University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences / Winter 2006

Arts&SciencesMAGAZINE

THE PASSION OF OSVALDO GOLIJOV | CLASSICS AND CHEMISTRY | IRISH FOLK MUSIC | FORMER NEW ORLEANS MAYOR

He wouldn’t call hispassion to teach aboutChaucer and thingsmedieval a mission.“It’s more like sharingenjoyment,” he says.

Features

10 Cover Chaucer Re-EmbodiedThe Timeless Vision and the Sheer Enjoyment of a Medieval Poetby Laura Beitman

14 Irish TunesAround the World with the Mighty Man of Irish Folk Musicby Joseph McLaughlin

18 Unpacking the BaggageAssistant Professor Sorts Out Nature and Nurtureby Caroline Tiger

20 An American Tubaab in SenegalExploring the Link Between Women and Microfinanceby Joseph McLaughlin

22 Out of Sight…Former New Orleans Mayor and Urban LeaguePresident Sheds a Little Light on Povertyby Larry Teitelbaum

Briefs

5 Eclectic HarmoniesComposer Makes Music from the Sounds of the World

13 Dirty Dishes, Circa 2000 B.C.Grad Student Combines Chemistry and Classics

25 Translator of GeekRendering Computerese into Plain English – and Spanish

Departments

4 Dean’s ColumnBuilding a Great Faculty

6 SAS Journal — Campus NewsStory TimeFarewell to a FriendHumanities HeroOxford CallingClasses in Session

8 SAS Frontiers — Faculty ResearchUnlocking the GrooveFreedom to FightHow Things MeltTawkin’ AmericanFormula for Happiness

26 With Class — Teaching and LearningMistakes, Errors, Accidents & Disasters

28 SAS Partnerships — Advancing Our MissionClass of 1966Partners: Real DoersIn MemoriamBackseat DriversFilm & Media Pioneers

30 Last WordTo My Young Sonsby Chris Feudtner

31 Last LookKira & the Chocolate Factory

INSIDEPenn Arts Sciences

2 P E N N A RTS & S C I E N C E S Cover illustration by Anna Kaplan

Micro- v. Macroevolution

After digesting “Creative License,”I found it appropriate to point outthe two very different views ofevolution. Microevolution describesa process of change within a species,but a horse is still a horse. Scientistshave observed microevolution.Macroevolution is another story.Macroevolution requires the transferof genetic information to a higher,more complex classification. Morethan 100 years of geology have yet to unearth the first fish-with-legsfossil. Macroevolution remains anunproven theory to this very day.

John Shirk, C’83Ocean City, N.J.

Irreducible Complexity

I propose a few words for intelligentdesign in reply to “Creative License.”Intelligent design does not deny that the appearance of present lifeforms took place over a long time.Sniegowksi and Weisberg describeit as creeping creationism. So? Ifnatural phenomena show complexitythat is, at this point, “irreducible,”acknowledging there might be acreator seems to be the intelligentapproach. The issue in question is the statistical likelihood of theappearance of life forms that at this point appear to be irreduciblycomplex – life forms where naturalselection will not preservefunctional intermediates.

Albert McGlynn, C’67Philadelphia, Pa.

Proper Tribute

Your article on “Creative License”was great. Interestingly, it alludedto the importance of “license” –properly used of course. It wascorrect (as correct as one can be) inits reference to the grandiose issuescircling the environs of science andreligion, and was commendable forthe copious tributes to the pastprofessor at Penn, Loren Eiseley – awonderful teacher who knew how toilluminate his subject with fairnessand sagacity. His thoughtfulnessincluded a keen perceptivenessregarding life and its vagaries. Yourreference to him as a “literary stylist”was appropriate. The article caughtthe essential importance of bothscience and religion – both beingrelevant to today’s thinking.

Rosario Quatrochi, CCC’55Hinsdale, Ill.

Questionable Hypothesis

Indebtedness to my linguisticsteachers at Penn makes me want todisagree with Michael Weisberg’sapproach to the Dover schoolboard’s policy on teaching aboutlife’s origins. Professor HenryHoenigswald was careful to drawdistinctions between the structureof languages and their origins.The structure is open to scientificinvestigation in an unproblematicway to the extent that the languageis alive. But the history of a lan-guage’s development is hypotheticalbecause of insufficient data forreconstructing earlier stages.

In the argument about evolution,some scientists are saying thatstudies of the development andorigin of life should be clearlymarked in publications ashypothetical. It is a mistake toaward the same level of confidenceto reconstructed forms as it is tothe observed structure of currentlife forms. Yet Weisberg believesthat the soundness of evolutionarytheory is beyond controversy andthat “for the last 75 years there hasbeen full scientific consensus.”Moreover, he has excluded asheretics scientists who questionclaims evolutionary theorists haverecently made, which guaranteeshis alleged “consensus.”

Many interpretations may besponsored by the same data,especially if that corpus is severelyrestricted, as is the case withancestral life forms and ancestralforms of a language. In themarketplace of ideas, marshallingarguments for one interpretationover another is honorable and fair.“Creative License” did not evenattempt that. It was inquisitional in spirit and substance.

Kent Gordon, G’77Jefferson, N.H.

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Penn Arts & SciencesMagazine welcomesletters and reserves theright to edit. Write us at 3440 Market Street,Suite 300, Philadelphia,PA 19104 or e-mail atpennsas@sas.upenn.edu.

Letters

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D E A N ’ S C O L U M N

Building a Great FacultyJa

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Last September, the School ofArts and Sciences welcomed20 new members of the

standing faculty, ranging from aspecialist in African-American art to a researcher in nanoscalematerials. They have already madetheir mark on teaching and researchin the School. Hardly pausing totake a breath, this year we havelaunched searches for 45 newfaculty members, an ambitiousundertaking that marks the firststage of our effort to increase thesize of the faculty by 10 percent in five years. This growth willsignificantly enhance the quality ofour teaching, making for smallerclasses and more individual contactbetween students and faculty. Itwill also allow us to make invest-ments in the multidisciplinaryinitiatives our plan outlines whilesustaining our strengths in thetraditional academic disciplines.

If the School’s mission is toadvance the frontiers of knowledgeand educate the next generation,then the faculty – working withstaff and students – is the heart andsoul of what we do. Our facultyis committed to groundbreakingresearch and to inspirationalteaching, deeply versed in thedisciplines and adroit at moving

across new fields of knowledge and ways of thinking. In thesearches now underway, we arelooking for multidimensionalfaculty members who reflect thespirit of the School in its commit-ment to integrated knowledge.

We want to bring to theUniversity scholars and educatorswith a multiplicity of perspectives,experiences and disciplinaryapproaches – a diversity of ideas,a diversity of methodologies andalso a diversity of people, since ascholar’s ideas and perspectives areinformed by life experience as wellas academic training. Debate – thefree-flowing exchange of ideas andpoints of view – makes knowledgeand learning strong. A diverse facultyis key to building a vigorous andwell-rounded academic communitythat can engage in the many-sideddiscussions that feed the search fortruth. It is at the very heart of whatit means to be a great university – amicrocosm of a democratic society.

We know it will be a challenge to increase faculty size, because wemust compete with our peers byoffering comparable salaries,funding, research time and state-of-the-art research and teachingfacilities. High-quality laboratories,libraries and classrooms are not

luxuries; they are spaces that nourishand support intellectual communityand effective teaching. We mustprovide all faculty members with thesupport they need to live up to theSchool’s high expectations.

Another crucial tool for buildinga great faculty is endowed chairs.Named chairs, along with theresearch stipends that accompanythem, are one of the most importantways to entice top scholars to cometo our campus and to retain ourown accomplished, high-profilescholars who become targets ofrecruitment by other universities in a highly competitive market.

All of these interlocking facetsfor building a great faculty areintegral parts of the School’sstrategic plan. Every great researchuniversity depends upon the rich,broad and thriving intellectualperspectives of the arts and sciences.A faculty of unquestioned distinc-tion and of sufficient size is thekeystone for achieving everythingwe want to accomplish in theSchool of Arts and Sciences. It isthe foundation upon whicheminence is built. ■

A diverse faculty is

key to building a

vigorous and well-

rounded academic

community that can

engage in the many-

sided discussions

that feed the search

for truth.

BY DEAN REBECCA W. BUSHNELL

Osvaldo Golijov, Gr’91, is all over the place.For one thing, his innovative music bringsthree continents’ worth of folk and popelements to a buttoned-down classicaltradition. For another, thanks to a heavy

travel schedule overseeing premieres and recordings of hisnew works, he’s darn hard to pin down for an interview.We play phone and e-mail tag for weeks before I finallyconnect by phone to his Boston studio.

It seems that Golijov’s name (pronounced Golly-hov)and his music are everywhere. At the tender age of 45,his career has already taken off in the colossal way thatmost composers of classical music only dream about.His symphonic works are performed by major orchestrasworldwide; his most recent opera was directed by thesuperstar Peter Sellars; he has recordings on eight differentlabels; he writes film scores for Francis Ford Coppola; he’s aMacArthur Fellow with a list of commissions longer thanhis arm. In perhaps the ultimate test of cross-over into thepopular imagination, you can download his works from theiTunes Music Store. (As I type, I’ve got Golijov on the iPod.)

This winter, the Great Performers series at New YorkCity’s Lincoln Center launches an all-Golijov festival, ThePassion of Osvaldo Golijov, whose title is a nod to thecomposer’s groundbreaking setting of St. Mark’s passion.La Pasión Según San Marcos is written primarily in Spanishbut uses multiple dialects. The work mingles contemporaryclassical idioms with flamenco riffs, hints of bossa nova and Nuevo Tango, and even capoeira dancing. The massive,90-minute work, which is scored for orchestra, 60-voicechoir, vocal soloists, berimbau, Afro-Latin dancers andpercussionists, will be performed at the conclusion of thetwo-month festival.

Golijov was born in Argentina to Eastern Europeanparents and counts among his early influences Jewishliturgical music (he sang in his synagogue chorus as a boy),J.S. Bach, Louis Armstrong, the Beatles, Astor Piazzolla,Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and Leonard Bernstein.

“At Penn, I was very lucky to study with George Crumb,one of the great American composers,” he says. “My musicdoes not resemble his much, but he completely transformedme in his teaching. He is part of the essence of who I amas a composer.”

When Golijov arrived at Penn, fresh from studies in his native Argentina and Jerusalem, neither man couldunderstand a word the other said. “He had a heavy WestVirginian accent, and I spoke with my own accent. … Still, I learned, if not always in a conscious way. I listenedas he played Chopin in his office in between students.I absorbed everything I watched him do. This was thegreatest thing that happened to me. It’s like an oldHasidic legend, where the student decides to learn bywatching the rabbi tie his shoes.”

After Penn, it was off to a fellowship at Tanglewood,where Golijov sprang onto the international scene with his Grammy-nominated string quartet, Yiddishbbuk, aholocaust meditation that incorporates klezmer and otherYiddish styles. His more recent works, including the operaAinadamar (Fountain of Tears) are increasingly filled witheclectic new-world influences. Ayre, a cycle of 11 songs, usesSephardic, Arabic and Christian folk tunes in sometimesjarring juxtapositions of melody and text. All threecompositions come together in the same place at theLincoln Center festival. ■

—KAREN RILE

ECLECTIC HARMONIES

CO M P O S E R M A K E S M U S I C

F R O M T H E S O U N D S O F T H E WO R L D

HIS INNOVATIVE MUSIC BRINGS THREE CONTINENTS’

WORTH OF FOLK AND POP ELEMENTS TO A BUTTONED-

DOWN CLASSICAL TRADITION.

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B R I E F

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Story Time“Professor Rieber was a professor in thehistory department whose lectures werelegendary; he just made the stuff comealive,” explains Budd Mishkin, C’81. “Peoplewould come to his lectures who weren’teven in the class. If you heard that the ‘Hitlerlecture’ or the ‘Stalin lecture’ was beinggiven that day, people would show up.”

Experiences like this are what make upthe fabric of Penn history. Thanks to PennBack Then, an audio scrapbook maintainedby the School of Arts and Sciences, there isa place to record and enjoy stories from allgenerations of Penn students. Modeledafter StoryCorps, the national oral historyproject, Penn Back Then captures slices ofcampus life and presents them in an onlinearchive. At campus celebrations each year,alumni from all decades can contributeanecdotes and remembrances to teams of mobile Penn Back Then recorders.

Though the college experience variesfrom one generation to the next, everyPenn graduate is linked by the history andtraditions of a common campus. Penn BackThen is a chance to learn about Universitylife across several decades, as told by thepeople who know it best. To access thearchive, go to www.sas.upenn.edu andclick on the Penn Back Then link.

Farewell to a FriendThe Penn community mourned the loss ofone of its most esteemed scholars whenpsychology professor John Sabini died onJuly 15 at the age of 58. A member of thepsychology faculty for nearly three decades,Sabini chaired the department from 1991to 1996. He also chaired the psychologygraduate group and directed graduatestudies in psychology from 1984 to 1991 andfrom 2003 until his death. Noted for hisstudy of the moral dimensions of socialinteractions, he won the 2003 Dean’s Awardfor Mentorship of Undergraduate Research.

“I had a close-up view as John mentoreddozens of graduate students, many dozens of undergraduate students and at least a dozen assistant professors –myself included,” says Robert DeRubeis,the associate dean for the social sciencesand a psychology professor. “John waseverybody’s uncle, or perhaps big brother.”

Sabini’s published works include thetextbook Social Psychology and Moralitiesof Everyday Life and Emotion, Character,and Responsibility, which he co-authoredwith Maury Silver. The psychologydepartment gathered on Dec. 2 tocommemorate his many contributions toscience, education and the community.

“Although John’s formal commitmentwas to graduate education, I believe thatin fact he made a greater contribution to undergraduate education than anyoneelse in our department,” Professor Robert Rescorla said at the event. “Wherethis showed up most clearly was in hiscontributions to teaching the logic andlove of research to our undergraduates.”

The John Sabini Memorial Prize Fund hasbeen established for senior psychologymajors with an interest in social psychology.To make a donation, contact Elizabeth Caimiat ecaimi@sas.upenn.edu or 215-898-5262.

Humanities HeroFor more than 35 years, Alan Kors hasdefended free speech on the Penn campusand at colleges and universities across thenation. In November, the eminent professorof European intellectual history was awardedthe National Humanities Medal to recognizehis dedication to scholarship and activism.

Kors, the George H. Walker EndowedTerm Professor of History, was among 11individuals to receive the prize. The medalis given annually to those whose work has deepened the nation’s understandingof the humanities, broadened citizens’engagement with the humanities or helpedpreserve and expand America’s access toimportant humanities resources. The medalis awarded in a White House ceremony.

In addition to the national prize, Kors hasbeen honored at Penn for his commitmentto teaching excellence. He has beenrecognized with the Christian R. and Mary F.Lindback and the Ira Abrams Memorialteaching awards, as well as a facultyaward from the Friars Senior Society. Hiscolleagues at Penn have elected him fourtimes to University and School committeeson academic freedom and responsibility.

Kors established the Foundation forIndividual Rights in Education in 1998, whichaims to protect the intellectual freedom ofprofessors and students. That same year,he co-authored The Shadow University: TheBetrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses.

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S A S J O U R N A LCampus News

Penn Back Then interview

Alan Kors

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Oxford CallingTwo College and Wharton seniors havepunched their tickets to the graduateprogram at Oxford University afterwinning a pair of Britain’s most presti-gious scholarships. Brett Shaheen, aninternational relations and economicsmajor from St. Louis, Mo., is the 18thRhodes Scholar from Penn and its thirdsince 2000. Aziza Zakhidova, a student inthe Huntsman Program in InternationalStudies & Business, also will study at theesteemed British institution after netting a Marshall Scholarship. She is the eighthMarshall winner from Penn and theUniversity’s fifth in the last six years.

Shaheen is editor-in-chief of Penn’sUndergraduate Journal of Economics andworked as a consultant for the Associationfor Rural Community Development in India last summer. He has plans to go for a master’s in international relations.Zakhidova, an international studies andfinance major from McKinney, Texas,will pursue a master’s in developmentstudies. This is the second time that Pennhas had a Rhodes and Marshall winner in the same year.

The Rhodes Scholarship, the oldestinternational fellowship, was initiatedafter the death of British philanthropist

Cecil Rhodes in 1902. The value of theaward varies depending on the academicfield, degree level and Oxford collegechosen. It covers all costs and averagesabout $40,000 per year. The MarshallScholarship was created by Parliament in1953. Its aim was to extend the idea of theRhodes Scholarship to all British universities.

Classes in SessionFisher-Bennett Hall has emerged from its tarpaulin shroud in time to host classesfor the spring semester. After months ofsilence, the cornerstone of liberal artseducation on campus is filled with thesounds of students discussing literature,practicing concertos and dissectingscreenplays. The $23 million project hasbrought state-of-the-art computertechnology, soundproof classrooms, modernperformance spaces and advancedinstructional tools to the new humanitiescorridor on 34th Street.

Faculty members already have beguntaking advantage of the options thatFisher-Bennett Hall present. For example,Associate Professor of Music Emma Dillonutilizes an advanced multimedia classroomto bring the history of opera to life for her students. “My class requires that I use

all types of media, including DVDs, CDs,laserdiscs and computers,” she explains.“The technology lets me use differentmedia simultaneously and switch fromone to another quickly and simply.Now I can move through the coursematerial at a much faster pace. Plus,the room’s stadium seating and filmscreen allow students to focus on minutedetails in the operas we are studying.It’s truly spectacular.”

W I N T E R 2006 7

India’s New Entrepreneurial ClassesFrancine Frankel (left), director of the Center for the Advanced Study of India, speaks with Sunil Bharti Mittal, one of India’s leading entrepreneurs, who delivered CASI’s annual lecture in November on sustaining India’s high-growth economy. Daughter Eiesha Mittal (center).

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Brett Shaheen and Aziza Zakhidova

Unlocking the GrooveThe producer creates the records. TheDJ spins the records. The dancer dancesto the records. Layer upon layer, songupon song, beat upon beat. Fromtechno music to house music to trance,electronic dance music (EDM) representsa broad range of soundscapes that haveemerged during the last two decades.With his book, Unlocking the Groove:Rhythm, Meter, and Musical Design inElectronic Dance Music, assistantprofessor of music Mark Butler “createsa space in which EDM can be discussedas music.” He uses new and traditionalapproaches to explore the genre’s musical,historical and social significance. It’s allabout the experience of making andenjoying a music that’s not “locked intoa single, restricted type,” he argues, but

unfolds from the DJ’s deft handling ofsound and beat on turntables and mixingboards. Butler says that “the sound is theforce that drives people to dance…. Thesound is what producers spend theirtime crafting…. The sound motivatesDJs to play this particular record at thisparticular moment.” And the drivingforce in electronic dance music’s sound?Rhythm – which is not only heard butcan be seen in the uniform movementsof the dancing crowd.

Freedom to Fight“No mature democracies have everfought a war against each other,”writes Edward Mansfield, the HumRosen Professor of Political Science.“Consequently, conventional wisdomholds that promoting the spread ofdemocracy will promote world peaceand security.” It’s a belief dearly held by the American foreign-policyestablishment and a maxim supportingPresident Bush’s strategy in Iraq.Unfortunately, argue Mansfield and co-author Jack Snyder in Electing toFight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War, the world is not so simple. Infact, they observe, the transition todemocracy can give rise to violentconflict with neighbors, especially instates that do not have the strongpolitical institutions needed to turn thewheels of democracy. States that attemptthe changeover from authoritarianregimes to democracy without a strongjudicial system, professional news media,organized political parties and otherinstitutions of accountability are unlikelyto complete the transition. “When theseinstitutions are deformed or weak,”states Mansfield, “politicians are betterable to resort to nationalist appeals,tarring their opponents as enemies of thenation, in order to prevail in electoralcompetition. The use of such appealsgenerally heightens the prospect thatdemocratization will stimulate the useof force.” It’s a pattern that dates back at least to the French Revolution, thepolitical scientists say, and they marshalquantitative data and case studies tosupport their claim. The adage aboutmature democratic states not warringagainst each other might be true, butthe way to “democratic peace,” Mansfieldand Snyder show, is a perilous path.

How Things MeltWhen ice cubes melt, the solid crystalsturn to water. It’s pretty simple, right? Notreally, says physics professor Arjun Yodh,the James M. Skinner Professor ofScience. “Melting is one of the mostfundamental phenomena in physics,and yet there are lots of things we don’tunderstand about it,” he says. “When iceheats up, molecules within the ice acquiremore energy and jiggle around more,driving the transition from a solid to aliquid. This is true in part, but reality isricher and more complex.” To lookdeeper into that complexity, Yodh and histeam made “atoms” that were big enoughfor researchers to see but also sufficientlytransparent so they could look at whatgoes on inside the solid structure. “Wecreated translucent three-dimensionalcrystals from thermally responsivecolloidal spheres,” says doctoral studentAhmed Alsayed, which “behave likeenormous versions of atoms for thepurpose of the experiment.” The scientistsobserved with video microscopy that“premelting” occurred along theboundaries of imperfections in theorderly structure of crystals, especiallywhere the patterns of the atoms shift.“Premelting was first revealed as anincreased movement near defects in the crystal,” Alsayed explains. “Thesemotions then spread into the moreordered parts of the crystal.” Yodh notesthat understanding this effect could leadto the design of new materials able towithstand stresses at higher temperatures.

S A S F R O N T I E R SFaculty Research

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right: Premelting at a grain boundary within a crystal

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Tawkin’ AmericanIn the musical My Fair Lady, phoneticianHenry Higgins hid behind a pillartaking notes on the speech patterns ofthe Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle.From the way she spoke, the snootyprofessor could identify her place ofbirth. Penn linguist William Labov, theJohn H. and Margaret B. FassittProfessor, doesn’t conduct field researchfrom behind columns, nor does he hold to Higgins’ musical observationregarding the English language: “InAmerica, they haven’t used it for years.”In his new book, The Atlas of NorthAmerican English: Phonetics, Phonologyand Sound Change, Labov, withcoauthors Sharon Ash, G’74, Gr’82, andCharles Boberg, Gr’97, lays out the first

coast-to-coast overview of the majordialects spoken and sound changesunderway in the U.S. and Canada.There is no uniform accent of NorthAmerican English, linguists say, only avariety of dialects that continuouslyundergo sound changes. “Most of theimportant changes in American speechare not happening at the level ofgrammar or language but at the level ofsound itself,” he told a New York Citygathering. Atlas includes color-codedmaps and a CD that lets readers searchand hear the variations on how peoplespeak. “The biggest new sound changewe found – in the Great Lakes area –spreads out over 80,000 square milesand 34 million people,” Labov says,“but no one is aware of it.”

Formula for HappinessThere may not be a magic formula forhappiness, but Hans-Peter Kohler andJere Behrman know a few equations thatlay out parameters for mothers andfathers, wives and husbands. Kohler,an associate professor of sociology, andBehrman, the William R. Kenan Jr.Professor of Economics, along with a research scientist with the DanishInstitute of Public Health, reportedtheir findings in “Partner + Children =Happiness?” Simply correlatingparenthood or partnership withhappiness doesn’t take into account the possibility that happiness might bea genetic or personality trait or thatpeople with happy dispositions may be more likely to get married and havekids in the first place or to be pleasedwith their choices. To control for thoseand other variables, the researcherstapped the Danish Twin Registry andsurveyed almost 35,000 twins on theirsense of well-being. Their analysisshowed that marriage and children dohave “appreciable persistent effects onhappiness.” Individuals with partnersreported greater happiness than thosewho are alone, with men deriving greaterhappiness from partnerships thanwomen. Children directly contribute to the happiness of women. Having a first child is an important source ofhappiness for both partners, butsubsequent children make women lesshappy and don’t much affect the wellbeing of men. The greatest happinessfor the greatest number, Kohler andBehrman’s study seems to suggest, is to marry and to have one child.

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BY LAURA BEITMAN • Photo by Lisa Godfrey

Ask David Wallacewho a modern-dayChaucer is, and he’llfold his hands in hislap, exhale lightly and

explain. It’s not someone in theUnited States, whose words andideas follow familiar Englishpatterns established long ago. Andit’s not someone in the European-influenced city of Philadelphia or inthe sharp and at times street-savvystudent body of the University ofthe Pennsylvania. A new GeoffreyChaucer would be lurking in anemerging country that is stillfighting for its modern identity, itsvoice. “If there is one, she’s probablyin Africa,” Wallace said recently.

Wallace, the Judith RodinProfessor of English, says there is much to learn from the 14th-century poet, whose revolutionarychoice to write in the Englishlanguage paved the way for manyto come. “Generosity of spirit, asense of humor, acceptance ofhuman follies and limitations, avoice to all social classes” is the listof virtues he attributes to Chaucer.The Canterbury Tales’ “The Wife of Bath Prologue,” an 800-linemonologue by a medieval womantalking about her five husbands, isone of Wallace’s favorites. “It’s likea wall of sound that threatens tooverwhelm you. There’s nothingquite like it really.”

This summer, Wallace will workwith dozens of high-school teachersat the meeting of the 300-memberNew Chaucer Society to help them

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“I WANT TO ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO

ENCOUNTER CULTURES THAT THEY THINK

ARE ALIEN AND STRANGE AND HAVE

NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM – AND IN

THAT DISCOVER A COMMON HUMANITY.”

ChaucerRe-Embodied T H E T I M E L E S S V I S I O N A N D

understand, teach and fluentlyperform Chaucer. It’s not just forthe future of medieval studies.Wallace’s drive stems from a deeperpassion. “I want to encourage peopleto encounter cultures that theythink are alien and strange and havenothing to do with them – and inthat discover a common humanity.”

Clad in a purple sweater andblack-rimmed glasses on a recentmorning in his office, Wallace saysstudying the Middle Ages is just oneway to explore differences. Unlike theRenaissance, which usually conjuresup something positive, medievaltimes are often vilified for primitivesuperstition and darkness, heexplains. But neither typifies theperiod. “The assumption is thatwitch burning is a medieval activity.It’s not. It’s a Renaissance activity.The assumption is that judicialtorture, that burning people for theirpolitical beliefs is a medieval activity.Nobody in Chaucer’s lifetime wasburned for their religious beliefs orany beliefs in England.”

With a hint of a mischievoussmile, Wallace admits he enjoys thechallenge of dispelling those mythsand inspiring students, in whateverway he can, to get out of theircomfort zones. “You bring them up against ways of thinking andbehaving and worshipping that arealien to them, supposedly. Engagingin the culture, they come to like it.They come to understand it.”

That said, he is not snobby abouthow people get interested in theMiddle Ages, even if it’s through

the Gothic representations ofDungeons and Dragons or roadsideRenaissance fairs. “Everything helpsto stimulate interest really, even thesort of cheesy, medieval eveningswhen you get a bit of jousting and wenches in uniform,” he says.

Wallace felt a sense of the bigger world early on. Despite the “monochromatic” atmosphere of his brick-making town north of London, he was surrounded by centuries-old churches andbooks. Wallace, who first readChaucer at 15, fell in love withbooks. “I disappointed my father,who wanted me to be interested in motorcycles. He kept hismotorcycle license up until I was16 and realized it was hopeless.”

His parents went to work at 14.His father served as a fighter pilotduring World War II and laterbecame an engineer while hismother served in the Women’sLand Army and later worked infactories. Without a preconceivedacademic path to follow, Wallacesays he was free to discover his loveof education by himself. “I think Iwas the first member of my familyto start ninth grade,” he says.

He received a full grant for hisundergraduate work in English andItalian at the University of York andgraduate studies at St. Edmund’sCollege, Cambridge. He was alsoattracted to medieval studies’internationalism, which has provideda sure foundation for historicaldevelopment. “Communitiesevolved over centuries, leading to

European, North African and Arabcultures, which are finely calibratedwith many intersecting traditionsand relations. It’s so important tounderstand the delicacy of thoserelationships.”

He didn’t stay put for long but set off on what would be the firstof many travel adventures to teachEnglish to teenage typists in Italy.He’d later go behind the IronCurtain in East Germany and to thegreat medieval city of Prague. LikeChaucer, Wallace toured EasternEurope in his early 20s, earning anaccelerated education.

On that recent morning in hisoffice, he reads one of his favoritepassages from The Canterbury Tales.With his tongue twisting furiouslyand voice lowering, Wallace holds athick book in his hands and rattlesoff lines from “The Pardoner’s Tale,”a story of “a morally questionablecharacter” and his edict on “alecherous thing is drink.”

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A NEW GEOFFREY CHAUCER WOULD BE

LURKING IN AN EMERGING COUNTRY THAT IS

STILL FIGHTING FOR ITS MODERN IDENTITY,

ITS VOICE. “IF THERE IS ONE, SHE’S

PROBABLY IN AFRICA,” WALLACE SAYS.

C O V E R S T O R Y

T H E S H E E R E N J OYM E N T O F A M E D I E VA L P O E T

The beauty of Chaucer and themedieval period is that they are notjust a view into the insular lives ofkings. “There is tremendous socialvariety in Chaucer,” Wallace says,describing the series of pilgrims’tales that range from tragic war

stories to rude comedy, often toldby peasants, a forbidden move forShakespeare. “I think the MiddleAges respects human persons forwhere they are and what they are –and not in an idealized way.”

For Wallace, who won the ModernLanguage Association’s James RussellLowell Prize in 1998 for ChaucerianPolity: Absolutist Lineages andAssociational Forms in England andItaly, the challenge is to keep interestin Chaucer going. Medieval studies ishealthy, he says, but it must fight forits market share of the curriculum.

“People ask, ‘Why should I studysomething 600 years old? It’s notabout me.’ We have to convince themit is about them.” He illustrates:A parallel can be drawn betweentoday’s anxieties about the threat ofAsian bird flu and disease “comingfrom the East,” and the plague of1347-1349, which killed one-thirdof the European population. Also,he observes, “If you study thehistory of medieval women, a lot of the issues that come up arestruggles that women are still going through today.”

Medieval author Margery Kempe,whose book is the first autobiog-raphy in the English language, wenton a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in her20s and then at 60 left Poland totravel Europe and visit her daughter.The pilgrimage structure allowedher to travel safely, something that hasn’t been fully recovered forwomen today, Wallace says.

He spent a year, on and off,following in her footsteps for arecent radio documentary for BBC.“We just tried to recreate what itwould have been like for a medievalwoman of her age to do thattraveling, talking to lots of localexperts,” he says. “We hiked somebut also cheated and took planes.”

Wallace, whose most recent bookexplores premodern places, saystravel is just another way to teachstudents to experience diversity,never mind feed his own curiosity.“It’s one of my weaknesses,” hesays. “I’m interested in everything.”

As for Chaucer, the key will beteaching others, including high-school teachers, how to read himfluently and confidently, focusingon the performance of the works,which were written to be readaloud. Wallace did just that in2000, taking part in a four-hourmarathon on the 600th anniversaryof Chaucer’s death for BBC Radio 3.“We drank a lot of BBC wine towardthe end,” he confesses.

In Premodern Places: Calais toSurinam, Chaucer to Aphra Behn,Wallace writes, “From ancienttimes, it has been the dearest andsimplest wish of poets that, throughtheir writings, their voices mightendure; that in some sense, they willbe re-embodied, re-remembered by being heard again.”

If there were a new Chaucer, he’dbe in a developing country, writingto keep up with the changes. It couldcome in poetry or perhaps even inavant-garde rock music, Wallacespeculates. “What does it mean to bealive now? What does it mean to becontemporary? Who can give thatartistic form and expression?” These“new” questions are the same onesChaucer asked himself 600 years ago.

Through 10 books, some 30 articles and 13 TV/radioproductions – not to mention hissense of humor – Wallace’s workhas certainly contributed to keepingChaucer alive. He wouldn’t call it a mission. “It’s more like sharingenjoyment,” he comments, “orreminding people that this is theirculture as well as it is mine.” ■

Laura Beitman is a freelance writerliving in Philadelphia.

12 P E N N A RTS & S C I E N C E S

There are signs of medieval culture, which laidthe foundations for universities, courtly love,table manners and the modern-day jury system,all over Philadelphia, Wallace says. “There’s anelement of architectural style you can see allover the place.”

One example is Einar Johnsson’s statue of the Viking Jorfinn Karlsefini near the SedgeleyClub on Fairmount Park’s Boat House Row.The Icelander is believed to come to America in 1004. “We know now they never wore thosehorns on their helmets,” Wallace said.

On Penn’s campus, the Anne and Jerome FisherFine Arts Library, formerly named the FurnessBuilding after its architect, is a mix of medievaltowers, chimneys, halls and stained-glasswindows with hints of gargoyles.

Then of course, there’s Chaucer’s Tabard Inn, apub at Lombard and 20th streets in center city.A former owner was an English teacher andchanged the name from The Graduate, afternearby Graduate Hospital, about 30 years ago,a bar manager said. The bar still sports a copy of English engraver William Hole’s 1889 pen and ink drawing of the characters from The Canterbury Tales. But Wallace prefers Fado’spub at 15th and Locust streets, at least forwatching rugby internationals each spring.“Chaucer’s never gives me a discount,” he says.

—LAURA BEITMAN

Roads Well Traveled

13W I N T E R 2006

A rchaeologist Andrew Koh is expert atuncovering the indulgences of ancient people.The proof is in their pottery – not the designspainted thereon but in traces left behind in cups

and cooking pots, dirt that Koh knows how to extract anddecode.“It’s archaeology meets CSI,” he says.

For years, archaeologists have been using chemists’ toolsto help reconstruct the habits and tastes of the people they study. Organic compounds lifted from excavatedpottery and analyzed using gas chromatography and massspectrometry, for example, often reveal traces of the finerthings in life – wine, perfume and even traces of a meatymeal. These high-tech tools produce a “fingerprint” ofeach substance by separating and identifying its uniquechemical components.

Researchers typically extract these organic residuesmonths or in most cases, years after the artifacts wereexcavated, explains Koh. “They usually pick the pieces that are most intact or the prettiest.” Koh, a student inPenn’s Graduate Group in Art and Archaeology of theMediterranean World, thinks researchers would get abetter story if the ancient leavings were taken from asmany objects as possible immediately after pulling themfrom the ground, before the “evidence” is removed by the washing procedures used in conservation.

As ambitious as his plan sounds, Koh pulled it off insummer 2004 at Mochlos, a village on East Crete and thesite of his dissertation research. With the help of a veryunderstanding research team led by Jeffery Soles, Gr’73,of the University of North Carolina, the support of Koh’swife and fellow archaeologist, Laura Labriola Koh, and labequipment garnered from multiple Greek and U.S. sources,including eBay, Koh was able to extract residues at a facilityjust miles from the excavation site. “I forced myself intothe middle of the process between the archaeologists and the conservationists.”

Koh and his wife spent nearly 400 hours in the labsampling over 300 pieces of pottery. “It was worth it,”

says Koh. Later, when he used the chemistry department’sequipment to analyze the samples, he found that over 90percent contained organic compounds.

Now he is using this information to piece together theperfume-making process of the Minoans, a tribe known fortheir stunning art and sophisticated architecture who livedat Mochlos during the Bronze Age. So far, he has been ableto map the perfume-making room, identifying ingredientskept in smaller containers and the final products made in the large vat anchored next to the main wall.

Koh, who came to Penn in 1999, says that both hischemistry skills and his interest in classical archaeologycame from his days as a biophysics major at the Universityof Illinois. “I finished all my science requirements by myjunior year and was looking for something new senioryear.” He immersed himself in the liberal arts, filling hisschedule with courses in classics, mythology and Greek.“I absolutely loved it.” After graduating in 1996, he workedas a chemist at a pharmaceutical company while heconsidered applying to medical school. “In Korean-Americanculture,” he says, “you’re expected to get an M.D. or a J.D.A Ph.D. is a distant second.” He laughs. Still, he dared toask himself, If I could do anything in the world, what wouldit be? “I already knew the answer.” ■

—DANA BAUER

G R A D ST U D E N T CO M B I N E S C H E M I ST RY A N D C L A S S I C S

Anna

Kap

lan

B R I E F

DIRTY DISHES “It’s archaeology meets CSI.”

circa 2000 b.c.

14 P E N N A RTS & S C I E N C E S

15W I N T E R 2006

BY JOSEPH MCLAUGHLIN • Photography by Lisa Godfrey

A R O U N D T H E WO R L D W I T H T H E M I G H T Y M A N O F I R I S H F O L K M U S I C

irish tunes

Bangkok’s most notoriousslum is probably the lastplace you would expect to

find a renowned scholar of Irishmusic. But on this bright Octobermorning, Mick Moloney, Gr’92, isnavigating the narrow streets andramshackle huts of Klong Toeyghetto in search of a rebel priest.

“Father Joe Maier is the MotherTeresa of Southeast Asia,” Moloneysays in a soft brogue that hints athis Limerick roots. For more than30 years, Maier has fought to save souls in the face of rampantdrug dealing, gang violence andprostitution. Moloney calls him a“mighty man” – the title he affixesto anyone who assists na bochtáin –the Irish Gaelic phrase for thosewho are most destitute. At the endof their visit, Moloney offers tostage a concert in Klong Toey tobenefit Maier’s Mercy Center.

“Irish folk music was never themusic of the upper classes; it wasalways the music of the wretchedof the society,” Moloney explains.“The Irish immigrant experience in 19th-century America was a very troubled one. We were the first ghetto dwellers, the first hugeinflux of Catholic immigrants at a time when the separation ofchurch and state was a big issue for nativists, and we were largelyunprepared for urban life.

“It’s a very complex history,and the music is very much boundup with that. To have music thatcomes out of that context being

used in the service of disadvantagedcommunities just seems right to me.”

A slender man with unlimitedreserves of energy, Moloney canfire off jigs and reels as easily asyou can tie your shoes. He is oftenfound playing the tenor banjo with celebrated folk musicians and teaching ethnomusicology at New York University. He also is afolklorist, record producer, artsadvocate and occasional tour guidefor groups of Americans wantingto experience the cultural side ofhis homeland.

He credits the global makeup of the Irish music community forallowing him to organize a concertin Thailand’s superslum. “Irishmusicians are everywhere: they’rein Tokyo, they’re in Malaysia,they’re in Vietnam and they’re inAustralia as well,” he says beforerattling off the names of pipers andfiddlers who will play the Thailandgig. “Everyone knows everyone else– I suppose more so now because ofthe Internet – but everyone kneweach other before the Internetbecause it’s one big extended family.”

He does not mention that hisunparalleled reputation among folkmusicians is why they flock to playhis shows at a moment’s notice,regardless of the location. “It seemsthat everybody on this side of theAtlantic owes their early gigs toMick,” says Stephen Winick, G’92,Gr’98, Moloney’s friend and afolklorist at the American FolklifeCenter in the Library of Congress.

Moloney’s musical journeybegan in Ireland, where he had asuccessful career in the 1960s withfellow musician Donal Lunny andthe Johnstons, a popular folk group.He probably would have continuedalong that path except for theintervention of Professor KennethGoldstein, whom he credits withchanging his life forever.

Goldstein was the head of folklorestudies at Penn and a great lover of folk music. He and his wife,Rochelle, would open their hometo traveling musicians who neededa place to stay after playing inPhiladelphia. “It just meant puttinga couple of extra dishes on the tablebecause we were already a largefamily,” says Rochelle Goldstein,whose husband has since passedaway. “That’s just the way we ran ourlives in those days.” Moloney was ahouseguest on many occasions.

The basement, office and severalother rooms in the Goldstein home held the professor’s folklorelibrary. Regarded as the largest andmost complete assortment of

Irish folk music was never the music ofthe upper classes; it was always the musicof the wretched of the society.

Mick Moloney (center) performs in St. Malachy’s Church, Philadelphia

P E N N A RTS & S C I E N C E S 16

Ed R

eavy

Fou

ndat

ion

It seems that everybody on this side of the Atlantic owes their early gigs to Mick.

There’s more to a Mick Moloney concert thanbreakneck jigs, reels and tuneful airs. Drawing from a deep well of knowledge about Irish musicalhistory, he delivers a cultural education that

connects his audience to the songs. “Being a good performermeans you have to create a relationship between yourselfand the people for whom you’re performing,” he says. “Themore context and history you can bring to a song or tune, themore people will leave the show feeling both entertained and informed.” To illustrate his point, Moloney tells the storyof Ed Reavy, Philadelphia’s “Plumber of Hornpipes.”

Reavy was an Irish immigrant who lived for many yearsjust north of Penn’s campus in what is now Powelton Village.A master plumber by trade and an excellent fiddle player, hestarted inventing new Irish melodies in the 1930s. Althoughhe never learned to read or write music, Reavy became the most prolific Irish traditional music composer of the

20th century. He saw his music spread across the globethrough regular contact with other musicians, who learned itand brought it back to their own villages, towns and cities.

“I was in Irish-music sessions in Australia about threeweeks ago, and there wasn’t one where Ed Reavy’s tunesweren’t being played,” Moloney says. “We’d sit in the puband we’d talk about Ed and I’d tell them my stories. Before Iknew it, we were playing Ed’s tunes for half and hour.”

It wasn’t until 1969 that Reavy’s son Joe began notating hisfather’s compositions, many of which had been captured on78-rpm home recordings. He helped his father name many ofthe tunes and publish them in a volume called Where theShannon Rises. More than 15 years after his death, about 130 ofReavy’s compositions are part of the canon of Irish folk music.His sons estimate that he had written more than 500. ■

—JOSEPH MCLAUGHLIN

Plumber of Hornpipes

folklore materials in private hands,the collection contained tens ofthousands of records, cassettes, reel-to-reel tapes and photographs aswell as myriad books and journals.

“It was his library that changedmy life, no question,” Moloneysays. “I remember being in thebasement and being fascinatedwith it. I would go down there after dinner and then Kenny wouldcome down the stairs and say,‘You’re up? You’ve been up all night.’ And I’d say, ‘What are youtalking about – up all night?’ Itwould be 7:30 in the morning,and I wouldn’t have realized.”

Goldstein knew a buddingscholar when he saw one. With his encouragement, Moloneyimmigrated in 1973 and beganstudying in the graduate folklore

and folklife program at Penn.“I had never been at school withAmericans before, and they werevery talkative,” he recalls. “In Ireland,we never asked questions at all,or very rarely. You just listened to the teacher, and if he asked aquestion, you’d put your headdown and hope he wouldn’t pickyou. So I thought it was hilarious –all these Yanks wanting to talk allthe time and express themselves.”

In addition to his studies,Moloney was at the forefront of Irish folk music in Americathroughout the 1970s and 1980s.He created two of today’s mostwell-known acts – Cherish theLadies and the Green Fields ofAmerica – encouraged many othersand organized scores of festivalsthat resulted in seminal recording

sessions. “He’s had a hand in makingthe music more popular andbringing it to the attention of morepeople,” Winick says, “which helps tomake it more viable both artisticallyand commercially.” In 1999 hereceived the National HeritageAward. Presented by the NationalEndowment for the Arts, it is thehighest honor a traditional artistcan receive in the United States.

Playing and promoting Irishmusic has led him to appreciateother types of world music. Overthe past six years, Moloney hastoured Southeast Asia and becomeinterested in the music of suchplaces as Vietnam, Cambodia andIndonesia. It is a great journey, hesays, to be involved with the peopleof other nations, to learn abouttheir social histories and general

17W I N T E R 2006

cultural contexts. In Burma lastOctober for the national musiccompetitions, he saw people frommany tribes and subculturesrepresenting their regional traditionsat the highest level. “On the onehand, that’s an affirmation of boththe diversity and the unity of thecountry,” he says. “On the other,behind its organization is a veryrepressive regime at work that likesto use art for its own purposes – asall totalitarian regimes will do.”

Using people that he’d met thereas contacts, Moloney traveled tovillages in Central Burma afterleaving the music competitions. Itwas a great coming together underthe noses of the authorities, whomight have been suspicious offoreign travelers under differentcircumstances.

Risking imprisonment to furthermusical and cultural knowledgemay hardly seem worth it, but onlyto those who don’t know whatmotivates this globe-trotting,musical scholar. “He originally wentjust for his own pleasure, and he fellin love,” Rochelle Goldstein says.“That’s the way he is: he falls in love.He gets very passionate, and then hehas to research everything. That’swhy he’s so fascinating to talk to.”

Moloney’s current projects includea compact disc featuring the songsof Ed Harrigan, a late 19th-centurysongwriter who chronicled the Irishimmigrant experience in New York.Credited with inventing musicalcomedy, Harrigan’s compositionswere performed mostly by pitorchestras during his lifetime.

“On the CD, I try to reconstructthe idea of a pit orchestra of theera, but at the same time havemodern traditional instruments in there too,” Moloney explains.“Ed Harrigan was a very modernman; he wanted to be in his time

and space. I wanted to get a senseof who he was but at the same time project what he would havedone had he been alive today.” Ascholarly book about the history ofIrish music in America, a concertin March at Penn’s AnnenbergCenter and a speaking tour are also on his plate.

“People not only recognize hismusical talent, but his knowledgeand the fact that he can back upwhat he says with years and yearsof research,” Stephen Winick says.“They come to him for answers to all sorts of questions about Irish music.”

It’s 4 p.m. on a Sunday inNovember and the setting sun isresting its rays on the crowdsstreaming into St. Malachy’s Churchin Philadelphia. Moloney is on handto perform another benefit concertin the service of another mightyman – Father John McNamee – andto raise money for his independentparish school. This is the 15th yearMoloney has played the churchand, as always, musicians havecome from as far away as Tuscanyto donate time and talent.

Built by the influx of Irishimmigrants who came to Americain the 1840s and 1850s, St. Malachy’schurch and school now serveNorth Philly’s mostly poor African-American population. Tonight thechurch is packed with more than800 patrons who believe is minicduine bocht fiúntach – a poor personis often worthy. The performance istheir chance to help a neighborhoodthey wouldn’t normally visit.

Feeding off the palpable excite-ment that permeates the pews,Moloney and company send tidalwaves of sound crashing off thealtar, throwing the melody from oneplayer to the next and back again aseffortlessly as you might toss a beach

ball. The crowd responds with cheersand applause that reverberatethrough the marble floors. It’s justanother night in the life of MickMoloney, musical ambassador.

“Mick is very special,” Goldsteinsays. “He is an intelligent man who knows how to hold on toinformation and teach it to others.It’s a natural gift he has. He’s also amusician for musicians. He has away of gathering other musiciansaround him wherever he goes, andhe’s loved that way in Ireland andin the United States and all overthe world.” ■

Irish translations courtesy of RoslynBlyn-LaDrew, Gr’95, teacher of IrishGaelic at the Penn Language Center.

He has a way of gathering other musiciansaround him wherever he goes.

unpacking

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR SORTS OUT NATURE AND NURTURE

18 P E N N A RTS & S C I E N C E S

W ith a population of 8,195, the townof Oberlin, Ohio,is hardly a booming

metropolis. But according to Sara Jaffee, an assistant professorof psychology who grew up there,its smallness is deceptive. Walk intoa public school, and it feels likeyou’re in a city. “It’s surprisinglydiverse,” she says. “The familiesvary enormously – racially and by socioeconomic status.”

A midsize town that’s a micro-cosm of a teeming city is not such a bad place for a social scientist to come of age. And becauseJaffee’s parents were teachers, shehad easy access to closely observed“data.” Her mother taught first and second grades, and her fathercontinues to teach high-schoolmath. “Dinner conversations wereoften about my parents’ students,how they were doing and why theywere doing well or poorly,” Jaffeerecalls. “I was always aware of howmuch baggage these kids broughtinto the classroom.”

During senior year of highschool, Jaffee volunteered in hermother’s classroom, and she wascharged with watching Dante, aneasily distracted first-grader. Hewas fine when Jaffee worked withhim one-on-one, but unmonitored,he was a whirling dervish. Jaffeeremembers him as a bright kidwith a sweet temperament whoshouldered a chaotic home life.“I was very aware of how much heand some of the other kids weredealing with,” she says.

Spending time with Dante andthe other students in her mother’sclassroom piqued her curiosityabout the connections betweenenvironment and genetics, behaviorand outcome. At Oberlin College,she majored in psychology. As agraduate student at the University

the baggage

of Wisconsin-Madison, she was a research assistant for a professorwho specialized in experimentalsocial psychology.

In her third year, Jaffee took aclass in developmental psychologywith Professor Avshalom Caspi.She became excited by his interestin the possibility that people shapetheir own environments. Ironically,she was about to turn her ownenvironment on its head. Afterstarting to question her desire for a career in academia, she took aleave of absence and found herselfliving in Brooklyn, commuting eachday to Yonkers, where she worked inthe survey-research department ofConsumer Reports magazine. “It wasa funny place to work,” she says.“They were always auctioning offthings like toaster ovens.” Instead ofprobing the intricacies of humannature, she was comparison-testingthe durability of panty hose. After ayear, she realized she was unsuitedfor anything besides academia.

Jaffee returned to school in 1998just as The Nurture Assumption, byJudith Rich Harris, reignited thedebate between nature and nurture.In her book, Harris takes an extremestance, writing that parents have noimpact on their kids’ developmentbeyond providing DNA. Thependulum had swung all the way to the other side from the 1970s,when predominant theories tracedoutcomes directly back to parentingstyles. “I was interested in taking amiddle-of-the-road perspective,”says Jaffee, “in using behavioralgenetics to help measure how muchgenetic factors can explain certainbehaviors, but at the same timelooking at how the environmentfactors in, especially when a kid’sgenetically vulnerable.” In otherwords, how do nature and nurtureinterplay to affect the lives ofdisadvantaged children?

Working with Caspi at theInstitute of Psychiatry at King’sCollege in London for the next threeyears, Jaffee published studies thatchallenged conventional wisdom. A2002 study of teen mothers in NewZealand found that the youngwomen probably would’ve ended upwith the same negative outcomeseven if they’d waited to have kids.Being a teen mom was impairing,but the factors that led to themdropping out of school and livingbelow the poverty line – low IQsand aggressiveness – predated theirpregnancies. But were they a resultof nature or nurture?

Jaffee further explored thatquestion with a study on antisocialfathers. She was the lead author of a 2003 paper concluding that the longer children live with fathers who display high levels ofantisocial behavior – lying, stealing,bullying, inability to hold downjobs – the greater the likelihoodthat those children will developconduct problems themselves.Not only do the antisocial fatherspass on “risky” genes to theirchildren; they also provide rearingexperiences that tend to nurtureantisocial behavior. At the time,she urged policy-makers to notethe implication that encouragingbiological parents to marry isn’talways in a child’s best interest.

Since her appointment at Penn in2003, Jaffee’s research has focused onthe factors that lead to child abuse.Is it something about the child orsomething about the parent? “We’vefound no evidence that there’s somegenetic influence to account forchildren eliciting maltreatment froman adult,” she says, “which was arelief to me, frankly.” The kids in thestudy who were genetically inclinedto misbehave were more likely to be smacked or spanked aspunishment, but their provocative

temperaments didn’t up theirchances of being abused.

The studies Jaffee has producedas a postdoctoral fellow at King’s College and as a member of Penn’s faculty garnered the 2006Early Career Research ContributionsAward from the AmericanPsychological Association’s Society for Child and AdolescentClinical Psychology.

She never doubts her decision to return to academia after theyearlong blip in New York testingproducts for Consumer Reports.“I really value the flexibility thatacademia affords,” she says.“Your ideas are your own. Yourtime is your own. Your career can be self-directed.”

Going forward, the youngpsychologist is studying a data set of5,000 kids in foster care. “When achild is removed from the biologicalparents, you can start disentanglingnature from nurture kinds ofquestions,” says Jaffee. She’s especiallyinterested in the kids who do betterthan you’d expect and in thefactors that indicate their resilience.

Dante, the first-grader who startedher thinking about these issues,moved away from Oberlin, and Jaffeelost track of him. As she monitorsthe thousands of children in herstudies, she wonders where and howhe ended up. “He was so charming,”she recalls, “and he was born withthe decks stacked against him.” ■

Caroline Tiger, C’96, is aPhiladelphia-based freelancejournalist and author.

19W I N T E R 2006

BY CAROLINE TIGER • Photo by Gregory Benson

NOT ONLY DO THE ANTISOCIAL FATHERS PASS

ON “RISKY” GENES TO THEIR CHILDREN; THEY

ALSO PROVIDE REARING EXPERIENCES THAT

TEND TO NURTURE ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR.

As the old saying goes, “Givea man a fish, and you’llfeed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you’ll

feed him for a lifetime.”In the case of senior Amelia

Duffy-Tumasz, it might be appropri-ate to say, “Find yourself covered infish guts, and you’ll learn about thelives of women in West Africa.”The urban studies major spent lastsummer in Senegal, working andconducting research at an outdoorfish factory that was run by localwomen who had learned theprinciples of microfinance.

Microfinance is an economicmodel by which small loans andother monetary services areprovided to impoverished peoplein mostly Third-World countries.Having no collateral or credithistory, they normally would beoutside the realm of traditionalbanking. The loans – some for onlya few hundred dollars or less –allow the world’s poor to generateincome and make strides towardself-sufficiency. Duffy-Tumasz wasintroduced to microfinance inReligion, Social Justice and UrbanDevelopment, a class taught byurban studies lecturer AndrewLamas, L’81, that covered alternativemodels for community advance-ment. She decided to craft hersenior thesis around the lendingprogram after learning that more

than 95 percent of microfinanceloans go to women.

“Women were found to be muchmore likely than men to repayloans,” she says. “Men tend to spendtheir money on women instead ofinvesting it, especially in polygamoussocieties like Senegal. Also, theliterature shows that women aregenerally more concerned withdevoting their earnings to theneeds of their families. So now,women and microfinance arealmost inseparable.”

An alumni grant from Penn’sCenter for Undergraduate Researchand Fellowships helped finance herexpedition. Duffy-Tumasz stayed in Joal, a coastal city of just morethan 24,000 people that is one of Senegal’s main fishing centers.

She describes her temporary homeas a wonderful mix of poverty andhospitality; its people possessing aresiliency and cultural richness thatis not often found in the UnitedStates. A friend introduced her toKhelkom, an outdoor processingplant that became her worksite forthe next two-and-a-half months.More than 300 workers, most ofwhom were women, performed thelabor-intensive process of cleaningand salting fish by hand and thendrying them in the sun on hugeoutdoor tables. Some would betransported to places that lackedfresh fish, while others would becovered with hay and burned tomake kethiakh, a smoked specialty.

Before Duffy-Tumasz couldengage in the participant observation

20 P E N N A RTS & S C I E N C E S

AN AMERICAN TUBAABIN SENEGAL

“A TU B A A B G E T T I N G H E R H A N D S D I RT Y ? W E ’ V E N EV E R S E E N T H I S B E F O R E .”

EXPLORING THE LINK BETWEEN WOMEN AND MICROFINANCE

BY JOSEPH MCLAUGHLIN

Amelia Duffy-Tumasz (left)

and questioning that would providedata for her thesis, she had toovercome the stigma that went withbeing a tubaab – the Senegaleseword for stranger. She broke downthat barrier by working shoulder toshoulder with the women, gettingto know them and learning asmuch Wolof – the local tongue – as she could.

“I’ve never been so close to theraw product of fish in my life,”she says. “It was everywhere. Frompregnant women to old men,everyone was working on trans-forming this fish. They had theirhands in the grime, taking out the parts that weren’t used forconsumption and then cleaning the rest. The women saw me andsaid, ‘A tubaab getting her handsdirty? We’ve never seen this before.Tubaabs just come here to look atus and then they leave.’ I spent amonth or so cleaning and saltingthe fish and laying them out, andthrough doing that I was able togain some of the women’s trust.”

During that time, she learned alot about the women who builtKhelkom. Like many microfinanceprograms, the seeds were plantedby PROPAC, an internationalconcern funded by the FrenchDevelopment Agency, the European

Union and the Senegalese govern-ment. PROPAC came to Joal in the1990s to teach the women aboutmoney management, give them abasic banking vocabulary andsupply them with small loans. Theywere told to organize themselvesinto groups so that each group wasaccountable to all the others. Afterthe training, however, PROPACnever issued any microfinanceloans. Undeterred, the women ofJoal chose the one among themwho had the best credit rating.That woman used her meagerhome as collateral to obtain a loan,part of which was used to open the fish-processing plant.

“There I was, this First-Worldfeminist, going into the situationthinking that these women were‘oppressed,’ ” Duffy-Tumasz admits.“But from everything I saw, theyare in charge of their businesses;they’re heads of their households;they’re feeding their families. Thesewomen are empowered by anystretch of the imagination.”

She points to one of the women –who goes by the name Madame Sye – to illustrate her point. Anative of Joal, Madame Sye begandistributing fish locally as soon asher children were old enough tolook after themselves. Long before

microfinance became popular, shewas buying fish a bucket at a time.When the opportunity arose toincrease her operation throughmicrofinance training, she embracedit. Today she is the main incomeearner in her family.

“I always thought that MadameSye could be walking down a NewYork City street in a power suit andhigh heels and look the part,” saysDuffy-Tumasz. “She’s a mother anda wife, but also a businesswoman.She has a look that says, ‘This is whoI am, and I mean business.’ There’sno messing around with that.”

Duffy-Tumasz returned to Joalover the winter break to show herthesis to the women at Khelkomand share some photos. A tubaabno longer, she has been given aSenegalese name – Rama – by oneof the workers. She hopes to open awomen’s cooperative in Senegal oneday as part of her continuing effortsto study microfinance. “This projectspoke to a lot of my interests:community development, economicdevelopment, social developmentand women’s issues,” she says. “WhatI’m finding is that microfinance isnot a panacea to poverty alleviation.Still, I’m really interested in whatmakes it effective.” ■

21W I N T E R 2 0 0 6

“ B UT F R O M EV E RY T H I N G I S AW, T H EY A R E I N C H A R G E O F T H E I R B U S I N E S S E S ;T H EY ’ R E H E A D S O F T H E I R H O U S E H O L D S ; T H EY ’ R E F E E D I N G T H E I R FA M I L I E S .T H E S E WO M E N A R E E M P OW E R E D BY A N Y ST R E TC H O F T H E I M A G I N AT I O N .”

M arc Morial, C’80, is amainstream politicianwith spit-shine polish.

Moderate and temperate, he’smastered the soothing patois ofhealing. He moves with ease betweenthe black and white communitieslike the head of a blended family.

He doesn’t do impolitic orprovocative. Yet here was thepresident of the National UrbanLeague on Meet the Press, on theSunday after Hurricane Katrinainundated his beloved New Orleans,pointing fingers. Morial, in fullRalph Ellison mode, implied thatthe federal government would haveacted with more urgency had adisaster struck power centers suchas Los Angeles, Washington or New York instead of the Bayou. Hisplaint stemmed from frustrationand the recognition that povertyhas gone underground – out ofsight, out of mind.

The upper and middle classes do not see the poor, says Morial,the former mayor of New Orleans,because they don’t live in theirneighborhoods, and the poor don’t get a fair hearing in themedia. Nor, he adds, speaking fromexperience, do civic leaders wish to shine a spotlight on their city’sproblems, much preferring toherald the progress of a glisteningdowntown development.

But this myopia does not obscurethe bitter truth long banished fromthe national conversation: poverty

is crawling out of the shadows oncemore. Hurricane Katrina gave us ahelicopter’s-eye view of it on therooftops of New Orleans. “On theone hand, yes, we’ve seen progresssince the 1960s,” says Morial. “Onthe other hand, there’s still deepeconomic disparities. The last threeyears have shown a slippage. Morepeople are in poverty in 2005 thanwere in poverty in 2001.”

In its 2005 report on the State ofBlack America, the National UrbanLeague cited big economic gapsbetween whites and blacks. The rateof unemployment among blackswas double that of whites, medianincome of blacks was $20,000 less(as of 2003) and less than half ofblacks owned homes compared tothree-quarters of whites.

Still, statistics also show thatpoverty has been cut in half sincethe 1960s, the legacy of historicgovernment programs such asMedicaid, Head Start, food stampsand the earned-income tax credit.Which is cold comfort to Morial,who finds it unacceptable that aquarter of African-Americanfamilies still live below the $20,000-a-year poverty line. (The rate iseven higher in New Orleans – 30percent.) Morial, an economicsmajor who returned to campus last fall to participate in the FoxSpeakers Forum, where he spokeabout the fallout from Katrina,refuses to accept piecemeal gains in the War on Poverty. He wants

22 P E N N A RTS & S C I E N C E S

BY LARRY TEITELBAUM

I AM AN INVISIBLE MAN…

I AM INVISIBLE, UNDERSTAND,

SIMPLY BECAUSE

PEOPLE REFUSE TO SEE ME.

—RALPH ELLISON, INVISIBLE MAN

Out ofAr

thur

Cop

elan

d

23W I N T E R 2 0 0 6

nothing short of conquest and usesthe language of shared sacrifice andnational commitment to lay downhis challenge to Americans.

“A country is governed by itsaspirations,” he says. “What kind ofcountry do we want to have? Whatkind of communities do we wantto build? We should never besatisfied if any element of thecountry is suffering. I think that acountry that has many of its peopleworking at full productivity isgoing to be a better country.”

Buried within the incrementalrise in poverty is a most disturbingstatistic, one that plants the seedsfor future dissolution: morechildren, 17.8 percent, are living in poverty now than in the1970s,when the figure never exceeded17.1 percent, according to the U.S.Census. This is where Morial reallygets up on his soapbox. To reversethis trend and eliminate what hecalls the “preordained destiny” offailure, Morial proposes going tothe root of the problem. He and theNational Urban League advocateearly education. They want childrento start school at age 3.

“I don’t view it as a cost,” explainsMorial during an interview in hisNew York office, which is decoratedwith street scenes of New Orleansand posters of Louis Armstrong,Jackie Robinson and Muhammad

Ali. “I view it as an investment. …What’s the return? Better test scores,better school attendance rates, lowerrates of social misbehavior andcrime, and higher graduation rates.”

“It’s not sexy,” he continues, “butit works. It’s more important to methan doing another mission to themoon. I love space. I want to seemen on Mars. But I don’t know whyNASA’s going back to the moon.”

Morial understands that thedynamics have changed. It is nolonger fashionable – or feasiblefrom the standpoint of public policy– to sink massive federal dollars into“curing” poverty. Morial hails fromthe teach-a-man-to-fish school of government. He championseconomic empowerment and favorsthe new grail of public-privatepartnerships. And he doesn’t haveto look far for a model. Last year,the National Urban Leaguelaunched the Urban EntrepreneurPartnership. The initiative bringstogether business, government and philanthropic and communityorganizations in five cities – Atlanta,Cincinnati, Cleveland, Jacksonvilleand Kansas City, Mo. – to help

more minorities start their ownbusinesses. (Interestingly, there areno plans to add New Orleans to the mix. Morial says his hometownlacks the leadership and businesscommunity buy-in to participate in such a program.)

Although Morial finds salvationin private investment, he remains atrue believer in government. Heknows its cadences and has seen itspower to move people. Son of thelegendary Ernest “Dutch” Morial,the first African-American mayor ofNew Orleans, for whom the city’sconvention center is named, MarcMorial inherited the mantle ofleadership. He ran New Orleans foreight years (1994-2002), and thecity prospered, with $400 million ininfrastructure improvements, 7,000new hotel rooms and communityreinvestment initiatives that created15,000 new homeowners. At thetail end of his term, he also servedtwo years as president of the U.S.Conference of Mayors, traversingthe country and learning about thehard realities that all cities face.His education has continued at theNational Urban League, which has

T h e u p p e r a n d m i d d l e c l a s s e s d o n o t s e e t h e p o o r, s ay s M o r i a l ,

b e c a u s e t h e y d o n ’ t l i ve i n t h e i r n e i g h b o r h o o d s, a n d t h e p o o r

d o n ’ t g e t a fa i r h e a r i n g i n t h e m e d i a .

“ I d o n ’ t v i e w i t a s a co s t ; I v i e w i t a s a n i nve s t m e n t .”

F O R M E R N E W O R L E A N S M AYO R A N D

U R B A N L E AG U E P R E S I D E N T S H E D S

A L I T T L E L I G H T O N P OV E RT Y

Sight…

more than 100 chapters, themajority of which he has visited.

“The situation in New Orleans is not unique,” says Morial, whoblames post-9/11 economic dol-drums, an inadequate minimumwage, a drop in the dollar’s valueand above all, outsourcing ascontributors to the rise in poverty.“The economy is not producing thenumbers of entry-level jobs that itonce did,” he says.

Does Morial, who is creditedwith turning around New Orleans,have the mojo to affect the nationaldialogue and raise the profile ofpoor black people?

Hugh Price, Morial’s predecessorat the National Urban League,believes he does. “[Marc] has akeen, pragmatic understanding ofwhat makes cities tick and howminorities and the poor are faringin them,” Price says. “Even prior toHurricane Katrina and certainly inthe wake of it, he positioned himselfas a formidable advocate foraddressing poverty in this country.”

But many worry that therenewed emphasis on poverty isreceding more rapidly than thefloodwaters in New Orleans.“Post-Katrina, the hope that thecountry would focus on povertyand the nexus between race andpoverty is dimming,” laments Mary Frances Berry, the GeraldineR. Segal Professor of AmericanSocial Thought and former chair of the U.S. Commission on CivilRights. “Proposed budget cuts inCongress, foot-dragging in theadministration at all levels and theshort attention span of the publicand the media have made a focuson remedying poverty problematic.Those who believe in the cause,however, must continue to push.”

Michael Eric Dyson, the AvalonFoundation Professor in theHumanities, whose latest book isCome Hell or High Water: HurricaneKatrina and the Color of Disaster,also sees Katrina-fatigue setting inand amnesia taking hold. “Therefusal to see can still render eventhe most visible figures quiteinvisible,” declares Dyson. “There isnot a lot of empathy in American culture for the poor. … They getdismissed, they get marginalized,they get demonized. They get seenas the carriers of a particular virus of pathology.”

Even Morial conjectures that the soul-searching brought on byKatrina could prove “fleeting,” morelike a “120-day fascination” with abig storm than a seismic policy shiftor change in heart. In which case,as Ralph Ellison wrote, poor blackswill return to being “a phantom inother people’s minds.” ■

Larry Teitelbaum is editor of thePenn Law Journal.

T h i s myo p i a d o e s n o t o b s c u r e t h e b i t t e r t r u t h l o n g

b a n i s h e d f r o m t h e n a t i o n a l co nve r s a t i o n : p o ve r t y

i s c ra w l i n g o u t o f t h e s h a d o ws o n c e m o r e .

P E N N A RTS & S C I E N C E S 24

W I N T E R 2 0 0 6 25

Ifirst met Elizabeth Castro, C’86, at Van Pelt CollegeHouse, which had a reputation for being where thegeeks and artists hung out. We had a wonderfulyear discussing everything under the sun and

concocting banana pancakes for the house brunch. Lizposed for my first attempts at portrait painting, and Iproofread some of her papers.

Over the last 20 years, we have remained in touch.But because Liz is modest about her accomplishments, Inever knew much about her impressive resume until aPenn friend asked about her at a dinner party. Catching on to my ignorance, he gently clued me in: “She’s famousnow, didn’t you know?” I knew she did something withcomputers, but she and I mostly talk about raising ourchildren and cats, and home renovation.

Turns out that Liz is the editor of the Macintosh Bible,5th edition, the version many still claim is the best forclarity and ease of use. She has written seven books forPeachpit Press, a leading publisher of Web and computerbooks, including Publishing a Blog with Blogger. The step-by-step guidebooks translate technobabble into usefulprose. Her HTML for the World Wide Web is the best-sellingbook about HTML in the world. In the universe of computermanuals, she’s the closest thing there is to a celebrity writer.

At Penn, Liz created her own major in Spanish studies.After graduation, she traveled to Barcelona to figure outwhat she wanted to do with her burning interest in allthings Catalan. Wandering the city and worrying aboutmoney, she spotted a job notice: Wanted: Native Englishspeaker who knows the Macintosh. All a delighted Lizcould think was, “Yes! Now I can stay in Barcelona!”

For her first assignment, instead of simply translating acomputer manual into English, she rewrote it. A delightedApple Spain invited her to take on another project thatused material from the Macintosh Bible. “Being the goody-two-shoes that I was, I wrote the folks who published the Macintosh Bible and asked if they’d mind if we usedsome of their material. Peachpit Press wrote back with a

very friendly note saying they would be very happy to letus – thank you for asking – and also would we like totranslate the Macintosh Bible into Spanish?” “Yes, please,”she told them.

She translated 14 more books, and Peachpit asked her to move back to the States to edit the 5th English editionof the Macintosh Bible. She returned with her Catalanhusband, Andreu Cabré, in 1993. Today they live on a smallNew England farm with their three children.

Life on “the farmstead” is a heady brew of chores,computers and homeschooling. Liz once sent me a letterthat described writing a new book while leaping up every20 minutes to check the sap level in the maple-sugaringpan. They had tapped their trees, and she was tending thesap while writing to deadline. Another letter recountedhow she had to stop at every page to check a box of babychicks and make sure none had tumbled into the water dish.

When I last chatted with Liz, I asked what she wasworking on. She described with enthusiasm how she andher daughter had mixed a beautiful shade of blue paintfor the dining-room walls. “How about computerprojects?” I now knew to ask. “Oh, yes, and I am writinganother book too!” ■

—NANCY BEA MILLER, C’85

RENDERING COMPUTERESE INTO

PLAIN ENGLISH – AND SPANISH

B R I E F

Translator of

In the universe

of computer

manuals, she’s

the closest thing

there is to a

celebrity writer.

Andr

eu C

abré

Geek

P E N N A RTS & S C I E N C E S

T hings go wrong in so many ways thatyou can’t imagine,”sociologist CharlesBosk told his class.He speaks softly,

with a touch of wry humor that’soften missed by students, andsometimes he sips from the silvercan of Diet Coke that is hisconstant companion.

On Tuesday afternoons last fall,18 freshmen sat at tables arrangedinto a U-shape to consider theintricacies of Bosk’s claim. Thefreshmen seminar on Mistakes,Errors, Accidents and Disastersreviewed mishaps big and small –from the loss of a single life due to medical error to big, public-spectacle tragedies like theChallenger explosion and large-scalecatastrophes like the leakage of toxicfumes from a pesticide plant thatkilled thousands in Bhopal, India.

“Accidents are normal,” Bosk saysof the fast-moving, interlockingparts of technology and people thatmake up social systems, “but wedon’t know their frequency nor do we know their consequences.We just know that anything thiscomplicated has built into it somesort of error rate. It may be infini-tesimally small, but it can have large consequences.”

This afternoon, the class islooking into how a couple of F-15fighters managed to shoot down twoBlack Hawk helicopters that hadpermission to enter the No Fly Zoneoverseen by an AWACS surveillanceplane in Iraq. All 26 peacekeepersonboard the helicopters were killedin the 1994 incident. The studentspass around plastic tubs of TraderJoe’s Crispy Crunch Oatmeal RaisinCookies and Triple Ginger Snapsthat the instructor had supplied.

“Was the system broken beforethe shoot-down?” Bosk asks. Mostin the class say it was, so he pressesthe point. “Is it possible that abroken system could function andeven be hailed as a model ofinterservice teamwork?”

Together, the group probed thetraining, the values and views ofpilots and technicians, the myriadoperational protocols, the shortfallsof even the best-written plans, thepressures for maximum efficiencyand all the unseen warnings ofbreakdown that piled up and thedecisions that were made at thebreakneck speed of high-performance jets.

“Shouldn’t they have seen theobvious flaws from the beginning?”states Jenny Ball.

“How would they know thesystem was broken unless somethinghappened?” Ben Cirlin shoots back.

“Why fix something that’sworking?” Al Moran adds, notingthat the no-fly system had operatedwithout incident for three years.

“If I were forced to pick a daywhen the system failed,” Boskobserves, “I’d say it was the day the

transponder code for identifyingfriend or foe was changed.”

“Aren’t there a lot of places wecan pinpoint like that?” KevinRosenberg protests.

“Probably,” says Bosk, “but that’smy favorite.”

In the military’s fast-paced, high-risk, high-tech world, a string ofharmless mishaps can sometimesline up and unfold suddenly intofiery debacle. In his recounting,Colonel Scott Snook, author ofFriendly Fire, today’s reading,concludes that everyone’s actionswere by-the-book and that theshoot-down was a “normal accident”that occurred in an otherwise highlyreliable organization.

“There’s something tragic aboutreading this account,” Boskcomments, “when all the differentpieces click into place, and weknow now what everyone involveddidn’t know then – that thosehelicopters were doomed.”

Carelessness? System error? Justplain bad luck? “I think it’s one ofthose puzzles that I’ll never quitefigure out,” Bosk says of the shardsof disaster that, when piecedtogether, make a picture of howthings go awry. “This is complicated,interesting and important materialthat’s worth thinking about in amillion different ways. I will havefailed if these students leave and saythis is how you prevent errors anddisasters, and these are the answers.”

“I’m surprised by how manyopen-ended questions there are,”Mike Eckert remarks near the endof class. ■

—PETER NICHOLS

Photo by Jon Perlmutter

W I T H C L A S S

26 P E N N A RTS & S C I E N C E S

Mistakes, Errors, Accidents & Disasters

“

SOCIOLOGIST LEADS INVESTIGATION OF HOW THINGS GO WRONG

“Accidents are normal, but we don’t know their frequency nor do

we know their consequences.”

W I N T E R 2 0 0 6 27

P E N N A RTS & S C I E N C E S

Class of 1966When it came time to decide on a 40th-reunion gift from the Class of1966, Bill Constantine, C’66, WG’68, and Steve Roth, W’66, knew just what to do.The School of Arts and Sciences hadundertaken a floor-to-rafters renovationof Bennett Hall, and not long ago,their classmate Judith Rodin, CW’66,had stepped down after 10 years aspresident of Penn. As an undergraduate,Rodin had been the last president of theWomen’s Student Government, whichwas based in Bennett Hall, and aspresident of the University, she hadchampioned the building’s restoration.“All the stars just lined up,” saysConstantine, who contributed the lead

gift for the Judith S.Rodin UndergraduateStudy Center on therestored building’ssecond floor. “SinceBennett Hall was thelocation of the Collegefor Women until 1974,it seemed like the ideal location in whichto provide lastingrecognition of Judy’samazing tenure aspresident of Penn,”adds Roth.

Class givingdirector Evelyn Schwartz notes withastonishment that the ambitiousfundraising campaign for the Judith S.Rodin Undergraduate Study Center,the Class of 1966 Endowed Scholarship Fund and contributions to the PennFund are three times larger than theusual reunion class gifts. “The responsefrom the class has been very enthusiastic,”notes Roth, “which makes us veryproud.” To make a gift, contact Evelyn Schwartz at 215-898-3645 orevelynsz@ben.dev.upenn.edu.

In MemoriamThe School of Arts and Sciences issaddened to announce the passing of thefollowing members of the faculty in 2005:

John Cebra, Annenberg Professor ofNatural Sciences (biology), October 7

David DeLaura, Avalon FoundationProfessor Emeritus in the Humanities(English), April 9

Roland Frye, Felix Schelling ProfessorEmeritus of English Literature, January 13

Peter Gaeffke, professor emeritus ofSouth Asia regional studies, March 30

Paul Korshin, professor of English,March 2

George Rochberg, Annenberg ProfessorEmeritus of the Humanities (music),May 29

John Sabini, professor of psychology,July 15

Paul Watson, associate professoremeritus of history of art, May 15

Chung-Tao Yang, professor emeritus ofmathematics, September 15

To make a tribute donation in memoryof deceased faculty, stipulate the nameand send a check, payable to the Trusteesof the University of Pennsylvania,to Laura Weber, 3440 Market Street,Suite 300, Philadelphia, PA 19104.

28

S A S P A R T N E R S H I P SAdvancing Our Mission

I n the five years since former NabiscoGroup Holdings chairman Steven F.

Goldstone, Esq., C’67, made a $2 milliongift to strengthen Penn’s Philosophy,Politics and Economics (PPE) major,enrollment has increased by more than 30 percent, making it one of the largestmajors in the College. Goldstone thinksthe future looks even brighter, thanks to the leadership of PPE director Cristina Bicchieri, the Carol and MichaelLowenstein Endowed Term Professor.

The program lies at the intersection of the social sciences and humanities and, according to Bicchieri, encouragesstudents to “use tools from differentdisciplines to solve complex real-worldproblems.” A philosopher of sciencewhose interests range from behavioral

ethics to game theory, Bicchieri practicesthe same kind of interdisciplinary thinkingthat she preaches. Goldstone describes heras “an extraordinary person and real doerwhose vision for PPE will help it tobecome one of the best interdisciplinaryprograms in the country.”

Goldstone also attributes the success of the program to former director Samuel Freeman, the Steven F. GoldstoneEndowed Term Professor of Philosophy,and to the students, with whom he keepsin regular contact. Adds Bicchieri, “Steve,too, has been a tremendous force in theprogram and is committed to making theexperience exceptional for students.”

—BROOKE ERIN DUFFY

P A R T N E R S Real Doers

Cristina Bicchieri and Steven Goldstone

Anna

Kap

lan

Artist’s rendering ofthe Judith S. RodinUndergraduate Study Center

Backseat DriversAs students, Jon Schmerin, C’00, andJeremy Shure, C’00, would often sit inthe back row of their classes. So it wasonly natural that they would make giftsto purchase chairs in the back row ofthe fourth-floor lecture hall in therefurbished Fisher-Bennett Hall.Schmerin and Shure liked the idea ofleaving “something tangible” behindand chose to name chairs in honor oftheir parents. “My parents made itpossible for me to go to Penn, and thisis one way for me to say thank you,”Shure says. They are looking to membersof the Class of 2000 to help them “fillthe row,” and SAS is working to fill the hall with named chairs. “Havingclassmates join us in our efforts to fillthe back row would make this classroomspecial and leave a lasting impressionfor those who sit in the row,” Schmerinsays. For a gift of $2,500 (payable overfive years), donors’ names will beengraved on a silver plaque on the back of their chairs. To make a chair-naming gift in Fisher-Bennett Hall,contact Beth Wright at 215-898-5262 or ewright@sas.upenn.edu.

Film & Media Pioneers“When we were putting together thecinema studies program,” explains Peter Decherney, an assistant professor ofcinema studies and English, “we realizedPenn had a long tradition of filminnovation and study, and there were allthese alumni in the industry – directors,actors, producers, studio executives,screenwriters – not to mention filmscholars.” That’s when Warren Lieberfarb,W’65, stepped in to fund Penn Film &Media Pioneers. “I thought the notion ofbridging the past, present and future bybringing together alumni, faculty andstudents would be an excellent way tobring greater attention and participationto the cinema studies program,” he says.Lieberfarb, a Penn trustee, is chairman ofLieberfarb & Associates, a Los Angeles-based consulting and investment firmspecializing in media, entertainment andtechnology. The symposium, whichtook place last fall, explored some ofPenn’s pioneers such as early filmmakerEadweard Muybridge, consideredcontemporary scholarship, looked atsome student cinema projects andimagined the future of media education.Besides Lieberfarb, other alumnipanelists included Douglas Belgrad, C’87,president of production for ColumbiaPictures, and Duncan Kenworthy, ASC’73,one of Britain’s leading film producers(Notting Hill and Love Actually). Panelist

Douglas Gomery, aprofessor of mediastudies from theUniversity ofMaryland, thoughtthe presentations byPenn students werethe best part of theprogram. “Thestudent panel gave me hope for thefuture,” he says.

Make your giftto the School of Arts and SciencesCHECK Send your check, payable to theTrustees of the University ofPennsylvania, to Laura Weber,3440 Market Street, Suite 300,Philadelphia, PA 19104.

CREDIT CARDMake a gift online athttp://www.sas.upenn.edu/home/views/alumni.html.

APPRECIATED SECURITIESContact Laura Weber at215-898-5262 orlweber@sas.upenn.edu.

OTHER ASSETS,LIFE-INCOME GIFTS AND ESTATE INTENTIONSGifts can be made using assets like real estate, art orcollectibles. Some can even pay you income for life or bedesignated to benefit SASwhen you pass on. Forinformation, contact Penn’sOffice of Gift Planning at800-223-8236 orplanned_giving@ben.dev.upenn.edu.

MATCHING GIFTSMany organizations match gifts to the School from theiremployees. Ask your employer for more information.

Lisa

God

frey

W I N T E R 2 0 0 6 29

Warren Lieberfarb (left) and Duncan Kenworthy

P E N N A RTS & S C I E N C E S 30 P E N N A RTS & S C I E N C E S

Someday I suspect you’ll ask mewhat I do. You’ll ask, “What ispediatric palliative care?”

I wonder what I’ll say, whetherI’ll try to explain the important yetdifficult truths of this job or simplyrecollect the encounters of that day.

This morning, for instance,having gently knocked, I step into a patient room and close the door, leaving behind the hospitalhubbub. The mother sits on a bluesofa by the window at the far endof the room, her baby in her arms, wrapped in a white blanket.Standing next to her is her ownmother, hands on her daughter’sshoulders. I approach, passing theempty crib, the tray of medicalsupplies, the silent monitors,and I sit at the edge of the sofa.Midmorning sunlight cascadesthrough the window, envelopingus. The mother looks at me, tearson her cheeks. We say nothing.Then, after a while, she says, “Ithappened so peaceful. I never knewsomeone could die so peacefully.”

Several hours later, in anotherhospital room, bending over toexamine a teenage boy, I see amaroon line of dried blood wherehis teeth meet his gums. Pale

lips open, sallow eyelids closed,the sound of his unconsciousbreathing fills the otherwise quietroom, his chest rising and fallingconspicuously yet adagio. Hisbedside is ringed with family. Oneholds his limp hand; another strokeshis black hair. I check the doses on the medication pumps infusingdrugs through the IV line. Thefather steadies his gaze on me, and Iask him the question that we agreedearlier was, at this juncture, the mostimportant question: “Do you thinkyour son is comfortable?” He nods.

The final patient I visit today is,at that moment, alone. The motherand nurse had just bathed the child.Even at some distance, she smelledlike lavender, her brown haircombed and tied back with a purpleribbon. Propped up in bed, pillowssupporting her twisted limbs andback, she is looking in the directionof the TV, which plays her favoritevideo. I greet her but expect noresponse. With the odor of illnessabsent from the room, I knowimmediately that she has improved.Glancing at the record of hertemperature, I see further confir-mation of this impression. Then themother re-enters the room, andfrom the look on her face, I am surethat this crisis has ebbed, even as weboth know that, like the ocean tides,the physical havoc wrought by theillness will someday flow again.“Hi, doc,” she says. “Well, this is amuch better day. … This is what Iwas hoping for … just to get her

back to that place where she’sstable enough to go home, at leastfor a while, and do the few thingsthat she really loves to do.”

In the car driving home, I weavethrough the traffic. So manythoughts, feelings, images, decisionsfrom work clutter my mind.Navigating is always a challenge.I pull into the driveway, stoppingshort of the yellow kickball and redtricycle. Walking toward the door, Iready myself, trying to be as presentand mindful as possible. From thefoyer, I hear both of you shout out,“Daddy!” and come tearing aroundthe corner, running up to me withyour arms outstretched. Savoringmy favorite part of the day, I pickeach of you up and jostle youaround in the physical play of love.

Just how I will answer yourquestions about my job is not fornow, but for another day – a day I look toward with uncertainty,yet with conviction that, despitethe inscrutable and often cruelworkings of fate, we must work to create our hope. ■

Chris Feudtner, G’89, Gr’95, M’95, isa pediatrician specializing in complexchronic conditions and palliativecare at the Children’s Hospital ofPhiladelphia and in the Division ofGeneral Pediatrics at the Universityof Pennsylvania. He lives with hiswife, Lynda Bascelli, a family-medicine physician, and their sons,Jack (3 years old) and Hank (2).

To My Young SonsBY CHRIS FEUDTNER

L A S T W O R D

TH E M OT H E R LO O K S AT M E,

T E A R S O N H E R C H E E K S.

WE S AY N OT H I N G.

Jubilee Chocolates in Philadelphiasells high-end, handcraftedconfections that come with a storyline. Co-founder Kira Baker, C’97,GEd’99, uses locally grown ingredientsor those from businesses with aconscience. She buys raspberriesfrom Glenn Brendle’s organic farm in Gap, Pa., and coffee from Mut Vitz,a Mexican cooperative working toimprove living standards. Her mintchocolates take an earthy flavorfrom mint leaves grown in WestPhilly gardens tended by students of Drew Elementary School, part ofPenn’s Urban Nutrition Initiative.The pleasure may not be guilt-free,but it’s for a good cause.

L A S T L O O K

Kira

Photo by James B. Abbott

31W I N T E R 2 0 0 6

Factory& the Chocolate

Non-ProfitU.S. Postage

P A I DPermit #2563Philadelphia, PA

University of Pennsylvania3440 Market Street, Suite 300Philadelphia, PA 19104-3325

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCESGRADUATE DIVISIONCOLLEGE OF GENERAL STUDIES

Penn Arts & Sciences Magazine ispublished by SAS External Affairs.

Editorial OfficesSchool of Arts and SciencesUniversity of Pennsylvania 3440 Market Street, Suite 300 Philadelphia, PA 19104-3325Phone: 215-898-5262Fax: 215-573-2096E-mail: pennsas@sas.upenn.eduhttp://www.sas.upenn.edu/home/news/nwsltr_index.html

Rebecca W. BushnellDean, School of Arts and SciencesPeter NicholsEditorJoseph McLaughlinAssociate Editor Arthur CopelandArt DirectorGallini Hemmann, Inc.Design and Production

The University of Pennsylvania valuesdiversity and seeks talented students,faculty, and staff from diverse backgrounds.The University of Pennsylvania does notdiscriminate on the basis of race, sex,sexual orientation, religion, color, nationalor ethnic origin, age, disability, or statusas a Vietnam Era Veteran or disabledveteran in the administration ofeducational policies, programs oractivities; admissions policies; scholarshipand loan awards; athletic, or otherUniversity administered programs oremployment. Questions or complaintsregarding this policy should be directed to: Executive Director, Office of Affirmative Action and Equal OpportunityPrograms, 3600 Chestnut Street,Sansom Place East, Suite 228, Philadelphia,PA 19104-6106 or 215-898-6993 (voice) or 215-898-7803 (TDD).

A CELEBRATION OF INTELLECTUAL EXCELLENCE

Henry Louis Gates Jr.The Humanities and the New Black RenaissanceHenry Louis Gates Jr. is America’s pre-eminent scholar of African andAfrican-American literature. A sharp and engaging speaker, Timemagazine says he “combines the braininess of the legendary W.E.B.DuBois and the chutzpah of P.T. Barnum.”

Gates’ scholarly achievements have led him to argue logically andeloquently in support of African-American contributions to Americanculture. He rails against the depiction of blacks in the popular media and the lack of recognition given to black works. He also is disturbed by blacks’ attitude toward education and athletics, saying “Far too manyblack kids treat basketball courts and football fields as if they wereclassrooms and alternative school systems.”

Thursday, March 23, 2006, 4:30 p.m.see http://www.sas.upenn.edu/home/news/deans_06.htmlfor more information

2006 Dean’s Forum