research interest is to better understand the human language faculty. Primarily she examines this by studying the structure and acquisition of American Sign Language, and by looking at the process of language acquisition across different languages. Her current focus is language acquisition by deaf children in hearing families. She is a hearing L2 signer of ASL.For more information, visit wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/lillo-martin
The Persistence of Wretched Subjects Wolf Humanities Center 2025-12-03 | Wolf Humanities Center 2025-2026 Forum on TruthThe Edges of Truth: Secrecy, Artifice, and the Limits of KnowledgeCONFERENCE KEYNOTEThe Persistence of Wretched SubjectsMichael D. GordinSeptember 17, 2025George Sarton, the founder of the modern discipline of the history of science, once characterized the study of ancient astrology as a waste of a time — a “wretched subject” — sparking decades of responses. Princeton historian of science Michael D. Gordin speaks about the persistence of the notion of wretched subjects, in three senses: first, the impressive and growing body of research on the borderlands between what counts (both in the past and in the present) as legitimate or illegitimate knowledge; second, the ubiquitous denigration by scholars and the public of both fringe subjects and the people who devote their time and energy to them; and, finally, the persistence of the fringe itself, which is an ineradicable part of the chaotic, nonlinear, and uncertain quest for expanding knowledge, in the sciences and outside of them.For more info: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/gordin Michael D. Gordin specializes in the history of the modern physical sciences and Russian, European, and American history. He is Rosengarten Professor of Modern and Contemporary History, Professor of History, and Dean of the College at Princeton University. He earned his A.B. (1996) and his Ph.D. (2001) from Harvard University, and served a term at the Harvard Society of Fellows.He has published articles on a variety of topics, such as the introduction of science into Russia in the early 18th century, the history of biological warfare in the late Soviet period, the relations between Russian literature and science, as well as a series of studies on the life and chemistry of Dmitrii I. Mendeleev, formulator of the periodic system of chemical elements. His first book is a cultural history of Mendeleev in the context of Imperial St. Petersburg, A Well-Ordered Thing: Dmitrii Mendeleev and the Shadow of the Periodic Table (Basic Books, 2004). He has also worked extensively in the early history of nuclear weapons, and is the author of Five Days in August: How World War II Became a Nuclear War (Princeton, 2007), a history of the atomic bombings of Japan during World War II, and an international history of nuclear intelligence, Red Cloud at Dawn: Truman, Stalin, and the End of the Atomic Monopoly (FSG, 2009). In 2012, University of Chicago Press published his history of the controversies surrounding the boundary between science and pseudoscience focusing on the career of Immanuel Velikovsky, entitled The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe, and in 2013, the press also released How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind: The Strange Career of Cold War Rationality, which he co-authored with Lorraine Daston, Paul Erickson, Thomas Sturm, Rebecca Lemov, and Judy Klein. In 2015, University of Chicago Press and Profile Books published his Scientific Babel: How Science Was Done Before and After Global English, a history of modern science from the point of view of the languages in which science has been conducted. In 2020, he published Einstein in Bohemia (Princeton), which follows the intertwined paths of Albert Einstein and the city of Prague (where he taught during 1911–1912) across the twentieth century. In 2021, Oxford University Press published On the Fringe: Where Science Meets Pseudoscience, which uses the history and philosophy of "pseudoscience" to explore some features of how modern science works; this was published in paperback in 2023 as Pseudoscience: A Very Short Introduction. His most recent book, co-authored with Diana Kormos Buchwald, is Free Creations of the Human Mind: The Worlds of Albert Einstein (Oxford, 2025), which is a compact study of the life and work of the scientist.In 2011, Dr. Gordin was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, and was named a Guggenheim Fellow. In 2009, he was elected a member of the Leopoldina, the National Academy of Sciences of Germany.The Edges of Truth conference is cosponsored by Penn's Departments of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, English, History, and History & Sociology of Science, Center for East Asian Studies, and Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies.
The Edges of Truth Session 5: The Value of the Fake: Forgery as Historical Testimony Wolf Humanities Center 2025-11-21 | Wolf Humanities Center 2025-26 Forum on TruthThe Edges of Truth: Secrecy, Artifice, and the Limits of KnowledgeSeptember 17, 2025 (Wednesday)—September 18, 2025 (Thursday)University of Pennsylvania, PhiladelphiaFor full conference program including biographies and abstracts, visit wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/edges-truthWelcome remarks by Ayako Kano, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations; Director, Wolf Humanities Center; University of Pennsylvania, and Julia Verkholantsev, Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies; Forum on Truth Topic Director and conference organizer, Wolf Humanities Center; University of PennsylvaniaSession 1Constructing Knowledge: Error, Uncertainty, VariationChair: Priyamvada Nambrath, Doctoral Candidate in South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania- Paola Bertucci, Professor of History and History of Medicine; Curator-in-charge, History of Science and Technology Division, Peabody Museum, Yale University"Found in Translation: Unintentional Fabrications and Origin Stories in the History of Navigation"- Eleanor Webb, Doctoral Candidate in History, University of Pennsylvania"Uncertain Signs: The Science of Physiognomy in Early Modern Italy"- Darin Hayton, Associate Professor of History of Science, Haverford College"Astrological Aphorisms and the Many Ways the Universe Worked”To watch Session 1, visit youtu.be/rFSthgKQwiYSession 2The Social Lives of Secrets: Concealment and Control of InformationChair: Paul Cobb, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures; Director, Middle East Center, University of Pennsylvania- Benedek Láng, Professor and Head of Department of Marketing and Argumentation Theory, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest"Beyond Encryption: The Social History of Secrecy and Cryptography in Early Modern Europe"- Christopher P. Atwood, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania"What's the 'Secret' in the Secret History of the Mongols?"To watch Session 2, visit youtu.be/zrNg4br9e40Session 3Asserting Authority: The Art of Lies, Idle Talk, and TrickeryChair: Ada Kuskowski, Associate Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania- Julia Verkholantsev, Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies, University of Pennsylvania"Royal Rogues: The Truth about Trickery and Deception in Polish Legendary Narratives"- Oscar Aguirre-Mandujano, Assistant Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania"Ottoman Pleasantries: Idle Talk, Lies, and Rivalries among the Early Modern Ottomans"- Pawel Maciejko, Associate Professor of History and Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Chair in Classical Jewish Religion, Thought, and Culture, Johns Hopkins University"Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschuetz and the Jesuit Art of Lying"*Please note Oscar Aguirre-Mandujano, Assistant Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania, and Pawel Maciejko, Associate Professor of History and Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Chair in Classical Jewish Religion, Thought, and Culture, Johns Hopkins University, have asked us not to share their presentations.To watch Session 3, visit youtu.be/7cFmhEYjwtc Session 4Visualizing Histories: Is All Truth That Meets the Eye?Chair: Lynn Ransom, Curator of Programs, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, Penn Libraries- Zoë Opačić, Associate Professor, History and Theory of Architecture, Birkbeck College, University of London"Seeing and Believing: Visualizing the Late Medieval and Early Modern City"- Emily Steiner, A. M. Rosenthal Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania"History on a Roll: Legends, Lies, and Politics in the Medieval Genealogical Roll Chronicle"To watch Session 4, visit youtu.be/AoKpfhHUlR8Session 5The Value of the Fake: Forgery as Historical TestimonyChair: Nicholas Herman, Lawrence J. Schoenberg Curator, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies; Medieval Studies Librarian, Penn Libraries- Balázs Nagy, Associate Professor; Department of Medieval and Early Modern European History, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest"Forged Medieval Documents as Authentic Historical Sources? Some Case Studies from Central Europe"- Kenneth Lapatin, Curator of Antiquities, J. Paul Getty Museum"Learning from Forgery"To watch Session 5, visit youtu.be/MAwnAyg2SeEClosing Remarks by Julia Verkholantsev, Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies; Forum on Truth Topic Director and conference organizer, Wolf Humanities Center; University of Pennsylvania00:00 - 01:25 Session 5 Intro01:26 - 28:56 Balázs Nagy28:57 - 01:01:51 Kenneth Lapatin01:01:52 - 01:18:37 Audience Q&A01:18:38 - 01:20:30 Conference Closing Remarks
The Edges of Truth Session 1: Constructing Knowledge: Error, Uncertainty, Variation Wolf Humanities Center 2025-11-21 | Wolf Humanities Center 2025-26 Forum on TruthThe Edges of Truth: Secrecy, Artifice, and the Limits of KnowledgeSeptember 17, 2025 (Wednesday)—September 18, 2025 (Thursday)University of Pennsylvania, PhiladelphiaSession 1Constructing Knowledge: Error, Uncertainty, VariationFor full conference program including biographies and abstracts, visit wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/edges-truthCONFERENCE SCHEDULEWelcome remarks by Ayako Kano (Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations; Director, Wolf Humanities Center; University of Pennsylvania) and Julia Verkholantsev (Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies; Forum on Truth Topic Director and conference organizer, Wolf Humanities Center; University of Pennsylvania)Session 1Constructing Knowledge: Error, Uncertainty, VariationChair: Priyamvada Nambrath, Doctoral Candidate in South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania- Paola Bertucci, Professor of History and History of Medicine; Curator-in-charge, History of Science and Technology Division, Peabody Museum, Yale University"Found in Translation: Unintentional Fabrications and Origin Stories in the History of Navigation"- Eleanor Webb, Doctoral Candidate in History, University of Pennsylvania"Uncertain Signs: The Science of Physiognomy in Early Modern Italy"- Darin Hayton, Associate Professor of History of Science, Haverford College"Astrological Aphorisms and the Many Ways the Universe Worked”Session 2The Social Lives of Secrets: Concealment and Control of InformationChair: Paul Cobb, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures; Director, Middle East Center, University of Pennsylvania- Benedek Láng, Professor and Head of Department of Marketing and Argumentation Theory, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest"Beyond Encryption: The Social History of Secrecy and Cryptography in Early Modern Europe"- Christopher P. Atwood, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania"What's the 'Secret' in the Secret History of the Mongols?"To watch Session 2, visit youtu.be/zrNg4br9e40Session 3Asserting Authority: The Art of Lies, Idle Talk, and TrickeryChair: Ada Kuskowski, Associate Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania- Julia Verkholantsev, Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies, University of Pennsylvania"Royal Rogues: The Truth about Trickery and Deception in Polish Legendary Narratives"*Please note Oscar Aguirre-Mandujano, Assistant Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania, and Pawel Maciejko, Associate Professor of History and Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Chair in Classical Jewish Religion, Thought, and Culture, Johns Hopkins University, have asked us not to share their presentations.To watch Session 3, visit youtu.be/7cFmhEYjwtcSession 4Visualizing Histories: Is All Truth That Meets the Eye?Chair: Lynn Ransom, Curator of Programs, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, Penn Libraries- Zoë Opačić, Associate Professor, History and Theory of Architecture, Birkbeck College, University of London"Seeing and Believing: Visualizing the Late Medieval and Early Modern City"- Emily Steiner, A. M. Rosenthal Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania"History on a Roll: Legends, Lies, and Politics in the Medieval Genealogical Roll Chronicle"To watch Session 4, visit youtu.be/T5U9cibqmvkSession 5The Value of the Fake: Forgery as Historical TestimonyChair: Nicholas Herman, Lawrence J. Schoenberg Curator, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies; Medieval Studies Librarian, Penn Libraries- Balázs Nagy, Associate Professor; Department of Medieval and Early Modern European History, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest"Forged Medieval Documents as Authentic Historical Sources? Some Case Studies from Central Europe"- Kenneth Lapatin, Curator of Antiquities, J. Paul Getty Museum"Learning from Forgery"To watch Session 5, visit youtu.be/5zMcz7x2IeYClosing Remarks by Julia Verkholantsev, Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies; Forum on Truth Topic Director and conference organizer, Wolf Humanities Center; University of Pennsylvania00:00 - 05:02 Conference Opening Remarks05:03 - 05:32 Session 1 Intro05:33 - 37:06 Paola Bertucci37:07 - 1:05:13 Eleanor Webb1:05:14 - 1:33:23 Darin Hayton1:33:24 - 1:49:52 Audience Q&A
The Edges of Truth Session 4: Visualizing Histories: Is All Truth That Meets the Eye? Wolf Humanities Center 2025-11-21 | Wolf Humanities Center 2025-26 Forum on TruthThe Edges of Truth: Secrecy, Artifice, and the Limits of KnowledgeSeptember 17, 2025 (Wednesday)—September 18, 2025 (Thursday)University of Pennsylvania, PhiladelphiaFor full conference program including biographies and abstracts, visit wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/edges-truthWelcome remarks by Ayako Kano, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations; Director, Wolf Humanities Center; University of Pennsylvania, and Julia Verkholantsev, Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies; Forum on Truth Topic Director and conference organizer, Wolf Humanities Center; University of PennsylvaniaSession 1Constructing Knowledge: Error, Uncertainty, VariationChair: Priyamvada Nambrath, Doctoral Candidate in South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania- Paola Bertucci, Professor of History and History of Medicine; Curator-in-charge, History of Science and Technology Division, Peabody Museum, Yale University"Found in Translation: Unintentional Fabrications and Origin Stories in the History of Navigation"- Eleanor Webb, Doctoral Candidate in History, University of Pennsylvania"Uncertain Signs: The Science of Physiognomy in Early Modern Italy"- Darin Hayton, Associate Professor of History of Science, Haverford College"Astrological Aphorisms and the Many Ways the Universe Worked”To watch Session 1, visit youtu.be/rFSthgKQwiYSession 2The Social Lives of Secrets: Concealment and Control of InformationChair: Paul Cobb, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures; Director, Middle East Center, University of Pennsylvania- Benedek Láng, Professor and Head of Department of Marketing and Argumentation Theory, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest"Beyond Encryption: The Social History of Secrecy and Cryptography in Early Modern Europe"- Christopher P. Atwood, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania"What's the 'Secret' in the Secret History of the Mongols?"To watch Session 2, visit youtu.be/zrNg4br9e40Session 3Asserting Authority: The Art of Lies, Idle Talk, and TrickeryChair: Ada Kuskowski, Associate Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania- Julia Verkholantsev, Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies, University of Pennsylvania"Royal Rogues: The Truth about Trickery and Deception in Polish Legendary Narratives"- Oscar Aguirre-Mandujano, Assistant Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania"Ottoman Pleasantries: Idle Talk, Lies, and Rivalries among the Early Modern Ottomans"- Pawel Maciejko, Associate Professor of History and Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Chair in Classical Jewish Religion, Thought, and Culture, Johns Hopkins University"Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschuetz and the Jesuit Art of Lying"*Please note Oscar Aguirre-Mandujano, Assistant Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania, and Pawel Maciejko, Associate Professor of History and Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Chair in Classical Jewish Religion, Thought, and Culture, Johns Hopkins University, have asked us not to share their presentations.To watch Session 3, visit youtu.be/7cFmhEYjwtc Session 4Visualizing Histories: Is All Truth That Meets the Eye?Chair: Lynn Ransom, Curator of Programs, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, Penn Libraries- Zoë Opačić, Associate Professor, History and Theory of Architecture, Birkbeck College, University of London"Seeing and Believing: Visualizing the Late Medieval and Early Modern City"- Emily Steiner, A. M. Rosenthal Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania"History on a Roll: Legends, Lies, and Politics in the Medieval Genealogical Roll Chronicle"Session 5The Value of the Fake: Forgery as Historical TestimonyChair: Nicholas Herman, Lawrence J. Schoenberg Curator, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies; Medieval Studies Librarian, Penn Libraries- Balázs Nagy, Associate Professor; Department of Medieval and Early Modern European History, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest"Forged Medieval Documents as Authentic Historical Sources? Some Case Studies from Central Europe"- Kenneth Lapatin, Curator of Antiquities, J. Paul Getty Museum"Learning from Forgery"To watch Session 5, visit youtu.be/5zMcz7x2IeYClosing Remarks by Julia Verkholantsev, Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies; Forum on Truth Topic Director and conference organizer, Wolf Humanities Center; University of Pennsylvania00:00 - 1:14 Session 4 Intro1:15 - 33:15 Zoë Opačić33:16 - 58:15 Emily Steiner58:16 - 1:11:40 Audience Q&A
The Edges of Truth Session 3: Asserting Authority: The Art of Lies, Idle Talk, and Trickery Wolf Humanities Center 2025-11-21 | Wolf Humanities Center 2025-26 Forum on TruthThe Edges of Truth: Secrecy, Artifice, and the Limits of KnowledgeSeptember 17, 2025 (Wednesday)—September 18, 2025 (Thursday)University of Pennsylvania, PhiladelphiaFor full conference program including biographies and abstracts, visit wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/edges-truthWelcome remarks by Ayako Kano, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations; Director, Wolf Humanities Center; University of Pennsylvania, and Julia Verkholantsev, Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies; Forum on Truth Topic Director and conference organizer, Wolf Humanities Center; University of PennsylvaniaSession 1Constructing Knowledge: Error, Uncertainty, VariationChair: Priyamvada Nambrath, Doctoral Candidate in South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania- Paola Bertucci, Professor of History and History of Medicine; Curator-in-charge, History of Science and Technology Division, Peabody Museum, Yale University"Found in Translation: Unintentional Fabrications and Origin Stories in the History of Navigation"- Eleanor Webb, Doctoral Candidate in History, University of Pennsylvania"Uncertain Signs: The Science of Physiognomy in Early Modern Italy"- Darin Hayton, Associate Professor of History of Science, Haverford College"Astrological Aphorisms and the Many Ways the Universe Worked”To watch Session 1, visit youtu.be/rFSthgKQwiYSession 2The Social Lives of Secrets: Concealment and Control of InformationChair: Paul Cobb, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures; Director, Middle East Center, University of Pennsylvania- Benedek Láng, Professor and Head of Department of Marketing and Argumentation Theory, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest"Beyond Encryption: The Social History of Secrecy and Cryptography in Early Modern Europe"- Christopher P. Atwood, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania"What's the 'Secret' in the Secret History of the Mongols?"To watch Session 2, visit youtu.be/zrNg4br9e40Session 3Asserting Authority: The Art of Lies, Idle Talk, and TrickeryChair: Ada Kuskowski, Associate Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania- Julia Verkholantsev, Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies, University of Pennsylvania"Royal Rogues: The Truth about Trickery and Deception in Polish Legendary Narratives"- Oscar Aguirre-Mandujano, Assistant Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania"Ottoman Pleasantries: Idle Talk, Lies, and Rivalries among the Early Modern Ottomans"- Pawel Maciejko, Associate Professor of History and Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Chair in Classical Jewish Religion, Thought, and Culture, Johns Hopkins University*Please note Oscar Aguirre-Mandujano, Assistant Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania, and Pawel Maciejko, Associate Professor of History and Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Chair in Classical Jewish Religion, Thought, and Culture, Johns Hopkins University, have asked us not to share their presentations.Session 4Visualizing Histories: Is All Truth That Meets the Eye?Chair: Lynn Ransom, Curator of Programs, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, Penn Libraries- Zoë Opačić, Associate Professor, History and Theory of Architecture, Birkbeck College, University of London"Seeing and Believing: Visualizing the Late Medieval and Early Modern City"- Emily Steiner, A. M. Rosenthal Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania"History on a Roll: Legends, Lies, and Politics in the Medieval Genealogical Roll Chronicle"To watch Session 4, visit youtu.be/T5U9cibqmvkSession 5The Value of the Fake: Forgery as Historical TestimonyChair: Nicholas Herman, Lawrence J. Schoenberg Curator, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies; Medieval Studies Librarian, Penn Libraries- Balázs Nagy, Associate Professor; Department of Medieval and Early Modern European History, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest"Forged Medieval Documents as Authentic Historical Sources? Some Case Studies from Central Europe"- Kenneth Lapatin, Curator of Antiquities, J. Paul Getty Museum"Learning from Forgery"To watch Session 5, visit youtu.be/5zMcz7x2IeYClosing Remarks by Julia Verkholantsev, Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies; Forum on Truth Topic Director and conference organizer, Wolf Humanities Center; University of Pennsylvania00:00 - 0:37 Session 3 Intro0:38 - 27:44 Julia Verkholantsev27:45 27:49 Omission Note27:50 - 52:47 Audience Q&A
The Edges of Truth Session 2: The Social Lives of Secrets: Concealment and Control of Information Wolf Humanities Center 2025-11-21 | Wolf Humanities Center 2025-26 Forum on TruthThe Edges of Truth: Secrecy, Artifice, and the Limits of KnowledgeSeptember 17, 2025 (Wednesday)—September 18, 2025 (Thursday)University of Pennsylvania, PhiladelphiaSession 2The Social Lives of Secrets: Concealment and Control of InformationFor full conference program including biographies and abstracts, visit wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/edges-truthWelcome remarks by Ayako Kano, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations; Director, Wolf Humanities Center; University of Pennsylvania, and Julia Verkholantsev, Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies; Forum on Truth Topic Director and conference organizer, Wolf Humanities Center; University of PennsylvaniaSession 1Constructing Knowledge: Error, Uncertainty, VariationChair: Priyamvada Nambrath, Doctoral Candidate in South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania- Paola Bertucci, Professor of History and History of Medicine; Curator-in-charge, History of Science and Technology Division, Peabody Museum, Yale University"Found in Translation: Unintentional Fabrications and Origin Stories in the History of Navigation"- Eleanor Webb, Doctoral Candidate in History, University of Pennsylvania"Uncertain Signs: The Science of Physiognomy in Early Modern Italy"- Darin Hayton, Associate Professor of History of Science, Haverford College"Astrological Aphorisms and the Many Ways the Universe Worked”To watch Session 1, visit youtu.be/rFSthgKQwiYSession 2The Social Lives of Secrets: Concealment and Control of InformationChair: Paul Cobb, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures; Director, Middle East Center, University of Pennsylvania- Benedek Láng, Professor and Head of Department of Marketing and Argumentation Theory, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest"Beyond Encryption: The Social History of Secrecy and Cryptography in Early Modern Europe"- Christopher P. Atwood, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania"What's the 'Secret' in the Secret History of the Mongols?"Session 3Asserting Authority: The Art of Lies, Idle Talk, and TrickeryChair: Ada Kuskowski, Associate Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania- Julia Verkholantsev, Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies, University of Pennsylvania"Royal Rogues: The Truth about Trickery and Deception in Polish Legendary Narratives"*Please note Oscar Aguirre-Mandujano, Assistant Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania, and Pawel Maciejko, Associate Professor of History and Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Chair in Classical Jewish Religion, Thought, and Culture, Johns Hopkins University, have asked us not to share their presentations.To watch Session 3, visit youtu.be/7cFmhEYjwtcSession 4Visualizing Histories: Is All Truth That Meets the Eye?Chair: Lynn Ransom, Curator of Programs, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, Penn Libraries- Zoë Opačić, Associate Professor, History and Theory of Architecture, Birkbeck College, University of London"Seeing and Believing: Visualizing the Late Medieval and Early Modern City"- Emily Steiner, A. M. Rosenthal Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania"History on a Roll: Legends, Lies, and Politics in the Medieval Genealogical Roll Chronicle"To watch Session 4, visit youtu.be/T5U9cibqmvkSession 5The Value of the Fake: Forgery as Historical TestimonyChair: Nicholas Herman, Lawrence J. Schoenberg Curator, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies; Medieval Studies Librarian, Penn Libraries- Balázs Nagy, Associate Professor; Department of Medieval and Early Modern European History, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest"Forged Medieval Documents as Authentic Historical Sources? Some Case Studies from Central Europe"- Kenneth Lapatin, Curator of Antiquities, J. Paul Getty Museum"Learning from Forgery"To watch Session 5, visit youtu.be/5zMcz7x2IeYClosing Remarks by Julia Verkholantsev, Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies; Forum on Truth Topic Director and conference organizer, Wolf Humanities Center; University of Pennsylvania00:00 - 00:47 Session 2 Intro00:48 - 23:56 Benedek Láng23:57 - 52:57 Christopher P. Atwood52:58 Audience Q&A
The Beauty of Choice with Wendy Steiner Wolf Humanities Center 2025-05-13 | February 29, 2025Cosponsored by Kelly Writers House and the Department of English.In The Beauty of Choice, the renowned cultural critic Wendy Steiner offers a dazzling new account of aesthetics grounded in female agency. Through a series of linked meditations on canonical and contemporary literature and art, she casts women’s taste as the engine of liberal values.Steiner reframes long-standing questions surrounding desire, art, sexual assault, and beauty in light of #MeToo. Beginning with an opera she wrote based on Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” she presents women’s sexual choices as fundamentally aesthetic in nature—expressions of their taste—and artworks as stagings of choice in courtship, coquetry, consent, marriage, and liberation. A merger of art criticism, evolutionary theory, political history, and aesthetics, this book paints the struggle between female autonomy and patriarchal violence and extremism as the essence of art.Following a reading from The Beauty of Choice, Steiner was joined by Heather Love, Penn Professor of English, to discuss the ways in which taste, beauty, and pleasure intersect in defense of women’s freedom.Many thanks to Kelly Writers House for hosting and recording and editing the video.
Ideas in Motion, Words in Flux Panel 4: Radical Interventions Wolf Humanities Center 2025-05-08 | Wolf Humanities Center 2024-25 Forum on Keywords Undergraduate Humanities Forum Research Conference Ideas in Motion, Words in FluxPanel 4: Radical InterventionsEach year the Wolf Humanities Center's Undergraduate Humanities Forum brings together undergraduate students from across the humanities and beyond to explore a common theme. On March 28th, 2025 the Wolf Humanities Center's 2024–2025 Undergraduate Research Fellows presented their research on "Keywords." CONFERENCE SCHEDULE Opening Remarks Taryn Flaherty and Tova Tachau, Executive Board and Research Fellows, Undergraduate Humanities Forum Panel 1Global Connections, Toxic Luxuries Moderator: John Pollack, Curator of Research Services, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania - Ning Ning (Jenny) Fu, English; Philosophy, Politics, and Economics; CAS 2025 The Flows of Informal Empire: Reading "The Malay" as a Lascar Sailor in Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater - Daphne Glatter, English, Ancient History; CAS 2025 "Poynts" of Interest: Premodern Keywords in MS Cotton Nero A.x - Eug Xu, History; CAS 2025 Modes of Bookkeeping: How Material Samples Illustrate the Limitations of VOC Trading Expertise To watch Panel 1, visit youtu.be/J5Nk-e1t2HgPanel 2Remembered Through Language Moderator: Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Associate Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania - Seyoon Chun, History; CAS 2026 "Gyopo" Identity: Contemporary Korean-American Community Building in Christian Churches - Taryn Flaherty, History; CAS 2025 Oral Histories of Chinatown: Development and Self-Determination- Amanda Rodriguez, History of Art, Latin American & Latinx Studies; CAS 2026 Border: Unraveling Narratives along the Rio Grande To watch Panel 2, visit youtu.be/0J8xcFRZjSgPanel 3Representations of Space and Aesthetics Moderator: Julia Alekseyeva, Assistant Professor of English and Cinema & Media Studies, University of Pennsylvania - Greer Goergen, History of Art, Comparative Literature; CAS 2025 Collectivism and Ideological Revivals: Soviet Objects, Representations, and Interiors - Katrina Itona, Comparative Literature, English; CAS 2025 #aesthetic: Online Visual Subcultures and Internet Identity in Aesthetics To watch Panel 3, visit youtu.be/2s4u-bhyaMAPanel 4Radical Interventions Moderator: Chris A. Chambers, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania - Nishanth Bhargava, History, Comparative Literature; CAS 2027 From the People, to the People: Theories of the Subject after May '68 in France - Eleanor Grauke, History; CAS 2025 Washwomen, Widows, and Ward Leaders: Benevolent Societies as Instruments of Care by Black Women in Northern Cities, 1830-1840 - Connor Nakamura, History; CAS 2025 Cloaked Radicalism: Bayard Rustin and the Socialist Civil Rights Strategy (1955-1965) - Tova Tachau, Biochemistry, Comparative Literature, Russian and East European Studies; CAS 2025Decoding the Value Relation Through Scientific Analogy: A Biochemical Reading of Marx's Capital Closing Remarks Julia Verkholantsev, Director, Undergraduate Humanities Forum; Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies For more info visit https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/ideas-motion-words-flux0:00 - 0:42 Panel 4 intro0:43 - 18:45 Connor Nakamura18:47 - 43:31 Eleanor Grauke43:32 - 43:54 Return from break43:55 - 1:03:05 Nishanth Bhargava1:03:09 - 1:27:08 Tova Tachau1:27:09 - 1:41:28 Q&A Panel1:41:29 - 1:44:52 Closing Remarks
Ideas in Motion, Words in Flux Panel 3: Representations of Space and Aesthetics Wolf Humanities Center 2025-05-08 | Wolf Humanities Center 2024-25 Forum on Keywords Undergraduate Humanities Forum Research Conference Ideas in Motion, Words in FluxPanel 3: Representations of Space and AestheticsEach year the Wolf Humanities Center's Undergraduate Humanities Forum brings together undergraduate students from across the humanities and beyond to explore a common theme. On March 28th, 2025 the Wolf Humanities Center's 2024–2025 Undergraduate Research Fellows presented their research on "Keywords." CONFERENCE SCHEDULE Opening Remarks Taryn Flaherty and Tova Tachau, Executive Board and Research Fellows, Undergraduate Humanities Forum Panel 1Global Connections, Toxic Luxuries Moderator: John Pollack, Curator of Research Services, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania - Ning Ning (Jenny) Fu, English; Philosophy, Politics, and Economics; CAS 2025 The Flows of Informal Empire: Reading "The Malay" as a Lascar Sailor in Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater - Daphne Glatter, English, Ancient History; CAS 2025 "Poynts" of Interest: Premodern Keywords in MS Cotton Nero A.x - Eug Xu, History; CAS 2025 Modes of Bookkeeping: How Material Samples Illustrate the Limitations of VOC Trading Expertise To watch Panel 1, visit youtu.be/J5Nk-e1t2HgPanel 2Remembered Through Language Moderator: Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Associate Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania - Seyoon Chun, History; CAS 2026 "Gyopo" Identity: Contemporary Korean-American Community Building in Christian Churches - Taryn Flaherty, History; CAS 2025 Oral Histories of Chinatown: Development and Self-Determination- Amanda Rodriguez, History of Art, Latin American & Latinx Studies; CAS 2026 Border: Unraveling Narratives along the Rio Grande To watch Panel 2, visit youtu.be/0J8xcFRZjSgPanel 3Representations of Space and Aesthetics Moderator: Julia Alekseyeva, Assistant Professor of English and Cinema & Media Studies, University of Pennsylvania - Greer Goergen, History of Art, Comparative Literature; CAS 2025 Collectivism and Ideological Revivals: Soviet Objects, Representations, and Interiors - Katrina Itona, Comparative Literature, English; CAS 2025 #aesthetic: Online Visual Subcultures and Internet Identity in Aesthetics Panel 4Radical Interventions Moderator: Chris A. Chambers, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania - Nishanth Bhargava, History, Comparative Literature; CAS 2027 From the People, to the People: Theories of the Subject after May '68 in France - Eleanor Grauke, History; CAS 2025 Washwomen, Widows, and Ward Leaders: Benevolent Societies as Instruments of Care by Black Women in Northern Cities, 1830-1840 - Connor Nakamura, History; CAS 2025 Cloaked Radicalism: Bayard Rustin and the Socialist Civil Rights Strategy (1955-1965) - Tova Tachau, Biochemistry, Comparative Literature, Russian and East European Studies; CAS 2025Decoding the Value Relation Through Scientific Analogy: A Biochemical Reading of Marx's Capital To watch Panel 4, visit youtu.be/CsB0L2hajjYClosing Remarks Julia Verkholantsev, Director, Undergraduate Humanities Forum; Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies For more info visit https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/ideas-motion-words-flux0:00 - 0:47 Panel 3 intro0:48 - 19:41 Greer Goergen19:42 - 41:34 Katrina Itona41:35 - 56:41 Q&A Panel
Ideas in Motion, Words in Flux Panel 2: Remembered Through Language Wolf Humanities Center 2025-05-08 | Wolf Humanities Center 2024-25 Forum on Keywords Undergraduate Humanities Forum Research Conference Ideas in Motion, Words in FluxPanel 2: Remembered Through LanguageEach year the Wolf Humanities Center's Undergraduate Humanities Forum brings together undergraduate students from across the humanities and beyond to explore a common theme. On March 28th, 2025 the Wolf Humanities Center's 2024–2025 Undergraduate Research Fellows presented their research on "Keywords." CONFERENCE SCHEDULE Opening Remarks Taryn Flaherty and Tova Tachau, Executive Board and Research Fellows, Undergraduate Humanities Forum Panel 1Global Connections, Toxic Luxuries Moderator: John Pollack, Curator of Research Services, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania - Ning Ning (Jenny) Fu, English; Philosophy, Politics, and Economics; CAS 2025 The Flows of Informal Empire: Reading "The Malay" as a Lascar Sailor in Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater - Daphne Glatter, English, Ancient History; CAS 2025 "Poynts" of Interest: Premodern Keywords in MS Cotton Nero A.x - Eug Xu, History; CAS 2025 Modes of Bookkeeping: How Material Samples Illustrate the Limitations of VOC Trading Expertise To watch Panel 1, visit youtu.be/J5Nk-e1t2HgPanel 2Remembered Through Language Moderator: Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Associate Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania - Seyoon Chun, History; CAS 2026 "Gyopo" Identity: Contemporary Korean-American Community Building in Christian Churches - Taryn Flaherty, History; CAS 2025 Oral Histories of Chinatown: Development and Self-Determination- Amanda Rodriguez, History of Art, Latin American & Latinx Studies; CAS 2026 Border: Unraveling Narratives along the Rio Grande Panel 3Representations of Space and Aesthetics Moderator: Julia Alekseyeva, Assistant Professor of English and Cinema & Media Studies, University of Pennsylvania - Greer Goergen, History of Art, Comparative Literature; CAS 2025 Collectivism and Ideological Revivals: Soviet Objects, Representations, and Interiors - Katrina Itona, Comparative Literature, English; CAS 2025 #aesthetic: Online Visual Subcultures and Internet Identity in Aesthetics To watch Panel 3, visit youtu.be/2s4u-bhyaMAPanel 4Radical Interventions Moderator: Chris A. Chambers, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania - Nishanth Bhargava, History, Comparative Literature; CAS 2027 From the People, to the People: Theories of the Subject after May '68 in France - Eleanor Grauke, History; CAS 2025 Washwomen, Widows, and Ward Leaders: Benevolent Societies as Instruments of Care by Black Women in Northern Cities, 1830-1840 - Connor Nakamura, History; CAS 2025 Cloaked Radicalism: Bayard Rustin and the Socialist Civil Rights Strategy (1955-1965) - Tova Tachau, Biochemistry, Comparative Literature, Russian and East European Studies; CAS 2025Decoding the Value Relation Through Scientific Analogy: A Biochemical Reading of Marx's Capital To watch Panel 4, visit youtu.be/CsB0L2hajjYClosing Remarks Julia Verkholantsev, Director, Undergraduate Humanities Forum; Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies For more info visit https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/ideas-motion-words-flux0:00 - 0:46 Panel 2 intro0:47 - 15:48 Seyoon Chun15:49 - 36:48 Taryn Flaherty36:49 - 56:52 Amanda Rodriguez56:53 - 1:20:17 Q&A Panel
Ideas in Motion, Words in Flux Panel 1: Global Connections, Toxic Luxuries Wolf Humanities Center 2025-05-08 | Wolf Humanities Center 2024-25 Forum on Keywords Undergraduate Humanities Forum Research Conference Ideas in Motion, Words in FluxPanel 1: Global Connections, Toxic LuxuriesEach year the Wolf Humanities Center's Undergraduate Humanities Forum brings together undergraduate students from across the humanities and beyond to explore a common theme. On March 28th, 2025 the Wolf Humanities Center's 2024–2025 Undergraduate Research Fellows presented their research on "Keywords." CONFERENCE SCHEDULE Opening Remarks Taryn Flaherty and Tova Tachau, Executive Board and Research Fellows, Undergraduate Humanities Forum Panel 1Global Connections, Toxic Luxuries Moderator: John Pollack, Curator of Research Services, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania - Ning Ning (Jenny) Fu, English; Philosophy, Politics, and Economics; CAS 2025 The Flows of Informal Empire: Reading "The Malay" as a Lascar Sailor in Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater - Daphne Glatter, English, Ancient History; CAS 2025 "Poynts" of Interest: Premodern Keywords in MS Cotton Nero A.x - Eug Xu, History; CAS 2025 Modes of Bookkeeping: How Material Samples Illustrate the Limitations of VOC Trading Expertise Panel 2Remembered Through Language Moderator: Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Associate Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania - Seyoon Chun, History; CAS 2026 "Gyopo" Identity: Contemporary Korean-American Community Building in Christian Churches - Taryn Flaherty, History; CAS 2025 Oral Histories of Chinatown: Development and Self-Determination- Amanda Rodriguez, History of Art, Latin American & Latinx Studies; CAS 2026 Border: Unraveling Narratives along the Rio Grande To watch Panel 2, visit youtu.be/0J8xcFRZjSgPanel 3Representations of Space and Aesthetics Moderator: Julia Alekseyeva, Assistant Professor of English and Cinema & Media Studies, University of Pennsylvania - Greer Goergen, History of Art, Comparative Literature; CAS 2025 Collectivism and Ideological Revivals: Soviet Objects, Representations, and Interiors - Katrina Itona, Comparative Literature, English; CAS 2025 #aesthetic: Online Visual Subcultures and Internet Identity in Aesthetics To watch Panel 3, visit youtu.be/2s4u-bhyaMAPanel 4Radical Interventions Moderator: Chris A. Chambers, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania - Nishanth Bhargava, History, Comparative Literature; CAS 2027 From the People, to the People: Theories of the Subject after May '68 in France - Eleanor Grauke, History; CAS 2025 Washwomen, Widows, and Ward Leaders: Benevolent Societies as Instruments of Care by Black Women in Northern Cities, 1830-1840 - Connor Nakamura, History; CAS 2025 Cloaked Radicalism: Bayard Rustin and the Socialist Civil Rights Strategy (1955-1965) - Tova Tachau, Biochemistry, Comparative Literature, Russian and East European Studies; CAS 2025Decoding the Value Relation Through Scientific Analogy: A Biochemical Reading of Marx's Capital To watch Panel 4, visit youtu.be/CsB0L2hajjYClosing Remarks Julia Verkholantsev, Director, Undergraduate Humanities Forum; Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies For more info visit https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/ideas-motion-words-flux0:00 - 4:00 Opening Remarks4:01 - 7:15 Panel 1 intro7:16 - 29:01 Ning Ning (Jenny) Fu29:02 - 53:44 Daphne Glatter53:45 - 1:20:09 Eug Xu1:20:10 - 1:32:07 Q&A Panel
Keywords Symposium Panel 2 Humanity & Panel 3 Aesthetics Wolf Humanities Center 2025-04-25 | Wolf Humanities Center 2024-25 Forum on Keywords February 21, 2025 In conjunction with the Wolf Humanities Center’s 2024–2025 Forum on Keywords, this interdisciplinary symposium engages mobile concepts and their genealogies, histories, structures of meaning, translations, and adaptations across time and space. In three panels curated around the Raymond Williams keywords of “Aesthetics,” “Imperialism,” and “Humanity,” we focus on themes that drive cultural and social concepts and inspire global interlocution across languages, perspectives, and temporalities. As we gear up to celebrate the anniversary of Williams’ foundational book "Keywords," we will reflect on how generative the use of keywords remains while also adding to and challenging the original vocabulary. We hope to make Williams’ process applicable for the twenty-first century and fruitful for the questions scholarship is grappling with today. Join us as scholars from the social sciences, the humanities, and the arts expand upon—and challenge—some of Williams’ categories. Panel 2: Humanity Manu Chander, Associate Professor, English, Georgetown University Gabrielle Cornish, Assistant Professor, Musicology, Mead Witter School of Music, University of Wisconsin Steven Weitzman, Abraham M. Ellis Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages and Literatures, Ella Darivoff Director of the Katz Center of Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania With Moderator Jacob Myers, Doctoral Fellow, Wolf Humanities Center; Ph.D. Candidate, English, University of Pennsylvania Panel 3: Aesthetics Stephanie Langin-Hooper, Associate Professor and Karl Kilinski II Endowed Chair in Hellenic Visual Culture, Art History, Southern Methodist University With Moderator Jeremy Steinberg, Doctoral Fellow, Wolf Humanities Center; Ph.D. Candidate, Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania
Keywords Symposium: Panel 1 Imperialism Wolf Humanities Center 2025-04-25 | Wolf Humanities Center2024-25 Forum on KeywordsFebruary 21, 2025In conjunction with the Wolf Humanities Center’s 2024–2025 Forum on Keywords, this interdisciplinary symposium engages mobile concepts and their genealogies, histories, structures of meaning, translations, and adaptations across time and space. In three panels curated around the Raymond Williams keywords of “Aesthetics,” “Imperialism,” and “Humanity,” we focus on themes that drive cultural and social concepts and inspire global interlocution across languages, perspectives, and temporalities. As we gear up to celebrate the anniversary of Williams’ foundational book "Keywords," we will reflect on how generative the use of keywords remains while also adding to and challenging the original vocabulary. We hope to make Williams’ process applicable for the twenty-first century and fruitful for the questions scholarship is grappling with today.Join us as scholars from the social sciences, the humanities, and the arts expand upon—and challenge—some of Williams’ categories.Panel 1: ImperialismMariam Durrani, Professorial Lecturer, Peace, Human Rights & Cultural Relations, American UniversityHafsa Kanjwal, Associate Professor, South Asian History, Lafayette CollegeAnna Storti, Assistant Professor, Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Duke Universitywith Moderator: Paniz Musawi Natanzi, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Wolf Humanities Center
Evolution in Deaf Identities Wolf Humanities Center 2025-04-25 | Wolf Humanities Center2024-25 Forum on KeywordsMarch 5, 2025Presented in collaboration with ASL and Deaf Studies in Penn's Department of LinguisticsThe collective identity of the Deaf community in the United States has undergone some changes in recent years. Those changes mirror other identities and their development in society, resulting in overlapping of identity and how we understand it. This has caused some controversy in Deaf Studies and related fields. Professor Saunders' presentation will explore some of the history behind those changes and how we now look at Deaf identity in the U.S.Crom Saunders is currently an Associate Professor at the American Sign Language Department of Columbia College, Chicago. Crom works extensively in translation, including PSA videos and children's stories, with organizations such as Fun4TheDisabled and Sally Is Sarah, LLC. Crom has interpreted dozens of plays, from children's theatre to musicals, including at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Steppenwolf Theater, and has taught dozens of ASL linguistics, educational, and theatrical workshops across the nation, in addition to working as a Director of ASL for several theatre companies across the nation. He also has a one-man show, "Cromania!", which he performs worldwide.Thanks to Penn SAS Multimedia Services for recording/editing
The Paradox of Hunger Strikes Wolf Humanities Center 2024-12-05 | Wolf Humanities Center2024-25 Forum on KeywordsWednesday, November 13, 2024Historian Nayan Shah considers the keyword "hunger strike" and the historical, social, and political conditions that motivate the rise and transformations of this puzzling and persistent bodily defiance in the 20th and 21st centuries. Investigating contexts from South Africa, India, Ireland, the United States, and Iran, Shah explores the visceral ways that hunger striking communicates through media and political movements, and how it can turn a personal agony into a call for collective action.Nayan Shah is a historian whose books uncover how people struggle with incarceration, migration, and illness in the United States and across the globe. His latest book, Refusal to Eat: A Century of Prison Hunger Strikes (University of California Press, 2022), is the first global history of hunger strikes as a tactic in prisons, conflicts, and protest movements. He also wrote Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco’s Chinatown (2001) and Stranger Intimacy: Contesting Race, Sexuality and the Law in the North American West (2001). Shah is Professor of American Studies & Ethnicity and History at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. This year he is L.A. Times' Distinguished Fellow at the Huntington Library and Research Center. For more information visit https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/shah
Why AI Needs the Humanities as a Partner Wolf Humanities Center 2024-12-05 | Wolf Humanities Center2024-25 Forum on KeywordsWednesday, October 23, 2024It is not hard to convince humanists that the field of artificial intelligence ought to be listening to us. What is not as widely recognized is that AI researchers know this and are seeking guidance. The tools produced by generative AI are effectively models of culture, and they fail to solve important problems without a model of cultural pluralism. After explaining why these problems matter—even to tech companies—Professor Underwood will explore the institutional conditions we would need for humanists and computer scientists to work together on them as partners.Ted Underwood is Professor of Information Sciences and English at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of three books on literary history, most recently Distant Horizons: Digital Evidence and Literary Change (Chicago, 2019), but also publishes papers in venues like Sociological Science and the Association for Computational Linguistics. His current project involves building language models that incorporate viewpoint diversity and cultural change as central principles.For more information visit https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/underwood
Lexical Sleuthing in the Digital Age: On the Trail of Keywords and their Cultural Worlds Wolf Humanities Center 2024-12-05 | Wolf Humanities Center2024-25 Forum on KeywordsOctober 9, 2024When Raymond Williams published Keywords in 1976, his reflections on culturally significant words were largely informed by entries in the Oxford English Dictionary. Indeed, an early inspiration for Williams came from looking up the OED entry for culture and seeing how the word's usage shifted over time. Nowadays, lexical sleuths who seek to understand a word's historical trajectory can take advantage of vast digital databases of books and newspapers, as well as other online troves of language use. We can now more fully appreciate the social, cultural, and political pathways of a keyword by following the trail of "text-artifacts" that it leaves behind.Ben Zimmer is the language columnist for The Wall Street Journal and a frequent commentator on language for Slate, The Atlantic, and other outlets. He was formerly a columnist for the Boston Globe and the New York Times Magazine. He has worked as editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press, consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary, and executive editor of Vocabulary.com and the Visual Thesaurus. In 2014, he was the recipient of the inaugural Linguistics Journalism Award from the Linguistic Society of America. As chair of the New Words Committee for the American Dialect Society, he oversees the society’s Word of the Year proceedings and helps prepare the quarterly feature “Among the New Words” in the journal American Speech. In 2021, he was named the first-ever Vocabulary Judge for the Scripps National Spelling Bee. For more info visit https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/zimmer
Crafting Revolutions: Revolutionary Bodies Wolf Humanities Center 2024-05-14 | Each year the Wolf Humanities Center's Undergraduate Humanities Forum brings together undergraduate students from across the humanities and beyond to explore a common theme. On April 12th, the Wolf Humanities Center's 2023–2024 Undergraduate Research Fellows presented their research on "Revolution" at Wolf's 2024 undergraduate research conference, "Crafting Revolutions"Panel 2: Revolutionary BodiesModerator: Ramah McKay, Associate Professor of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania• Dhivya Arasappan, Health & Societies, Biology; CAS 2024"A Climate-Health Revolution: Examining Novel Framings of Climate Change as a Health Crisis"• Sergio Emilio Carballido, Religious Studies, Mathematical Economics; CAS 2026"La Santa Muerte: A Revolution to Mexico’s Popular Religiosity and its National Identity"• Hertha Torre Gallego, Health and Societies, Hispanic Studies; CAS 2024"A Partial Revolution: Engaging with Realities of Abortion Reform in Argentina"• Zhangyang (Charlie) Xie, Africana Studies; Science, Technology, and Society; CAS 2024"Grappling Culture: How the Black Panther Party Addressed Colonial and Urban Anxieties through Martial Arts"For more info, visit https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/crafting-revolutions0:00 - Intro, Dr. Ramah McKay0:56 - Zhangyang (Charlie) Xie14:17 - Sergio Emilio Carballido 30:03 - Hertha Torre Gallego44:50 - Dhivya Arasappan 1:03:08 - Panel Discussion and Q&A
Crafting Revolutions: Revolutionary Dimensions Wolf Humanities Center 2024-05-14 | Each year the Wolf Humanities Center's Undergraduate Humanities Forum brings together undergraduate students from across the humanities and beyond to explore a common theme. On April 12th, the Wolf Humanities Center's 2023–2024 Undergraduate Research Fellows presented their research on "Revolution" at Wolf's 2024 undergraduate research conference, "Crafting Revolutions"Panel 3: Revolutionary DimensionsModerator: Kevin M.F. Platt, Professor of Russian and East European Studies, University of Pennsylvania• Victoria Avanesov, Comparative Literature, Philosophy; CAS 2026"Victory Over the Sun: Reimagining Russian Suprematist Works Through Hermeneutics"• Liam Phillips, Comparative Literature, Russian and East European Studies; CAS 2024"Form and Figure in the Russian Avant-Garde: From Mikhail Kuzmin's Stroinost' to Filmic Montage"• Tova Tachau, Biochemistry, Comparative Literature, Russian and East European Studies; CAS 2025"The Futurist Dynamism of Dimensionality: Embryos of Artistic Possibility in Malevich and Khlebnikov"For more info, visit https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/crafting-revolutions0:00 - Intro, Dr. Kevin M.F. Platt0:46 - Liam Phillips17:30 - Tova Tachau35:42 - Victoria Avanesov52:16 - Panel Discussion and Q&A
Crafting Revolutions: Revolutionary Thoughts Wolf Humanities Center 2024-05-14 | Each year the Wolf Humanities Center's Undergraduate Humanities Forum brings together undergraduate students from across the humanities and beyond to explore a common theme. On April 12th, the Wolf Humanities Center's 2023–2024 Undergraduate Research Fellows presented their research on "Revolution" at Wolf's 2024 undergraduate research conference, "Crafting Revolutions"Panel 1: Revolutionary ThoughtsModerator: Dagmawi Woubshet, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Endowed Term Associate Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania• Jiayi Li, Intellectual History, Economics; CAS 2025"Translating the Marxist Teleology into Rural China: The Conceptualization of the ‘Feudal Relation of Land’ and the Agrarian Revolution under the United Front, 1924-1927"• Jean Paik, English; CAS 2024"Embodied Resistance: Collectivizing the Body in the Literatures of Korean Women Factory Workers"• Yijian (Davie) Zhou, Philosophy, Psychology; CAS 2024"The Genealogy of Colonial Racism in the Works of Frantz Fanon"• Alex Yim, English; CAS 2025"Kubo Walks: Character, Global Modernism, and the Literary World-System"To watch Panel 2: youtu.be/HjaMEipNHhUTo watch Panel 3: youtu.be/kQGYS3GN-yw For more info, visit https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/crafting-revolutions0:00 - Intro, Zhangyang Xie and Hertha Torre Gallego 8:10 - Panel 1: Revolutionary Thoughts Intro, Dr. Dagmawi Woubshet10:28 - Alex Yim23:49 - Jiayi Li 43:39 - Yijian (Davie) Zhou56:30 - Jean Paik1:12:40 - Panel Discussion and Q&A
Amazigh Poetics: An Emerging Indigenous Literary Field Wolf Humanities Center 2024-05-14 | This panel combines poetic readings in both Tamazight and English with a scholarly intervention on the construction of Amazigh literature. The participants will discuss the imbrication of Indigeneity and literary concerns in Amazigh people's struggle for recognition of their language and culture in their indigenous homeland in Tamazgha (the broader North Africa).Featuring:• Brahim El Guabli, Associate Professor of Arabic Studies and Comparative Literature, Williams College• Khadija Ikan, Moroccan writer, and • Atlas Phoenix, TranslatorFor more info, visit https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/amazigh0:00 - Intro, Dr. Huda Fakhreddine5:18 - Brahim El Guabli32:58 - Atlas Phoenix56:13 - Khadija Ikan1:14:22 - Panel Discussion
Muddy Waters: Reimagining Futures in Wet Asia Wolf Humanities Center 2023-12-18 | Presented in collaboration with Penn’s South Asia Center. Cosponsored by Penn's EnviroLab, Environmental Innovations Initiative, and Program in Environmental Humanities. Featuring: Nikhil Anand, Daniel Braun Silvers and Robert Peter Silvers Family Presidential Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania; Prasenjit Duara, Oscar Tang Professor of East Asian Studies, Duke University; Maira Hayat, Assistant Professor of Environment and Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame; Marvi Mazhar, Architect and researcher Today, anthropogenic climate change — cyclones, floods, and storm surges permeate and punctuate the regularity of everyday life in much of South and Southeast Asia. The catastrophic harms that are visited by these events are neither linear nor are they evenly distributed, but are a result of historic projects to manage, tame and regulate waters with the land-centric imaginaries of colonial and postcolonial states. Rather than approach questions of design and history with dry ground at the center, the panelists in this session think about the kinds of futures and histories that might be made thinking in and from the waterscapes (oceans, rivers and littoral regions) in which they have long worked.0:00 - Intro8:14 - Prasenjit Duara35:43 - Maira Hayat1:01:31 - Panel discussion and Q&A
Nothing About Us Without Us: The Liminal Space Between Obscurity and the Limelight Wolf Humanities Center 2023-10-26 | Wednesday, October 18, 2023Presented in collaboration with Penn’s ASL ProgramOctavian RobinsonAssociate Professor, Deaf Studies, Gallaudet UniversityIn 1988, the Gallaudet University community protested the hiring of a hearing person as the newly-appointed president of the prestigious institution, which had always been dedicated to providing a fully accessible linguistic environment for deaf and hard-of-hearing people. Gallaudet hadn’t had a deaf president in its 124 year history and the politics of the protest and disability rights reverberated across the globe with front-page headlines and primetime news interviews. In the three and half decades since the Deaf President Now movement, deaf people continue to occupy a liminal space between the margins and the center of popular imagination as sign languages became vogue.For more information, visit: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/robinson
Jacquelyn Campbell • Gender-Based Violence in a Global Frame Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-19 | Wolf Humanities Center's 2013-14 Forum on ViolenceApril 9, 2014Jacquelyn CampbellAnna D. Wolf Chair and Professor of Nursing, Johns Hopkins University National Program Director, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholars ProgramGlobal efforts to prevent violence have tended to focus on violence between men. Yet it is gender-based violence, largely directed at women and girls, that inflicts the highest costs on a society's health and well-being. Jacquelyn Campbell, an international authority on violence against women, discusses this global problem and highlights some of the new community-based strategies that are being used successfully to combat it.For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/gender-based-violence-global-frame
Ben Horton, Michael Mann • Climate Wars: Global Warming and the Attack on Science Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-19 | Wolf Humanities Center's 2013-14 Forum on ViolenceMarch 19, 2014Michael MannDistinguished Professor of MeteorologyDirector, Earth System Science Center, Penn State UniversityBen HortonProfessor, Institute of Marine and Coastal SciencesRutgers UniversityClimate change research has been caught in a political storm that threatens to undermine legitimate scientific work. Michael Mann and Ben Horton, two leading climate change scientists, describe the fight against misinformation from the inside, balancing statistical analysis with personal anecdotes from their life and work. They show how little doubt there really is that human activities are causing rapid changes in the earth's climate.For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/climate-wars
Daedalus Quartet • Music from Exile Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-19 | Wolf Humanities Center's 2013-14 Forum on ViolenceNovember 6, 2013Daedalus QuartetPenn's Quartet-in-Residencewith Charles Abramovic, piano and Randall Scarlata, reciterMin-Young Kim, violin Matilda Kaul, violinThomas Kraines, cello Jessica Thompson, violaIn "Music from Exile," the Daedalus Quartet explores the music of composers who were forced into various states of exile by the Third Reich. From those composers who were arrested and never completed the journey to exile, to those who spent the war far from home, the effect on the music they produced was profound.Taking center stage is Arnold Schoenberg's "Ode to Napoleon," a musical melodrama based on a poem by Lord Byron for string quartet, piano, and narrator. In the poem, Byron took aim not only at Napoleon, but at all dictatorship. Likewise Schoenberg, in composing this work at the height of the Second World War (1942), meant to express "the moral duty of intelligentsia to take a stand against tyranny."The program begins with Erwin Schulhoff 's Five Pieces for String Quartet and closes with Erich Wolfgang Korngold's String Quartet No. 3.For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/music-exile0:00 Introduction5:44 Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942)5 Pieces for String Quartet (1942)I. Alla Valse viennese (allegro)II. Alla Serenata (allegretto con moto)III. Alla Czeca (molto allegro)IV. Alla Tango milonga (andante)V. Alla Tarantella (prestissimo con fuoco)20:55 Arnold Schoenberg (1847-1951)Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte (poem by Lord Bryon)op. 41 for String Quartet, Piano, and Reciter (1942)43:06 Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957)String Quartet No. 3, op. 34 (1945)
Richard Foreman • Experimental Ontological-Hysteric Theater Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-19 | Wolf Humanities Center's 2005-06 Forum on Word & ImageMarch 22, 2006Richard ForemanFounder and Artistic DirectorOntological-Hysteric Theater, New YorkRichard Foreman has been one of America's preeminent experimental directors for over thirty-five years. In his Ontological-Hysteric Theater, he has used words and images to comment upon one another. And now for the first time, Foreman incorporates projected images into theatrical space in Zomboid, which premiered January 2006 in New York.For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/experimental-ontological-hysteric-theater
Pamela McClusky • Wild Yam Dreaming: Aboriginals Painting Country Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-19 | Wolf Humanities Center's 2005-06 Forum on Word & ImageMarch 15, 2006Pamela McCluskyCurator of African and Oceanic ArtSeattle Art MuseumAboriginal communities in Australia continue the oldest ongoing artistic tradition on earth, producing what art critic Robert Hughes has called the "last great art movement of the 20th century." Contemporary aboriginal works resemble nothing so much as modern abstractionist painting. Yet what looks like abstraction is actually filled with exacting representation of daily existence and sacred meaning. Since such references are not obvious to outsiders, each painting is decoded through documentation. Seattle Art Museum Curator Pamela McClusky describes the unique visual-verbal interplay in Australian aboriginal art.For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/wild-yam-dreaming
If Ben Had Had His Way Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-19 | Wolf Humanities Center's 2005-06 Forum on Word & ImageFebruary 24, 2006A Symposium in Honor of the 300th Anniversary of Benjamin Franklin's BirthNear the end of his life, Benjamin Franklin concluded that the Academy he helped found, which became the University of Pennsylvania, had consistently violated its charter. That charter advanced a controversial view of the university's relation to tradition, class, citizenship, and speculative knowledge. Where does the academy stand on these matters today? Where would Franklin have liked the academy to stand? We welcome you to this special symposium organized to mark the 300th anniversary of Franklin's birth and to celebrate the three winners of the 2006 Penn Humanities Forum Undergraduate Essay Contest, "If Ben Had Had His Way." Distinguished panelists include Rebecca Bushnell, Dean, School of Arts and Sciences; Peter Conn, Professor of English; Peter Stallybrass, Annenberg Professor in the Humanities; Michael Zuckerman, Professor of History; and Tal Raviv (Engineering '09), the first-prize winner.For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/if-ben-had-had-his-way
Jennifer Mnookin • Visual and Expert Evidence in the U.S. Courtroom Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-18 | Wolf Humanities Center's 2005-06 Forum on Word & ImageJanuary 25, 2006Jennifer MnookinProfessor of Law, UCLAExpert testimony and visual evidence are staples of the U.S. courtroom. Yet their admissibility and use are highly controversial. Expert witnesses are sometimes condemned as mouthpieces for hire, partisans or purveyors of 'junk science.' High-tech displays such as computer simulations and digital images strike some jurists as too vivid or persuasive for courtroom use.Jennifer Mnookin, an authority on legal evidence, discusses the current controversies surrounding expert testimony and visual evidence.For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/envisioning-evidence
Henry Wendt • Mapping the West Coast of North America Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-18 | Wolf Humanities Center's 2005-06 Forum on Word & ImageDecember 7, 2005Henry WendtRetired CEO & Chairman of the BoardSmithKline Beecham, PhiladelphiaFounder, Quivira Estate Vineyards and WineryMaps do more than point the way. They tell stories, some utterly captivating in their intricate web of historical fact and fantasy. Spanish conquistadors spun maps into myths of El Dorado, the imaginary city of gold. In the West, explorers went in search of the imaginary kingdom of Quivira.The first overland expeditions to reach "the Frozen and Pacific Oceans" were led by the Scottish-born Canadian, Alexander Mackenzie: the Arctic in 1789, the Pacific in 1793. This exploit provided a powerful impetus for the United States to establish a presence to counter British territorial claims on the Northwest coast: within a decade, President Thomas Jefferson received Congressional approval to dispatch the Lewis and Clark Expedition.Henry Wendt retraces one of the world’s last regions to be explored and mapped—along the west coast of North America—in search of a maritime route from Europe to Asia and across the continent, before the Lewis and Clark Expedition reached the West Coast two centuries ago, in 1806.For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/mapping-west-coast-north-america
Afsaneh Najmabadi • The Kin Who Count, and Those in the Shadows Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-17 | Wolf Humanities Center's 2015-16 Forum on SexOctober 1, 2015Afsaneh NajmabadiThe Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History and Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard UniversityDuring the nineteenth century across the Middle East, ideas about what did and should constitute family changed dramatically over a relatively short time. The ideal family became conjugal, and the ideal marriage became a companionate one based on love and preferably monogamous, rather than something arranged by parents and possibly polygynous.Changes in family law were more varied. Practices of everyday life as far as “who counts as kin” and what family means, were more complex and are not well studied. Harvard historian and prize-winning author Afsaneh Najmabadi explores what happened to everyday practices of the familial that ensued from the near imperial hegemony of these two ideas. How did men and women live their lives differently? How did expectations of women about marriage and sexual pleasure change once companionship and love became the primary signs of the modern marriage? How did the definition of who counts as kin change? And, what kind of relations began to fall out of the familial orbit; for example, two women’s vow of sisterhood or two men’s intimate friendship that made them brothers?For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/kin-who-count-and-those-shadows
Margaret Livingstone • What Art Can Tell Us About How We See Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-12 | Wolf Humanities Center's 2012-13 Forum on PeripheriesOctober 24, 2012Margaret LivingstoneProfessor of NeurobiologyHarvard Medical SchoolMargaret Livingstone's work places art history into a fascinating conversation with neurobiology. She argues that artists have over the centuries developed a kind of working theory of how we see, which anticipates contemporary scientific research on the neuro-processing of visual information. Drawing on examples that include da Vinci, Matisse, Chuck Close, and others, she shows how the great painters intuitively grasped such crucial features of human visual processing as the separate pathways for color versus luminance or the different resolutions of central versus peripheral vision.For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/what-art-can-tell-us-about-how-we-see
Immanuel Wallerstein • Cores and Peripheries in the 21st Century Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-12 | Wolf Humanities Center's 2012-13 Forum on PeripheriesOctober 10, 2012Dr. S.T. Lee Distinguished Lecture in the HumanitiesImmanuel WallersteinSenior Research Scholar in SociologyYale UniversityFew authors have contributed more to our thinking about globalization than Immanuel Wallerstein, the great pioneer and proponent of world systems theory. His seminal works map the complex relations among countries and regions as a dynamic system of flows between a core and its peripheries. In this talk, Wallerstein addresses both the continuing relevance and the limitations of the world systems model. Are we still at the center? If so, where are the peripheries, and what is happening there?For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/cores-and-peripheries-21st-century
Ryan Cordell • Viral Texts and the Technologies of Authorship Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-08 | Digital Humanities ForumNovember 5, 2014 Ryan CordellAssistant Professor of EnglishFounding Core Faculty Member, NULab for Texts, Maps, and NetworksNortheastern UniversityCan computational methods such as text mining, mapping, and network analysis help us to understand the historical fate of authors and their works more systematically and on a larger scale than traditional approaches? Ryan Cordell and his colleagues in the Viral Texts project at Northeastern University have been showing that they can. A specialist in American literature and print culture, Cordell presents some of his team's latest findings about 19th-century systems of textual circulation, reprinting, and remediation.For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/viral-texts-and-technologies-authorship
Patrick Feaster and Tanya Clement • Approaching the Audio Archive Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-08 | Digital Humanities ForumApril 17th, 2015Patrick FeasterPreservation Specialist for the Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative, Indiana University Bloomington"The World’s Oldest Audio: Adventures in Subversive Digital Education"Tanya ClementAssistant Professor, School of Information, University of Texas at Austin"Towards a Rationale of Audio Text: Audio Exploration and High Performance Technologies"Scholars of music, literature, and oral traditions face a challenging archive of recorded sound that dates well back into the 19th century but contains many defunct formats, ruined and seemingly unplayable wires, disks, and cylinders, and large numbers of known recordings that have not survived in any physical form at all. But new methods of digitization, and new tools for analyzing digitized music and speech, are bringing that messy archive to the forefront of current scholarship and changing the historical picture in many fields. Patrick Feaster and Tanya Clement are two of the leading experts in this new convergence between digital technologies and the humanities. Though working on different kinds of sound recordings and taking different lines of approach, both are engaged in pathbreaking research. This symposium will provide an opportunity to learn about their projects and to engage them in an open conversation about new ways to work with audio from the archives.For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/approaching-audio-archive
Sarah Kotlova and Doree Shafrir • The Future of Digital Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-08 | A Humanities at Large program of the Wolf Humanities CenterOctober 1, 2014 Sarah KotlovaSVP, Director Client ServicesDigitaria/JWTDoree ShafrirExecutive Editor, Culture, BuzzFeed NewsEditor, BuzzFeed IdeasDigital technology has revolutionized media, profoundly transforming how we receive information and conduct business. Join Penn alumnae Sarah Kotlova, Senior Vice President of Client Services for Digitaria/JWT, and Doree Shafrir, Executive Editor of Buzzfeed, to hear about their post-Penn career paths and their view of where digital is heading and how it will change our lives.For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/future-digital
Crowdsourcing and the Rise of the Volunteer Humanist Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-08 | Digital Humanities Forum September 27, 2013Tim CauserTranscribe Bentham, University College LondonBen VershbowNYPL Labs, New York Public LibraryJen WolfeDIY History, University of Iowa LibrariesEvery day, volunteers around the world go online to help with large-scale academic research projects. They transcribe, edit, and review archival collections, from Civil War diaries to old restaurant menus to the letters and papers of famous philosophers. They mark positions on maps, test new tools, and more. Will crowdsourcing change the scholarship we do in the humanities? Might problems of quality control offset advantages of scale? What crowdsourcing projects are we likely to see in the future? Join the crowd at our fall symposium for a discussion with three important leaders in the field.For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/crowdsourcing-and-rise-volunteer-humanist
Libraries, Labs, and Classrooms: Locating the Digital Humanities Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-08 | Digital Humanities Forum September 28, 2012Nicole ColemanAcademic Technology SpecialistStanford Humanities CenterNeil FraistatProfessor of EnglishDirector of the Maryland Institute for Technology in the HumanitiesUniversity of MarylandJohn UnsworthVice Provost for Library and Technology ServicesChief Information OfficerBrandeis UniversityWhere does the digital humanities fit in today's research university? What changes need to be made by the faculty, libraries, and administration to accommodate recent digital innovations? Can the rise of digital tools and methods help to foster traditional fields of research? Who are the critics of digital humanities, and how might their objections be addressed? Join us for public presentations by three leaders of the digital revolution in humanistic disciplines.For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/libraries-labs-and-classrooms
Carbon Histories & Post-Carbon Futures Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-03 | A Humanities at Large program of the Wolf Humanities CenterFebruary 5, 2016 What can we expect in the wake of COP21? Join us for a roundtable discussion about the historic negotiations in Paris and their stakes for the Philadelphia-Pennsylvania region. PANELISTS:Brian Black, environmental historian from Penn State AltoonaJohn Conley, Vice President of Commercial Sales at Solar CityPeter DeCarlo, environmental scientist and engineer at DrexelDavid Masur, Executive Director of PennEnvironmentPouné Saberi, section chief for Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Philadelphia VA Medical Center and on the national board of Physicians for Social ResponsibilitySarah Wu, Deputy Director for Planning at the City of Philadelphia's Office of SustainabilityFor more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/carbon-histories-post-carbon-futuresFor more on the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities: www.ppehlab.orgPresented by Penn Program in Environmental Humanities
Community Justice & The Ivory Tower Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-03 | A Humanities at Large program of the Wolf Humanities CenterApril 23, 2021Davarian L. BaldwinPaul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies and founding director of the Smart Cities Lab, Trinity CollegeAbdul-Aliy A. MuhammadPhiladelphia-born organizer, writer, and co-founder of the Black and Brown Workers Co-opKrystal StrongAssistant Professor of Education, University of Pennsylvania and an organizer with BLM PhillyJolyon Baraka ThomasAssistant Professor of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania and an organizer with Penn for PILOTSPresented by AAUP-PennThe panel discusses the university’s role in gentrifying and policing neighborhoods in cities across the country, with a focus on Penn and West Philly. This event features the new book of scholar Davarian Baldwin, In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering our Cities (Bold Type Books, 2021). Prof. Baldwin is in conversation with Penn faculty and community activists. For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/community-justice-ivory-tower
Reading the Bible: Jewish and Christian Interpretations of the First Verse of Genesis Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-03 | A Humanities at Large program of the Wolf Humanities CenterJanuary 21, 2016David RudermanJoseph Meyerhoff Professor of Modern Jewish HistoryUniversity of PennsylvaniaPeter StallybrassWalter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Humanities and Professor of EnglishUniversity of PennsylvaniaTwo experts on the history of the bible discuss some of the startlingly different ways in which the opening chapter of Genesis has been understood, as well as the sometimes contradictory uses to which its verses have been put by ancients vs. moderns, Jews vs. Christians, and historians vs. literary scholars.For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/reading-bible-0
Ashley Dawson and Daniel Aldana Cohen • Urban Life in the Era of Climate Change Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-03 | A Humanities at Large program of the Wolf Humanities CenterJanuary 24, 2018Ashley DawsonVisiting Professor, Princeton Environmental InstituteDaniel Aldana CohenAssistant Professor of Sociology, University of PennsylvaniaAshley Dawson, author of Extinction: A Radical History, speaks about his newest book, Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change. Penn Sociologist Daniel Aldana Cohen, director of the Superstorm Research Lab and co-host of the climate politics podcast Hot & Bothered, provides a response and conducts a conversation with Dawson about the environmental impacts of urbanization and gentrification, the increasing menace of urban flooding, and the emerging urban movements fighting for better forms of city living.For more information on this event: wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/urban-life-era-climate-changePresented by the Wolf Humanities Center and Penn Program in Environmental Humanities.Cosponsored by Penn Sustainability.
New Ways of Reading: Histories of Surface Reading Wolf Humanities Center 2023-09-03 | A Humanities at Large program of the Wolf Humanities CenterMarch 13, 2013Stephen BestAssociate Professor of English, University of California, BerkeleyHeather LoveR. Jean Brownlee Term Associate Professor in English, University of PennsylvaniaSharon MarcusOrlando Harriman Professor of English, Columbia UniversityDo literary critics analyze textual patterns, formal structures, and stylistic signatures, or do they interpret textual meaning? Although description might be seen as integral to any practice of interpretation, “descriptive” is a dirty word in literary scholarship, almost always preceded by the damning adverb “merely.” In this joint presentation, Stephen Best, Heather Love, and Sharon Marcus make the case for valorizing descriptive practices in literary criticism. The presentation takes as its starting point the concept of “surface reading” that Best and Marcus coined in their 2009 special issue of the journal Representations, “The Way We Read Now.” Best, Love, and Marcus will survey a range of recent departures in literary studies from what Paul Ricoeur once described as the “hermeneutics of suspicion,” from material histories of the book to the sociology of reading, data mining to world systems analysis, genre criticism to new formalism. They will go on to trace some unexpected genealogies of surface reading in literary studies, art history, and the social sciences. Showing the long history of practices such as summary, paraphrase, coding, stylistic analysis, pattern recognition, bibliography, and textual editing in literary scholarship, that critics can develop ways of describing works that correct for interpretive biases even if they can never eliminate those biases.For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/new-ways-reading
Ian Buruma • The Rise and Fall of European Multiculturism Wolf Humanities Center 2023-08-27 | Wolf Humanities Center's 2006-2007 Forum on TravelApril 12, 2007Ian BurumaHenry R. Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and JournalismBard CollegeMinorities in Europe and the U.S. have contended with very different concepts of national identity as they interact with their “mainstream” societies. In a spate of recent events, hostility among Europeans toward their immigrant populations has surfaced so overtly that eminent political expert Ian Buruma is led to wonder whether the much-vaunted notion of European multiculturalism is now dead.For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/rise-and-fall-european-multiculturalism
Robert Irwin • Sinbad the Traveling Salesman Wolf Humanities Center 2023-08-27 | Wolf Humanities Center's 2006-2007 Forum on TravelMarch 29, 20072007 Undergraduate Humanities Forum Research Conference KeynoteRobert IrwinHistorian and BroadcasterThe Arabic story cycle of the Thousand and One Nights is Indian in origin, Sinbad’s adventures reflecting real-life Indian, Persian, and Arab maritime commerce. Like all tales of marvels in faraway places, it served pious purposes as well. But what explains the modern transmutation of Sinbad from a cautious merchant into a swashbuckling sailor?Join distinguished historian and public intellectual Robert Irwin as he follows the fortunes of this storied traveler.For more information on this event: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/sinbad-traveling-salesman
