Quick on their Feet

For over a decade, the School’s 60-Second Lectures series has challenged audiences and professors alike to process a career’s worth of knowledge in just one minute. The outdoor, public talks feature a diverse collection of faculty tackling subjects as universal as climate change, and as specific as the heart rate of criminals.

Mary Frances Berry, Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought

This past fall, the series played host to two special presentations: Associate Professor of Sociology Melissa Wilde’s “How Much Does a Pope Matter?” which coincided with Pope Francis’s visit to Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families, and Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought Mary Frances Berry’s Constitution Day lecture, “Our Unjust Constitution and Still We Celebrate.”

 “It was really great to be able to relate my research to the excitement of Pope Francis’ visit,” says Wilde. “I believe in public sociology—in the importance of making what we know through our years of systematic and painstaking research accessible to the general public.”

In her lecture “What Video Games Have Taught Me About Shakespeare,” School of Arts and Sciences Board of Overseers Professor of English Rebecca Bushnell discussed how video games can speak to what drives character development in theatrical plays. Professor of Economics Jeremy Greenwood presented on “Women’s Liberation: An Economic Perspective,” and Associate Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Josef Wegner spoke about “Archaeology of the Mind: Wisdom Pharaoh-Style.”

Lectures are accessible on the Penn Arts and Sciences website>