News
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February 24, 2021
Legacy Keepers: Preserving Black History in PhiladelphiaFor hundreds of years, there’s been a history of erasure and forgetting of Black heritage and achievements, not just in Philadelphia, but in America in general, says Randall Mason, professor of historic preservation and city and regional planning. The Marian Anderson Museum is one of the “important institutions in Philadelphia that have worked against that,” he says, along with the African-American Museum, the Johnson House, and the Paul Robeson House, among others.
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February 23, 2021
A Conversation with Stacey AbramsAbrams shared her thoughts on a wide range of topics during the hourlong conversation with Ben Jealous, the former (and youngest ever) head of the NAACP and a visiting scholar at the Annenberg School for Communication, the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law and School of Social Policy & Practice. The two have a friendship spanning nearly 30 years, and their discussion covered topics from gerrymandering and social media to Abrams’ side gig as a romance novelist and how her political strategy can be compared to a game of spades.
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February 16, 2021
The Penn and Slavery Project Launched a New Augmented Reality App, Which Unveils the University’s Historical Ties to SlaveryThe newly released Penn and Slavery Project app is meant to challenge and transform everyday experiences on Penn’s campus, revealing through augmented reality the devastating—but necessary to understand—truths behind the University’s early connections to slavery and scientific racism. The app can be downloaded for free from the Apple Store and the Google Play Store. It can be used on or off campus. Created by a dedicated, interdisciplinary team of historians, librarians, developers, and designers, the app builds upon years of mostly undergraduate research, which has been compiled so far on the Penn and Slavery Project website.
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February 13, 2021
The Penn Museum presents ‘Through our own lens’: ‘Black History Untold: Revolution’Over the course of 30 minutes, 14 people—artists and academics, activists, and wrongly imprisoned inmates—sit in front of a draped black backdrop to share stories in Sofiya Ballin’s film “Black History Untold: Revolution.” Throughout history, Black people have continuously resisted oppression.
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February 12, 2021
Benjamin Shestakofsky Finds Interconnections Between Humans and MachinesThe question of whether artificial intelligence will replace human workers has taken on renewed urgency during the COVID-19 pandemic. But while you may now find robots delivering your food or cleaning your hotel room, it’s unlikely that automation will take over the workforce anytime soon.