Events

Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace

The 2019 Spring JBS meeting will explore how Penn – as a knowledge creator, educator, and catalyst for change – can empower its JBS members to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Members will be able to engage with leadership and faculty from the Wharton School of Business, corporate America, and our fellow Penn alumni. Please join us in Philadelphia for what will be a fascinating in-depth exploration of the power of Penn and the power of business to change the face of industry.

Telling stories is a fundamental aspect of all human societies, but how have different cultures taken on communicating narratives? And what happens when the ways stories are told change? This special exhibition, developed by Penn student curators Braden Cordivari, Fiona Jensen-Hitch, and Linda Lin for Penn’s Year of Innovation, explores how cultures have innovated storytelling. Fifteen objects—including a Javanese Shadow puppet, a Native American story knife from Alaska, and a Neoclassical period cameo—drawn from the Penn Museum’s international collections, help to tell the tale.

Dr. Dambisa Moyo is a pre-eminent thinker who was named to the list of Time's 100 Most Influential People in the World. She writes for Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, and Harvard Business Review. Dr. Moyo holds a Ph.D. from Oxford University, and is a board member of Barclays Bank, Barrick Gold, Chevron, and Seagate Technologies.

Dr. Mary P. Koss is a preeminent expert on sexual assault for more than 25 years. She has focused expertise on sexual assault response in organizations including universities, the military, and business. In addition, she is a proponent of thoughtful restorative justice programs for sexual assault. Koss authored “I Never Called It Rape: The Ms. Guide to Recognizing, Fighting and Surviving Date and Acquaintance Rape.”

The Asian American Studies Program is pleased to announce the Yoonmee Chang Memorial Lecture. Yoonmee Chang (November 2, 1970 – January 18, 2018) was born in Seoul, South Korea, and grew up in New York. She received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003 with a specialization in Asian American diasporic literature and culture. As a graduate student at Penn, she was an instrumental leader in the founding of the Asian American Studies Program. Yoonmee, author of the critically acclaimed book, Writing the Ghetto: Class, Authorship, and the Asian American Ethnic Enclave, taught at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana before becoming an Associate Professor at George Mason University from 2005 until her death in 2018. The Yoonmee Chang Memorial Lecture will host a distinguished speaker annually in honor of her memory and her work.

For Asian Americans, the body is a site of regulation that renders individuals racialized, sexualized, and gendered others in the United States. In fact, since Asians arrived, their bodies may be understood as “queer” in relation to white, heteronormative society, ultimately constructed as not-belonging and potentially deviant and destructive to the nation. However, Asian Americans have been/are queering their bodies through performance to disrupt such stereotypes and to imagine alternative futures. This one-day conference explores how questioning Asian American bodies enables important conversations about the intersection of gender, sexuality, and race. We will explore questions such as: How is Asian American masculinity negotiated through the body? How are Asian American female bodies reduced to objects of desire? How are “new” bodies (trans* & mixed-race) emerging in and asserting themselves in Asian America?

South Asia Studies 2018-2019 Colloquium presents Anand Taneja, Assistant Professor 
of Religious Studies, Islamic Traditions of South Asia Vanderbilt University, speaking on The Gabriel of Madness: Urdu Poetry and Ethical Life in Contemporary India.

The Penn Museum presents the Second Sunday Culture Films using raw footage of real events, places, and things that reveal important aspects of the social and material world.

Even without any speaking, home movies made by Deaf families are full of complex and intimate communication. Two leading scholars of ASL literature, Matt Malzkuhn and Ted Supalla, will present a range of these rarely screened films for the first time in Philadelphia. Presented in ASL with voiceinterpretation.  Film to be followed by conversation.

Each year, during the month of January, the University of Pennsylvania and our surrounding communities come together to commemorate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The commemoration reminds us of our interdependence and reaffirms our commitment to the betterment of our communities through civility and service.  See also the calendar of events.

Native American Student Success: The Effect of Tribal Colleges and Universities on Native American Student Retention.  The program will explore the ways in which mainstream four-year institutions can support their Native American student populations. 

Featuring: Marybeth Gasman, Ph.D., Professor of Education, Penn GSE; Maggie McKinley, J.D., Assistant Professor of Law, Penn Law; Margaret Bruchac, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Penn SAS.