Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences

Context-dependent behavior can make cooperation flourish

Recent studies led by School of Arts & Sciences’ researchers show that changing social strategies between settings—for example, cooperating at home but not at work—can in fact lead to more cooperative behavior in a society.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Orthodox Jews and slavery in antebellum America

School of Arts & Sciences undergraduate Samuel Strickberger investigates how 19th century Jewish migrants to the U.S. squared assimilation with the existence of slavery.

Susan Ahlborn

Racial justice protests influenced local news reporting

A new Media, Inequality, and Change Center report finds that news coverage of policing did become more inclusive and less dehumanizing, but was still heavily slanted toward a police perspective.

From Annenberg School for Communication



In the News


Associated Press

Far fewer young Americans now want to study in China. Both countries are trying to fix that

Amy Gadsden of Penn Global says that American interest in studying in China is declining due to foreign businesses closing their offices there and Beijing’s draconian governing style.

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Associated Press

In death, three decades after his trial verdict, O.J. Simpson still reflects America’s racial divides

Camille Charles of the School of Arts & Sciences says that Black Americans have grown less likely to believe in a famous defendant’s innocence as a show of race solidarity.

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The Wall Street Journal

‘Slouch’ review: The panic over posture

In her new book, “Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America,” Beth Linker of the School of Arts & Sciences traces society’s posture obsession to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

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Time

Why Indigenous artifacts should be returned to Indigenous communities

The Penn Museum is noted for creating its “Native American Voices: The People—Here and Now” exhibit with the help of tribal representatives.

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The New Yorker

The truth behind the slouching epidemic

Beth Linker of the School of Arts & Sciences traces the history of a poor-posture epidemic in the U.S. which began at the onset of the 20th century.

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