Despite recent pan-continental political shifts and economic reforms, Africa enters 2012 with many of the world’s poorest countries and severest developmental obstacles. Although rich in natural and human resources, the continent is burdened by widespread economic inequality and the social scars of a colonial past. High child mortality, poor education systems, and endemic diseases threaten Africa’s future progress. How can African markets liberalize and reduce their dependence on foreign aid? How can health care services and education be more effectively deployed to combat malaria and HIV/AIDS and their associated disastrous economic and social consequences? How can African governments reduce poverty, corruption, and the political marginalization of large parts of their respective populations? How can Africa modernize its economy and prevent its exclusion from the information revolution? Please join Professor Lee Cassanelli, Professor Cheikh Anta Babou, Dr. Marton Markovits, and the Philomathean Society for a discussion considering what tools and strategies Africa, as a continent, needs in order to combat the intertwined economic, political, social, and health problems it faces in the 21st century.

Self Control and Success

Thursday, Feb 2, 6pm
400 College Hall, The Philomathean Society
Professor Angela Duckworth

What do certain childhood traits say about our future success as adults? Self-control, or the extent to which we can deny our momentary desires, is a characteristic researched extensively in religion, philosophy, and lately psychology. In predicting adulthood success, defined by factors as disparate as income to physical and mental health, self-control appears to be as strong a predictor as general intelligence. Please join us for a lecture with Dr. Angela Duckworth, an Assistant Professor of Psychology, to discuss self-control in children. 

Dr. Angela Duckworth studies how we achieve professional and academic success. Her specific research interests include grit, or perseverance and sustained interest in long-term goals, and self-control.

Prof. Andy Lamas (Urban Studies)
Prof. Ania Loomba (English)
Prof. Phil Nichols (Legal Studies)

The recent, rapid growth of the Occupy movement worldwide has directed attention to widespread discontent with social and economic inequality, “corporate greed,” and the influence of corporate lobbying in government. Among both those for and against the movement, opinions vary on the significance and importance of these protests. Occupiers of all creeds insist on their continued demonstration until political and economic change is realized, but bankers ignore them and politicians such as Mitt Romney accuse them of enacting “class warfare.” Yet at the core, these protests and the surrounding debate are prompted by very real questions about the division of wealth, social justice, the government’s rule in regulation, and the freedom of an individual to attain all that he or she can.

Join the Philomathean Society and Occupy Penn for an open discussion led by a faculty panel on the historical, legal, political, and ethical dimensions of the Occupy movement. Audience questions are encouraged. Refreshments will be provided.

The ubiquity of text in today’s world surpasses that of any other time in history. Are you interested in learning how fonts are designed? Join Philo and Mr. David Comberg at the Common Press to learn about digital, wood, and metal type and converse about typography, design and printing. Mr. Comberg will lead a hands-on demonstration in which those present will participate in setting a short text and printing a small keepsake. David Comberg teaches design and typography in the Fine Arts department. Please email secondcensor@philomathean.org if you are interested in attending.

http://www.design.upenn.edu/commonpress/index.html

The Common Press is the letterpress printing studio at the University of Pennsylvania, located in the basement of the Morgan Building, 205 South 34th Street, directly east of the Fine Arts Library.

Dr. Erwann Michel-Kerjan (Operations and Information Management)
Dr. Ben Horton (Earth and Environmental Sciences)
Dr. Adriana Petryna (Anthropology)

In our modern age, we like to believe that human beings maintain some kind of control over our surroundings . Yet there are times when we are forced to realize the shortcomings of our masterful technologies and knowledge of the world– most notably, in the event of a catastrophe. The 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan. 9/11. The Haiti Earthquake. Hurricane Katrina. And more recently, Hurricane Irene. These events shocked us, not only in terms of the immediate trauma and devastation they wrought, but also by their far-reaching temporal and spatial aftereffects. Is there such a thing as planning or preparing for a large-scale disaster? How do disasters affect the psyche of a nation? From international aid to multinational corporations, how has globalization changed our response to disaster?

(Please enter via east door of College Hall, across from Fisher Fine Arts.)

Strategic Studies is a weekly non-credit seminar series hosted by Professors Anne-Louise Antonoff and Arthur Waldron that explores questions of international strategy and international security. In honor of the Year of Games, this semester we will be studying the role and history of wargaming and war simulations.

Dr. Janet Monge (Anthropology)
Dr. Sarah Tishkoff (Biology)
Dr. Michael Weisberg (Philosophy)

Only within the past five hundred years has the concept of distinct biological human “races” been used to classify human populations. Since this time, “race” has been employed to justify the abuse of groups deemed biologically inferior. From slavery to Nazi Germany’s “Master Race” and from Apartheid to eugenics, recent history is marked by frequent and long periods of racist thought and practice. However, what is the validity of the biological concept of “race?” Are humans naturally divided into the “Mongoloid,” “Negroid,” and “Caucasoid” types assigned by long-dead anthropologists and philosophers? What are the genetic and physical differences of existing human groups? What does the record of human evolution have to bear on biological concept of “race?” Finally, should “race” be abandoned from a biological perspective, as some thinkers suggest, and, if so, what terms best describe the variation seen in modern humans? Join the Philomathean Society in a discussion of the past and future of “race” in biology and its cultural and political ramifications.

Free and open to the public, with refreshments provided.

Who: Vice Dean Georgette Phillips of Wharton, Dr. P.M. Mukharji of STSC, Dr. Nancy Tkacs of Nursing

What: The Philomathean Society and the United Minorities Council present Power through Discourse: A Discussion of the Faculty Diversity Plan

President Amy Gutmann and Provost Vincent Prince posit “diversity above all as a means toward the essential ends of higher education.” But how do you achieve diversity when choosing a faculty?

As of Fall 2010, 30% of Penn’s standing faculty were female, and 17% were ethnic minorities. The Faculty Diversity Plan describes specific actions the University will take to increase diversity in the 12 schools. The University has committed $50 million over the next five years to this task, and each respective school is expected to make a monetary contribution to this effort of recruitment, retention, and mentorship of a diverse and excellent faculty. What is the plan’s approach to increasing diversity? How does this relate to the overarching concept of fairness?

Dr. Jamal Elias of Penn’s Religious Studies Department will address the role of the media in the Arab Spring Revolutions, the demonstrations and protests that rocked the Arab world from December 2010 to May 2011. Encompassing civil movements in 19 countries, the Arab Spring Revolutions all utilized social media to organize, communicate, and raise awareness for their causes despite state repression and internet censorship.

While the United States has been combating terrorism for generations, many were taken by surprise by the capture and death of Osama Bin-Laden. The killing of Bin Laden raises many questions about the future of the War on Terror and foreign policy in the U.S. Will this assassination compromise the willingness of other nations to cooperate with the United States in counter-terrorism measures? Does Bin Laden’s death have the potential to incite further antagonism toward the United States from the Islamic world? Does the killing represent a change in United States’ strategy toward combating terrorism, or can parallels be drawn to similar decisions from history? And finally, how is the death of Bin Laden perceived by the American public and the international community, and should it be considered an assassination carried out by the United States?

This panel will explore questions raised by the killing of Bin-Laden from various lenses, examining the implications of global terrorism, as well as the fight against it.