Humanities
Building New Worlds
Bing Chen, C’09, discusses his vital role in shaping the YouTube content creation ecosystem, his Pan-Asian cultural investment companies, and his dream of becoming a 21st-century Walt Disney.
How Do You Authenticate a Long-Lost Chopin Waltz?
Jeffrey Kallberg, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Music and incoming Interim Dean of Penn Arts & Sciences, recently helped verify the first major manuscript from the famous composer since the 1930s. Kallberg explains the intricate process.
Jeffrey Kallberg Named Interim Dean of Penn Arts & Sciences
Kallberg, Deputy Dean and William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Music, will step into the role as of January 1, 2025. Josephine Park, School of Arts and Sciences President’s Distinguished Professor of English, will succeed Kallberg as Associate Dean for Arts and Letters.
Penn Arts & Sciences Pathways: Tova Tachau, C’25 (Video)
Tachau entered Penn as a biochemistry and biophysics double-major, but a class in 20th-century Russian literature inspired her academic journey, which now includes a major in Russian and East European Studies.
Emergency Response
Solving the complex challenge that is climate change requires breadth in approach. Penn Arts & Sciences is positioned to lead.
What History Can Be
Assistant Professor Hardeep Dhillon’s first-year seminar explores the history of children in America while equipping students with foundational skills.
The Wallace Tales
David Wallace’s life has been guided by his love of medieval literature and his certainty that it has much to say to today’s world. But he finds time for a day at the races, too.
History of the Book
Whitney Trettien, associate professor of English and faculty director of the Price Lab for Digital Humanities, talks about the how books came to be and their continuing evolution.
Penn Arts & Sciences: Then and Now
As Steven J. Fluharty steps down as Dean, we look back at how the School has evolved during his tenure.
Memory Lane
Scholars across Penn Arts & Sciences are exploring memory. What they’re learning may change how we understand our minds, bodies, and histories.
Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw Named Inaugural Arthur Ross Gallery Faculty Director
Shaw, a renowned scholar and teacher of American art who has been at Penn for almost 20 years, assumed the new role effective June 1.
Faculty Bookshelf
Recent books from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty
Three Questions: On Enlightenment
In a new exhibit, Liliane Weissberg, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor in Arts and Sciences, reflects on the contradictions inherent in the Enlightenment—and that are our legacy still today.
New Penn Arts & Sciences Faculty
In the 2024–2025 academic year, 27 new faculty join 19 departments.
Through the Fog
On a break from taking photographs for a research project, Peter Decherney, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Endowed Term Professor in the Humanities, encountered these cabbage farmers in eastern Uganda.