News & Views
Honoring William Still on his 200th birthday. A conference, a website, and more are planned on campus and around the city to celebrate the abolitionist who helped nearly 1,000 enslaved people to freedom.
October 7 marks the 200th birthday of William Still, the Black Philadelphia abolitionist who is documented asBenjamin Nathans - Stalin’s Lawyers at Nuremberg. The Soviets were not just part of the prosecution team at Nuremberg; they were instrumental in defining the crimes of which the Nazi leaders were accused. (The New York Review of Books)
It was surely a sign that the rule of law was finding its way into international relations when, after a world war of unmatched brutality during which new technologies of killing had claimed millions of lives, the victorious Allies decided to mount a public trial of Germany’s leaders.Lee Cassanelli - Afghanistan reclaimed, again. While we may be dismayed by the outcome of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, we should not be surprised. We saw the same thing happen in Somalia in the 1990s.
While we may be dismayed by the outcome of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, we should not be surprised. We saw the same thing happen in Somalia in the 1990s.Aron Brouwer "It was a fatal mistake that politicians (inside and outside Germany) did not take Mein Kampf seriously"
Aron Brouwer, a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, has researched translations of the Mein Kampf from around the world, and in particular the French ones.Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon - African American in the ‘raceless’ Soviet Union
History Ph.D. candidate Kimberly St.Sarah Xia Yu - Masks and Geopolitics in Richard Pearson Strong’s photos of the Manchurian Plague Epidemic, 1910—1911
In the fall of 1910, the Chinese territory of Manchuria in the country’s northeast was struck by an epidemic of pneumonic plague.Mary Frances Berry - To honor John Lewis, we must turn back the rising tide of voter suppression. It has been a long and tumultuous year for voting rights since we lost one of their greatest defenders
It has been a long and tumultuous year since America’s loss of the legendary John Lewis. A year when we saw the birth of hope for a new era under new national leadership.Jared Farmer: Heirlooms of Conquest: Trees + Justice in Los Angeles. First episode of LENS.cast a new podcast from UCLA’s Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies.
In the first episode of LENS.cast, we explore the history and future of Los Angeles’s remarkable trees. California is more than palm trees: it is, according to University of Pennsylvania historian Jared Farmer, an incredible arboretum—a collection of species from all over the woGrant Stanton - Before July 4, American colonists celebrated Pope’s Day — an anti-Catholic rallying cry. Religious vilification united early Americans
As Americans across the nation emerge from the pandemic ready to light up their grills and fireworks, it is timely to consider another holiday that worked to unify Americans in times of trouble: Pope’s Day.
Welcome to the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania. Over thirty historians in the standing faculty with a broad range of research specialties advance our understanding of the past.
Upcoming Events
Russian History and Culture Workshop
Julia Leikin (Assistant Professor, Higher School of Economics and Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress)
Russia’s Mediterranean Moment, 1770-1829
Annenberg Seminar in History (Hybrid)
Elizabeth Frierson, University of Cincinnati
‘Masculinity Redefinition among Pharmacists as “Men of Science” in Eurasia, Europe, and East Asia’
In-Person: College Hall 209, 12:00 pm
The Penn & Slavery Project teaches us that no colony, state, or well-funded university was buffered from slavery’s reach. Penn’s story is a national story, and one of great importance to our ongoing efforts to come to terms with our nations’s history of slavery.
Featured Students
Bianca Serbin
My name is Bianca, and I’m a senior pursuing the general history major and minoring in French. From a young age, I was certain I wanted to study history. I was influenced by my father, who is a historian and who always encouraged me to value stories about the past.
Carson Eckhard
Carson didn’t come to Penn set on being a History Major. Yet her freshman year she enrolled in “The American South” and there wrote a paper about Southern U.S. universities and slavery.
Archana Upadhyay
I’m a senior from Chicago majoring in World History. I transferred to Penn as a sophomore from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.
John Mullan
John is a double-major in History and Arabic and Islamic Studies.
