INAUTHENTIC BLUES • FATHER OF MICROSURGERY • EBADI NOBEL PEACE PRIZEHISTORIAN’S TAKE ON IRAQ WAR • FEISTY LAWYER STOPS FCC

A publication of the School of Arts and SciencesUniversity of Pennsylvania / Winter 2004

INAUTHENTIC BLUESFATHER OF MICROSURGERYEBADI NOBEL PEACE PRIZEHISTORIAN’S TAKE ON IRAQ WARFEISTY LAWYER STOPS FCC

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Got poets? SAS has an English department full of them,and their creativity adds up to more than words on a page.

WORD MECHANICS

WORD MECHANICS

D E A N ’ S C O L U M N

Leadership LessonsBY DEAN SAMUEL H. PRESTON

The School has afirm tradition and a well establishedfoundation on which to build thisacademic enterprise,and we expect thatthe new departmentwill become a leaderin the discipline of criminology.

In the heady days when NASAwas pushing toward the firstlunar landing, a TV crew

traveled to the Johnson SpaceCenter to interview workers abouttheir jobs. Many talked to thespace agency’s can-do engineersand managers, but one reporterstopped to ask a janitor what hedid at NASA. “My job is to helpput a man on the moon,” hedeclared with evident pride and satisfaction.

From this floor cleaner’sperspective, leadership is notsimply the prerogative ofadministrators. An organizationthat relies solely on top-downleadership is not using its mostimportant resource, which is thecreativity and energy of its people.In the janitor’s view, and in mine,leadership is earned andexemplified, and comes from everypart of an organization, even fromthe “bottom.” Leaders take chargeof the domain in which they workand within it, accept personalresponsibility for achieving themission of the whole enterprise.

Leadership is a subject that haslately come to the fore of ourstudents’ attention. Manyundergraduates who come to SAShave been leaders in their homecommunities and see themselves asfuture leaders. They are lookingfor mentors and for ideas abouthow best to develop as leaders.

In 1999, the School of Arts andSciences was the recipient of a $10 million gift from Penn trusteeRobert A. Fox, C’52, which fundsthe Fox Leadership Program forundergraduates. In the fall, hedonated an additional $2 million to the program. Bob (center inphoto above) is himself a leader inhis entrepreneurial industry and oncampus. He exhibits the balance ofqualities a leadership programshould strive to elevate: he’spersuasive yet a good listener,concisely analytical but creative,forceful but empathetic, extremelygregarious with a good sense ofhumor yet on point at all moments.

In addition to a full complementof courses, symposia, and guestspeakers, the Fox LeadershipProgram creates an arena forstudents to take charge of theorganization and advance its goals. Starting from the top withforceful director John DiIulio, theFrederick Fox Leadership Professorof Politics, Religion and CivilSociety, down to the rank and fileof undergraduates who benefitfrom its offerings, the Fox programexemplifies an organization thathas leaders all the way through it.

If the interactions I’ve had with groups of these impressivestudents are any indication, the FoxLeadership Program has been a striking success. It is one of theimportant ways in which the Schoolof Arts and Sciences is helping toproduce the leaders of tomorrow. ■

C O N T E N T S

3SAS Journal

5SAS Frontiers

7Ezra’s DreamSAS Poets Realize Modernist’s Vision

1 0Conning the BluesSociologist Explodes theMyth of the Authentic Hole-in-the-Wall

1 3Man of ActionJulius Jacobson,Innovator Extraordinaire

1 4The Work of HopeSowing Seeds of Grace in a Crumbling Town

1 8Picture ThisSenior Makes Artout of Journalism

2 0The Right to Hear and Be HeardFeisty Lawyer Battles Big Media

2 2Shirin EbadiProfile in Courage—and Hope

2 3Through a Glass HistoricallyHistorian’s Perspective on the War in Iraq

2 4SAS Partnerships

A N O R G A N I Z AT I O N T H AT R E L I E S S O L E LY O N TO P-

D OW N L E A D E R S H I P I S N OT U S I N G I T S M O ST

I M P O RTA N T R E S O U R C E , W H I C H I S T H E C R E AT I V I T Y

A N D E N E R GY O F I T S P E O P L E .

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

Ben AgainIn his new book, Benjamin Franklin: AnAmerican Life, author Walter Isaacson callsPenn’s founder “the most accomplishedAmerican of his age.” On September 9,Isaacson, president and CEO of the AspenInstitute and one-time journalist and editor,came to Zellerbach Theatre to discuss the“spunky, self-taught” inventor, entrepreneur,and founding father. As much a man ofpragmatism as of principle, Isaacson noted,Franklin was the only contributor presentat all three key founding moments ofAmerican independence: the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, thenegotiations for the Treaty of Paris, whichended the Revolutionary War, and theconvention that produced the U.S.Constitution. Isaacson’s presentation wasfollowed by an intellectual exchangebetween the biographer and Bruce Kuklick,the Roy F. and Jeannette P. NicholsProfessor of American History.

Joseph Cornell’s Worlds of WonderOne of America’s leading collectors ofcontemporary art, Robert Lehrman, C’72,founded the Voyager Foundation toeducate the public about modern andcontemporary art. Chairman of the boardfor the Hirshhorn Museum and SculptureGarden at the Smithsonian, Lehrman hasshared his expertise—and his collections—with Penn undergraduates as a guest inthe course Contemporary Art and the Art ofCurating (see Fall 2003, p.23). Last spring,he came to campus to lecture on thefantastical art of Joseph Cornell, whosegently surrealistic collages and boxes takepride of place in Lehrman’s comprehensivecollection. On February 25, 2004, Lehrmanreturns to campus and will discuss anddemonstrate the first project of theVoyager Foundation: a DVD-ROM thatoffers “hands-on” access to Cornell’s playfulart. With this technology, the artworks canbe presented with multiple 3-D views,animation, and video, including interviewswith scholars and those who knew theartist. The disk is part of a richly illustratedbook, Joseph Cornell: Shadowplay . . .Eterniday, which has 231 splendid photosand essays by Lehrman and other art

experts. In the book’s preface, Lehrmanwrites that living with Cornell’s artworks“has afforded me the opportunity toabsorb and respond to their presence inways not accessible to the scholar, critic,or other interested viewer.” His February 25presentation will take place at 5:30 p.m.at the Institute of Contemporary Art(http://www.icaphila.org/)on Penn’scampus. Lehrman’s lecture will be adisplay of Cornell’s beautiful art, but itwill also showcase a new and powerfuleducational tool. For more information,call the ICA at 215.898.5911.

3W I N T E R 2004

S A S J O U R N A L

S A S J O U R N A L

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

Fox Leadership StudentsThink BigStudents in the Fox Leadership Programare putting their leadership skills to workin an impoverished community inParaguay. In May, the planned Think BigInitiative will bring 25 students to the townof Tobati, a provincial area east of thecapital, Asuncion. Tobati has about 21,000people, three-quarters of whom are underthe age of 19. Over a third of thepopulation lives on less than a dollar a day.Think Big will undertake a range of projectsdesigned to improve the health andeducation of the region’s people. SeniorBenjamin Cruse, student director of the Fox Leadership Program, speculates thatbecause of the disproportionately youthfulpopulation, “slight improvements in theseareas could catalyze a vast set of changes.”

The students are looking to raise$48,000 to fund the project, which will include building wells and publicrestrooms, collecting and distributingchildren’s shoes to reduce diseases fromfoot parasites, and constructing a newhospital wing. The group also plans tocollect and distribute children’s books tofacilitate learning English, a requirementfor admission to Paraguayan universities.Cruse says he is optimistic that theinitiative will “make a difference,” notingthat the Fox program volunteers are“experienced in community service andunderstand the value of giving back to ourglobal community.” For more informationor to support the Tobati initiative, contactBenjamin Cruse at 215.746.2832 orblcruse@sas.upenn.edu.

Political Scientist in IraqIn the fall, Brendan O’Leary traveled toIraq, where he was invited to join a bodyof international experts advising theKurdish regional government on theconstitutional reconstruction of Iraq.O’Leary, the Lauder Professor of PoliticalScience and director of the Solomon AschCenter for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict,was an advisor on the Irish peace processand has worked for the UN and theEuropean Union on constitutional matters.He came to Penn in 2002 after 19 years at the London School of Economics andPolitical Science.

In Kurdistan, he reports that Americansoldiers go about unarmed and maintaincordial relations with the locals, whotreated him as an American on his trip.“I had a Southern military officer say tome, ‘You look like an American, you talk like a Brit, and you’ve got an Irish name,huh?’— which I suppose was spot-on.”

The main issue in the give and take over a new constitution, he says, will be theKurdish insistence on a binationalfederation. “They will be seeking not onlyextensive autonomy but power sharing inthe federal government in a way thatguarantees there will be no repetition ofpast resiling from commitments on thepart of the Baghdad government. And,”he adds, “one of the questions for the Kurdswill be, Should there even be a Baghdadgovernment?”

Logic and InfoThe connections among logic, mathematics,and technology are having profound effectsin the modern world. Theoretical work inmath and philosophical logic laid thefoundation for the revolution in computerand information technology. A new SASmajor (and minor) in logic, information, andcomputation will draw from courses inphilosophy, math, linguistics, and computerand information science. The newacademic program will provide a strongbackground for students to pursue thecomputational aspects of the natural and social sciences as well as careers ininformation technology.

Celebrating Women’sStudiesOn October 30, Harvard economistClaudia Goldin kicked off a year-longcelebration of 30 years of women andgender studies at Penn. Goldin, whotaught economics in SAS from 1985 to1990, gave the keynote address, Mommiesand Daddies on the Fast Track: Success ofParents in Demanding Professions. Thetalk traced out what she called the “longand winding road” of choices made bycollege educated women since the turn of the 20th century. What is clear, Goldinremarked, is that “each generation builton the successes and frustrations of theprevious ones.” Notes Demi Kurz, co-director of women’s studies, “Gender is abasic organizing principle of every society,so it’s absolutely relevant to everything.”The schedule of 30th anniversary eventscan be found at the women’s studieswebsite: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/wstudies/index.html.

W I N T E R 2004 5

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

Water (black string) highlighting “hedgehog”defect in a liquid crystal droplet (red)

Condensed MatterTom Lubensky, the Mary Amanda WoodProfessor of Physics and chair of thephysics and astronomy department,received the 2004 Oliver E. BuckleyCondensed Matter Prize from the AmericanPhysical Society. The prestigious awardwas given for “seminal contributions tothe theory of condensed matter systems,”a field of physics that studies materialshaving applications to modern electronics,superconductors, nanotechnology, and otherinnovations. A large part of Lubensky’sresearch focuses on soft condensed matterphysics, which looks at substances that aresoft to the touch, such as membranes andliquid crystals. “Living matter is thequintessential soft material,” Lubenskyobserves,“and much of what we know aboutthe physical properties of living mattercomes from condensed soft matter physics.”

Former SAS Dean HonoredThe department of history and sociology of science (HSS) hosted a symposium onNovember 1 in honor of Rosemary Stevens,the Stanley I. Sheerr Endowed Term ProfessorEmerita in the Social Sciences. A native ofEngland, Stevens developed a strong andabiding interest in American medicine andits history and in organizational and socialcomparisons between healthcare in Britainand the U.S. She came to Penn in 1979 andserved as SAS dean from 1991 to 1996.“Rosemary Stevens is one of this country’sleading experts on the history of medicalpolicy and medical institutions,” said HSSchair Ruth Schwartz Cowan, the Janice andJulian Bers Professor of the History andSociology of Science. Stevens is the authorof six books, including In Sickness and inWealth: American Hospitals in theTwentieth Century.

Useful and OrnamentalCan human nature benefit fromcultivation? Erasmus and otherRenaissance humanists thought so—they often used gardening comparisonsin their writings on education.Rebecca Bushnell, professor of Englishand dean of the College, wonderedwhat these analogies might have meantto readers of the time. What wouldthey have understood by “the culture ofnature, human or otherwise?” To findout, she turned to gardening manuals of the 16th and 17th centuries. Herdiscoveries animate Green Desire:Imagining Early Modern EnglishGardens, published recently by Cornell University Press.

“I was surprised,” she says, “at thepresence of serious literary themes inthese supposedly utilitarian how-tobooks. What is truly English? What isthe proper balance between beauty andprofit? What is beauty in nature? Why,I asked, were these ordinary gardenersso concerned with these matters?”

Part of the concern was pragmatic,she found. In an era of increasing socialmobility, of enclosure of common landsby private estates, the yeoman orhusbandman might advance his stationby turning gardener to a gentleman avidfor “curious” plants, or by becominghimself a plantsman to supply the tradein fashionable specimens.

Writers of manuals betrayed the age’sanxiety about the degree to whichnature could be manipulated. Theyberated each other for promulgatingold wives’ tales, or “whole Volumes byimagination only.” As the “new science”spread in England, they saw themselvesas neither pedant scholars nor vulgargossips, but practitioners of directobservation recorded in a plain rationalstyle. This too, as Bushnell observes,served social aspirations, as thegentleman reader became a collector ofrarities and an amateur experimenter.

Plant choice as a class marker did not end with early modern gardeningmanuals. These days, it’s annuals vs.perennials in the status wars. “Somecommunity boards in certainsubdivisions,” Bushnell reports, “havebanned annuals as vulgar, along withclotheslines and metal swing sets!”

—RANDALL COUCH

La DifférenceJust 7 percent of French adults areoverweight, as compared with 22 percentof Americans, and proportionally farfewer people die of heart disease inFrance. For more than a decade,American dieters and scientists havewondered—not without a little envy—how the French get away with eatingrich sauces, buttery croissants, andcreamy cheeses and still remain thinnerand healthier. At first, investigatorsthought the wine, or maybe the oliveoil, explained the “French paradox.”But psychology professor Paul Rozin saysthere’s really no paradox at all, unlessyou assume that fat is the major causeof obesity and cardiovascular disease.Current research is showing fat to be

less of a risk factor than previouslybelieved. “While the French eat morefat than Americans, they probably eatslightly fewer calories,” he says, “whichwhen compounded over years, canamount to substantial differences inweight [gain].”

Together with two College students(Kimberly Kabnick, C’01, L’04, and Erin Pete, C’01) and some Parisianresearchers, Rozin, the Edmund J. andLouise W. Kahn Professor for FacultyExcellence, compared the eating habitsof diners in both countries.

For the study, investigators went withdigital scales into restaurants and fast-food outlets on both continents andweighed each item served. “We sawwhat every tourist knows,” Rozin pointsout, “but we measured it. Not only arethe portions [25 percent] smaller inFrance, people spend more timeeating.” The portion appraisers alsocompared serving sizes in cookbooksand single-serve foods in supermarkets,and again found Americans eatingmore. People tend to eat all of what’sput in front of them, Rozin explains.“Much discussion of the ‘obesityepidemic’ in the U.S. has focused onpersonal willpower, but our studyshows that the environment also playsan important role.”

Celestial Fossils FoundWhen we think of our solar system, wenormally picture the Sun ringed roundby nine planets and assorted moons,comets, and asteroids. It wasn’t until1992 that astronomers started todiscover “planetesimals,” giant ice-crusted rocks adrift just beyond Neptunein a region known as the Kuiper Belt.Last January a team of scientists, led byphysics and astronomy associateprofessor Gary Bernstein, spotted threeof them, using NASA’s Hubble SpaceTelescope. The city-size chunks (withthe pedestrian names 2003 BF91, 2003BG91, and 2003 BH91) are the smallestever found in the frozen fringe of debris,three to nine billion miles from the Sun.Astronomers believe the planets werebuilt up from collisions amongplanetesimals more than 4 billion yearsago. By studying the leftover fragmentsin the Kuiper Belt, researchers hope to gain a better understanding of thesolar system’s early history just aspaleontologists study fossils to learnabout prehistoric life on Earth.

Bernstein and his colleagues, whoinclude physics and astronomy postdocDavid Trilling, had expected the Hubble’sorbiting optics to detect at least 60 smallfossils over 15 days of observation.Nearly 1,000 bigger ones had alreadybeen charted by earthbound telescopesless acute than Hubble. “Discoveringmany fewer Kuiper Belt objects than waspredicted makes it difficult to understandhow so many comets appear near Earth,since many comets were thought tooriginate in the Kuiper Belt,” Bernsteinremarks. “This is a sign that perhapsthe smaller planetesimals have beenshattered into dust by colliding with eachother over the past few billion years.”

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

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

Mar

k St

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Psychology Professor Paul Rozin

SAS POETS REALIZE MODERNIST’S VISION

Was there any greaterwatershed inAmerican poetrythan the meeting

of undergrad Ezra Pound, G’06,and med student William CarlosWilliams, M’06, Hon’52, in a Quad room at the turn of the 20th century? Many of thebudding artists who gatheredaround the young modernist poetregarded Penn, with its emphasison linguistics and historicalscholarship, as a den of philistines.In decades-long correspondence to his old advisor, English chairFelix Schelling, Pound urged theuniversity to establish a creativewriting fellowship or endowmentfor poetry. Schelling dismissed theupstart poet as a “weed.”

Only in retirement did the old professor concede that therewas “something to be said for Mr. Pound’s proposition involvingthe encouragement, even inacademic circles, for the creativespirit.” Today, with at least fivepoets in the English department,the weeds are blossoming all overcampus into the garden that Pound had dreamed about.

The poetry revival at Penn goes back to the opening of KellyWriters House in 1995. Once thehome of the university chaplain,the gothic Victorian house onLocust Walk retains its aura ofenlightenment, except these daysit’s English professor Al Filreis

carrying the torch—preaching thegospel of contemporary writing.Filreis, the Kelly Family Professorand faculty director of WritersHouse, says the faculty founderswanted to create “a free space inwhich poetry and poets canflourish outside the curriculum”—free of the “academic caste system.”

Bob Perelman came to theEnglish department in 1990

with an impressive CV—master’s in classics from Michigan, M.F.A.from the Writers Workshop atIowa, and a Ph.D. from Berkeley—not to mention eight collections of verse and one book of criticism.He’d left behind a revolutionarywriting community in Californiathat he’d helped to build. Oftenreferred to as the Language Poets,they were a loose alliance of writerswhose work was distinguished byits atypical syntax, humorouslanguage, and political messages.

One of the chief wranglers ofthis herd of cats, Perelmanorganized poetry groups, talk series,

and readings in San Francisco.When Writers House opened, heinstinctively took up the cause ofrecruiting speakers and visitors.The early guest list reads like aWho’s Who of innovativecontemporary poetry. “That’s howyou make a rich farm,” explainsFilreis. “You nourish the soil andthen things will grow out of it. Bobcame and nourished an interest inthis kind of writing and in poetryin general.” More writers followed.

One of the most vocalregulars at Writers Housewas a New Yorker named

Charles Bernstein. At the sametime Perelman was mobilizing theWest Coast poets in the 1970s,Bernstein co-founded an EastCoast literary magazine calledL=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, aphotocopied, coverless, stapledbooklet. Published until 1981, whileBernstein made a living as a medicalwriter, it was one of the biggest littlemagazines of the period. Not onlydid it give the emerging genre a

7W I N T E R 2004

COVER STORY

BY TED MANN

The text quoted on the magazine cover is from William Carlos Williams’ introduction to The Wedge.

Ezra’s Dream

Bernstein insists the main goal is to get students’

fingers dancing, “to constantly have them writing and

thinking about writing.”

name, it jump-started the careers ofdozens of poets and critics,including Bernstein’s.

The renowned poet and critic joined theEnglish faculty in 2003.Even before classes

started in September, Bernstein had grand designs, the first of which was PENNsound(www.writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/),a project to digitize poetry readingsand distribute them on the Web.Still in its embryonic stage, thewebsite will be a repository for the voices of poets—the celebratedand the not-so-famous—readingtheir works. “I think that poetry is an acoustic medium,” he says,“and the performance andrecording of it is as fundamental as the printed version.”

Sound recordings of poetry are a basic part of Bernstein’s

undergraduate courses, or, as hecalls them, “reading workshops.”In a mahogany-meets-Intelclassroom in the Center forPrograms in Contemporary Writing(CPCW), poems are often displayedon a plasma-screen TV whileBernstein cues up the audio files.“The reading performance becomesa very integral part of the students’experience of poetry,” he elaborates.“You can’t underestimate howimportant audio recording is.The amount of information that’sconveyed in an audio tape is much

greater than possible with thealphabet.” In his experimentalwriting seminar, Bernsteinemphasizes collaboration.Throughout class, his students passaround a wireless keyboard andpunch in lines to an evolving poem.These quilts of words are oftenwitty and interesting, but the poet-instructor insists the main goal is to get students’ fingers dancing,“to constantly have them writingand thinking about writing.”

That objective prevailsthroughout the rest of 3808Walnut, the newly formed Centerfor Programs in ContemporaryWriting, which houses both thecreative writing and critical writingprograms. Situated in the backyardof Writers House, the restoredbuilding is populated by advisorswho counsel undergrads on genresfrom short stories to term papers.Greg Djanikian, C’71, head of theuniversity’s ballooning creativewriting program, plays the role ofmain mentor.

Djanikian returned to Penn in1983 as an established poet with aflair for lyrical, narrative verse.He has published four books ofpoetry, dealing with everythingfrom his Armenian heritage to the relationships of husbands,wives, and lovers. “His poems tellstories,” says former Writers Housedirector Kerry Sherin, C’87. “Theyare true to the emotion.”

In the 1960s, Djanikian recalls,“there was no place to hang your hat, no place to go talk about writing” at Penn. Theestablishment of Writers Houseand CPCW solved that problem,but now, Djanikian says, thewriting buzz has bled into thecurriculum. Over 100 Englishmajors concentrate in creativewriting, and the number of creativecourses has climbed to an all-timehigh of 18, including four onpoetry-writing. With demandoutpacing supply, Djanikian andFilreis have proposed changes tothe English major that incorporatea new creative writing “emphasis”as well as a minor for non-majors.

The biggest obstacle to writingpoetry during the academicyear, notes Djanikian, is

finding the time. A semiannualpilgrimage to Yaddo, an artists’colony in Saratoga Springs, NY, ishis solution. Every book of hispoetry, except for the first, was theproduct of these trips. In 2003, heparticipated in a sort of tribute runby Filreis and attended by Pennalums. For three days at FrostValley in the Catskills last spring,Djanikian’s poetry was read,discussed, and celebrated. He eventest-drove some new material.

English professor HermanBeavers, the honoree of thisspring’s Frost Valley seminar,echoes the need for a community

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

One of the chief wranglers of this herd of cats, Perelman

organized poetry groups,talk series, and readings.

of writers. He says the group atCave Canem “affirmed anexperience that I’d had and mademe realize that I wasn’t crazy.”Cave Canem describes itself as a“safe haven for black poets—whether schooled in M.F.A.programs or poetry slams.”Beavers was newly tenured andtrying to balance an academiccareer with his creative passions in1996 when he attended itsinaugural retreat. Desperate to testout some new fiction-infusedpoetry, he found a fraternity ofpoets who connected with hisstories—tales about the death ofhis father, economic hardship inCleveland, and the love of jazz.

One of Beavers’proudest achievementsat Penn is the BraveTestimony series at

Writers House. Started duringNational Poetry Month in 2001,Beavers invited five African-American poets, including severalCave Canem standouts, to readfrom their work. The long-awaitedsequel will take place this spring.

While some poets find reading aloud to be, in Bernstein’s words,“a fundamental function of poetry,”others are not nearly as enamoredof the public exercise. SusanStewart, Gr’78, the Donald T. ReganProfessor of English, falls into thatgroup. After a Ph.D. in folklore,Stewart developed as a poet-criticteaching at Temple University. Shereturned to Penn in 1997 with aMacArthur “genius” fellowship.Her verse is infused with allusionsto classical and Biblical figures, andthe subject matter runs the gamutof human experience—memory,the senses, loneliness. In herteaching, she aims to convey to

graduates and undergraduates the“long history of poetry.”

While the soft-spoken poetfrequents Writers House events—and often invites fellow poets toappear—she rarely picks up themike herself. “I don’t like to readvery much—not more than tworeadings a year.”

One such occasion took placelast October, when Stewart,Perelman, and Bernstein organizeda conference called Poetry andEmpire: Post-Invasion Poetics. Ona shoestring budget, they enticed 35poets to come to Writers House andthe Institute of Contemporary Artfor a weekend of discussions andreadings on the situation in Iraqand the political effects of poetry.“We’re living in a culture wherepublic information isn’t reliable,”Stewart observes, “and abuses oflanguage surround us”—misusesthat can beget and justify war.

“Our job is to enable people’sliterary dreams,” offers Jennifer

Snead, C’94, the current director ofWriters House. In her first year onthe job, the former English major ishelping groups of student writersstart up two new literary magazines,and she’s pulled together marathonnovel-reading sessions. “I’m relivingmy undergraduate days the way Iwanted them to be,” she says.

For Ezra Pound, the relationbetween poetry and politicswas a vexed one. The

troubled poet is perhaps morefamous for his treasonous rantsagainst the Allies during World WarII than the verses he first imaginedin his early years at Penn. Justbefore his death in 1972, the firstcreative writing classes emerged oncampus. Now, 100 years afterPound’s Quad-room readings withfellow poets, a garden of creativewriters is thriving here. ■

Ted Mann, C’00, is a former English major.

FROST VALLEY POETRY WORKSHOPAL FILREIS WILL AGAIN LEAD A THREE-DAY SEMINAR ON MODERN AMERICAN POETRY,FEATURING THE WORK OF HERMAN BEAVERS. THE MAY 5–7 RETREAT IN FROST VALLEY, NY, IS OPEN TO PENN ALUMNI AND PARENTS OF CURRENT PENN STUDENTS. FOR MORE INFORMATION,VISIT HTTP://WWW.ENGLISH.UPENN.EDU/~AFILREIS/POETRY.HTML OR E-MAIL LESLIE BLACK AT LBLACK@FROSTVALLEY.ORG OR CALL 845.985.2254.

These days it’s English professor Al Filreis carrying the torch—

preaching the gospel ofcontemporary writing.

9W I N T E R 2004

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

David Grazian onCONNINGTHE BLUES

In the blues clubs of Chicago,amateur jam sessions usuallydraw part-time musicians and

open-mike moths, not sociologistsworking on Ph.D. dissertations. Sowhen David Grazian, a local gradstudent in the late ’90s, showed upwith saxophone in hand at one ofB.L.U.E.S. Etcetera’s mid-weekevents, the staff was mildlyamused. They recognized him asone of their regular barflies andeven waived the participant fee.

To the audience that night,Grazian’s performance must have had a magical storybookprogression: stage fright at first,then a series of off-key riffs endingwith an in-tune solo, enthusiasticapplause, and praise from the onstage host. But this was noAmerican Idol fantasy.

Grazian was conductingethnographic research for whatwould later become his first book,Blue Chicago. Today, he is anassistant professor of sociology inSAS. By dusting off his sax, thesocial science researcher was hopingto earn the trust of musicians, whountil the jam session, had treatedhim like a groupie tourist. The ruseworked. “They began to see me asthis budding musician,” he says.“Not a great one, but they felt thatthey had something to teach me.”

The breakthrough was just one ofthe many ways Grazian penetratedthe nighttime world of Chicagoblues clubs. Over the course of ayear, he spent countless nights inseedy and trendy establishments,interviewing club managers,

bartenders, patrons, out-of-towners,and eventually, the professionalmusicians. The goal was tounderstand how people define theauthentic blues experience. Grazianadmits it began as a personal questwhen his own idealized image ofthe clubs was shattered.

As a graduate student, heregularly went to blues hangouts as“a respite from the drab world ofuniversity libraries.” One weekendnight, while he relaxed in B.L.U.E.S.,an announcer asked how many inthe audience were from out oftown. Everyone in the roomcheered. “This was totally shockingto me,” he recalls. “I’d spent thiswhole time thinking that I’d beenin a place with a lot of regulars—local Chicagoans. It was strange torealize that in these clubs I wascompletely surrounded by tourists.”

In this new light, Grazian beganto notice more unusual things. Theaudiences were often middle-aged,white, and affluent. The performerswere always working-class blacks.Merchandise, like lingerie bearingthe slogan “Don’t stop now; I’vegot the blues!” started to seemmore like souvenir trinkets.

Slowly, all of the issues thebudding sociologist was studying atthe University of Chicago began to

come to life in the clubs. “Thequestions that I was interested inpursuing—like the nature of racerelations in the post-Civil Rightsera, the commodification of globalculture, the nature of urbannightlife—were emerging,” he says.“And blues clubs became theperfect laboratory for studyingthese sorts of contemporarysociological processes.”

In Blue Chicago, Grazian arguesthat many of the seeminglyauthentic aspects of modern bluesclubs are really just carefully craftedartifice. “Blues musicians will tellyou that club owners often dictatewhat kinds of music the bands willperform, what kinds of clothes thebands will wear on stage, what theracial makeup of the group will be.”

One of the most perversebyproducts of this manufacturedauthenticity is “the set list fromhell.” This was the term that onemusician used to describe therepetitive list of blues favorites likeSweet Home Chicago, The Thrill IsGone, and Mustang Sally. “For a lotof musicians, the central problem isthat for blues music to remaincommercially viable, it has tobecome ‘museumized,’” Grazianobserves. “These musical styleshave become embalmed in time.

11W I N T E R 2004

BY TED MANN

SOCIOLOGIST EXPLODES THE MYTH OF THE AUTHENTIC HOLE-IN-THE-WALL

THE LIVE-MUSIC RACKET IS SO SUCCESSFUL FOR THESAME REASONS THAT CON GAMES WORK: THE AUDIENCEDESPERATELY WANTS TO BELIEVE THE RUSE—THEY WANT TO BE ENTERTAINED.

John

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As one musician told me, ‘If youkeep the blues in a straightjacket, itcan’t evolve and it eventually dies.’”

Race is another albatross the clubswear. “The lucrative downtownclubs will as a rule not hire whitemusicians,” explains Grazian. “Theowners and audience feel that onlyAfrican-American musiciansproperly represent the authenticblues experience.” This stereotyperelegates white musicians todilapidated establishments andunpopular mid-week slots.Because the practice is so pervasive,Grazian contends that it perpetuatesa kind of mass-marketed prejudicethat belittles black and whitemusicians alike.

Blue Chicago is subtitled “TheSearch for Authenticity in UrbanBlues Clubs,” and its authorquestions whether an unbiasedauthenticity is even possible. Inwhat he calls the “sliding scale ofauthenticity,” blues aficionadosconstantly reevaluate what theyconsider to signify authenticity andshift their club allegiances in theprocess—say, from a touristyHouse of Blues to an upscaleB.L.U.E.S. to a faux-ramshackleCheckerboard Lounge. “Thissearch for authenticity leads onenowhere because we rely on verysuperficial determinants of whatauthenticity is in the first place.”

In a forthcoming article in theacademic journal QualitativeSociology, Grazian explodes theidea of authenticity even further,explaining that the blues clubsshare many of the formalproperties of a confidence game.Just as successful cons rely onelaborate staging, so too are the

music performances based on astrategy of deception deployed by a number of actors. The clubowners act as “operators,” fundingthe show, dictating the interiordesigns, and hiring the talent.With the help of PR reps andmedia boosters, the “ropers,” theprospective blues fan, or “mark,”is drawn into the “big store.”There, the musician takes on theall-important role of “insider,”the person who gives a credibleperformance and convinces themark of the authenticity ofwhat is really a well packaged tourist experience.

The live-music racket is sosuccessful for the same reasons that con games work: Theaudience desperately wants tobelieve the ruse—they want to beentertained. “The alternativewould be disappointment andslight embarrassment with thewhole affair,” Grazian writes.

The only time Grazian admits ofa personal sense of embarrassmentwas during his performance onamateur night. When he left thestage, after squeaking and honkinga foggy mess of notes, a localbandleader stopped him. “You’vegot some chops,” the musician toldhim. “You’ve obviously beenplaying for a while, and you’ve got some jazz influences that Iheard in there. Am I right?”

Somehow, the musician hadconfused Grazian’s out-of-tuneimprov with the complex harmonicsof free jazz. The sociologist hadconned the con man. ■

Ted Mann, C’00, works for theUniversity of Pennsylvania Press.

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

Blues vs. JazzDavid Grazian’s 60-Second Lecture, delivered September 17, 2003

There’s a sociological truism that music genres are nevernaturally defined, but always socially constructed anddependent upon their cultural context. In my own researchon Chicago blues clubs, I first discovered the true differencebetween blues and jazz when I was invited to the stage of a blues bar at 2:30 in the morning to play a blues solo in F major. As it had been years since I had actually played aninstrument, I froze because I couldn’t remember the notes of that key, which go like this: (plays sax well).

Now very often when my students don’t know the answer to a question, they’ll wildly toss out a bunch of guesses,praying that one of them will miraculously be correct. Andso, because I didn’t remember the notes, that’s what I did.And it sounded like this: (plays sax badly). Ironically, aftermy solo, the bandleader told me—without sarcasm orguile— “Dave, you play really good, man! You’ve obviouslybeen playing for a while, and you’ve got some jazzinfluences that I heard in there. Am I right?”

And so from that point on, I knew that sometimes thedifference between jazz and blues truly lies in the eye—or perhaps in this case the ear—of the beholder.

John

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13W I N T E R 2004 13

Man of ActionBY LISA JO RUDY

Julius Jacobson, Innovator Extraordinaire

Dr. Julius Jacobson, G’48, is the father of vascularmicrosurgery. But that’s just for starters. Like Ben Franklin, he has only to see a challenge toaddress it, and the 83-year-old physician doesn’t

let age stand in the way.In 1947, when he first became involved with microsurgery,

the dissecting microscope was the instrument of choice.Used for surgery on the eye and other small areas, itallowed surgeons to operate on tiny structures. For work onblood vessels, though, the surgeon and an assistant bothhad to view the surgery in progress. Jacobson needed atwo-person surgical microscope. So he built it himself.

Once his prototype “diploscope” was ready, he approachedAmerican corporations. “The inevitable question, Can we sell10,000? came up,” he remembers, “and nothing happened.”Germany’s Carl Zeiss was interested, so the inventor madethe trip to post-war Germany, where he worked with Zeissoptical engineers to create a surgical tool of such significancethat the original now resides at the Smithsonian. With the diploscope, effective treatments for “blue babies,”dismembered limbs, and other maladies were suddenlyavailable, and the field of vascular microsurgery took off.“Many more than 10,000 have been sold,” he notes pointedly.

Original thinking, Jacobson says, is the most importantthing in the world. For him, it’s a way of life. Right now, forexample, he’s seeking the venture capital for a new high-tech idea he calls “24/7 medicine.”

“All my life, I’ve gotten calls in the middle of the nightabout patients. There’s a monitor by every bed at the ICU,but the content isn’t written down or saved. My idea is toprovide 24/7 medicine by allowing doctors to access savedcontent from the monitor, observe the patient, and conducta videoconference with the doctor on call—all from adistance.” Other projects in the wings include a failsafewalker for the elderly and an internal thermometer foroverheated athletes.

To spur others to innovate, he’s endowed the JacobsonInnovation Award of the American College of Surgeons.The award honors living surgeons who develop new tools or techniques that advance any field of surgery. Winnershave included surgeons who made breakthroughs inlaparoscopic surgery and kidney transplantation.

Through his patients, many of whom owe life and limb to his surgical expertise, Jacobson has received a behind-the-scenes entrée to the worlds of art and music. As withtechnology, interest led to enthusiasm—and enthusiasm to action.

One patient offered Jacobson a painting he admired as areward for a successful operation and started the surgeondown the road to serious art collecting. Today, in his New York City apartment, Jacobson points out works byDegas, Bruegel, Bonnard, Redon, and others.

Another patient with connections to the classical-musiccommunity, ran into Jacobson at a concert. Listening to thesurgeon’s well informed opinions about the program, thepatient joked that Jacobson should write a book. It tookabout a year for him to create The Classical Music Experience,a CD-book combo narrated by Kevin Kline. He’s now atwork on volume two.

Julius Jacobson no longer performs surgery and hasretired from his position as chief of cardiac surgery atMount Sinai Hospital. As for the rest of his projects—he’s only just begun. ■

Lisa Jo Rudy is a freelance writer and consultant based in Elkins Park, PA.

Lisa

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

HOPEThe Work of

Matt Grove (left) and Fr. Jeff Putthoff

CH A I N S A W ! ! !Brrrrrip!!!” Ed Grovewrote, Tom-Wolfe style,

in an e-mail to his son. “Are younuts? For graduation? Sheese!What will be your next project?”

The parents of Matt Grove,CGS’03, had good reason to worrywhen their son asked them to bringalong a chainsaw when they camedown from Utica, NY, to see himgraduate last May. Grove had beenarrested not long before in aprotest of the war in Iraq. At theend of senior year in high school,he deferred admission to Penn afterarranging with the bishop ofZimbabwe to work for a year in anAfrican hospital that was 30 milesfrom the nearest paved road.He changed IVs, dispensed meds,bandaged wounds, pulled teeth,and removed stitches and casts.He used a manual put out by theWorld Health Organization tofigure out the settings for the x-raymachine. “He did everything butmajor surgery,” according to hismom, Carole, who remembersvividly the worry of sending off her18 year-old boy to a country 8,000miles from home and under siegeby a fierce plague of AIDs. “Thechainsaw incident is minor—reallyminor!—in comparison. I gave upany attempt at judgment or controlor anything else since Zimbabwe.”

On the morning after graduation,Ed and Carole drove across the BenFranklin Bridge to a fixed-up rowhouse in a rundown, boarded-up

North Camden neighborhoodwhere Grove had a job. He and hisdad took the chainsaw from thetrunk and—Brrrrrip!!—cut twostumps from the dirt in front of athree-story, brick home to makeway for a flowerbed. Then theypulled out a masonry drill, boredholes in the brickwork near thefront door, and bolted to the wall a honey-colored wooden plaqueonto which Grove’s fiancée hadburned the word Hopeworks.(Grove and Annie Wadsworth,C’03, were married in September.They met in the office of PresidentRodin, CW’66, during a nine-daysit-in by the activist group StudentsAgainst Sweatshops.)

Hopeworks (http://www.hopeworks.org/) is a faith-based,technology-training project aimedat “empowering” at-risk youth inCamden. It encourages youngpeople to stay in school and out of trouble by providing computer-skills training and work experiencein small-scale business ventures.The smell of baking bread oftenfills the computer-crammed house.The warm aroma helps feed thehunger of young trainees for astable and caring home, and thebread satisfies another moregnawing need.

“To live in Camden is verydifficult,” observes Fr. Jeff Putthoff,Hopeworks’ director and a Jesuitpriest who resides in nearby HolyName parish. “There are just lotsof situations that people live in

that are full of pain. A lot of it is just poverty. It’s a lack ofresources—a lack of medical careand education. It’s a lack ofparents who have jobs or housingthat’s sure, instead of temporary.”

A loose t-shirt and baggy pantshang shapelessly over Grove’sstringy frame. Camden drugdealers often mistake him for asuburban junkie wandering theneighborhood in search of a fix.

“At ages 13 or 14,” he explains,“[Camden] young people’s livesstart to unravel, and they drop outof school. . . . We use technology toengage the youth and get themexcited—helping them to see thatthere’s a future they can take holdof.” As they progress through the

15W I N T E R 2004

BY PETER NICHOLS

SOWING SEEDS OF GRACE IN A CRUMBLING TOWN

“I ’M N OT G O I N G TO B E

T H E S AV I O R O F A L L T H E S E

P E O P L E. HO P EWO R K S

I S N’T G O I N G TO B E

T H E S AV I O R.”

“

Lisa

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Hopeworks program, successfultrainees start to lose the hard edgeof the street and become moreconfident of their ability to learn,which helps them discover moreoptions. One high school dropoutwent on to college to studycomputers and ended up majoringin music.

Grove learned about Hopeworksas an intern working next door at the North Camden Land Trust,part of the requirement for hisurban studies major. Hopeworkshad developed an online Webdesign curriculum that was goodenough to earn course credits fortrainees at a local communitycollege. Fr. Putthoff had beenlooking around for new areas oftechnology that Hopeworks couldgrow into and thought GeographicInformation Systems (GIS) heldpromise for skill building andbusiness opportunities that mightyield more jobs. GIS is softwarefor visualizing information,particularly data related to location.

“The only problem,” Fr. Putthoffmused to a companion during oneof many brown-bag lunches theyhad come to share with Grove, “iswho could lead such a project?”

Turning to Grove, who was ajunior and had some experience

with GIS at Penn’s CartographicModeling Lab, the priest asked,“Do you think it’s a good idea? Do you know anyone who’sgraduated that could start this out?”

Grove responded, “My onlyquestion is, How am I going to tellmy parents that I’m dropping outof college to do this?”

Grove turned out not to beanother Camden casualty; hesimply put off graduation for ayear. He transferred to the Collegeof General Studies and became apart-time student, stretching senioryear over two years in order towork full time at Hopeworks.

Starting from scratch, he wrote training lessons one day at a time. Eventually, he augmentedHopeworks’ budding GIScurriculum by tapping into theUniversity of Montana’s onlineclasses—at discounted tuitionrates. Jack Dangermond, presidentof ESRI, a leading producer of GISprograms, became so enamored ofHopeworks’ mission and Grove’smoxie that he donated thecompany’s expensive software. Lastsummer, ESRI brought Grove andhis trainees to its internationalconference in San Diego to give apresentation on the 33,000-parcelGIS map of Camden—the city’s

first and only digital map—thatthey had pulled together from oldtax documents.

“We trained the youth and created it in about fivemonths,” Grove says. “At first,people didn’t think we were thereal deal. . . . We made [theCamden GIS map] to establish ourlegitimacy, in the hope that itwould get people interested intaking advantage of our services.”Hopeworks now fields nearly ahalf-dozen word-of-mouthreferrals a week, from smallnonprofits to big city governments.Some projects require months of work, while youths go intoneighborhoods with hand-heldcomputers to collect information.Smaller jobs need onlydownloading and crunching of existing data. Clients includethe Camden Housing Authority,Camden County ImprovementAuthority, New Jersey TreeFoundation, Rutgers University,and other community groupslooking for affordable GIS services.“If anyone wants to do any kind of parcel-level analysis in Camden,”Grove brags, “they have to come to Hopeworks.”

Around Thanksgiving, Grove leftCamden and returned to Utica totake over the family business, theBagel Grove, where he had workedgrowing up. “Hopeworks hasengaged a lot of his idealism,”Fr. Putthoff says, “and it mighthave roughed up some of thatidealism too.” In the bagel shop,Grove and his wife plan toincorporate some social-awarenessevents and perhaps experiment

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

I T ’ S A L L A M AT T E R O F P U S H I N G

R E A L I T Y A S FA R A S YO U C A N —U N T I L I T P U S H E S B AC K .

“TH E R E A R E J U S T LOT S O F S I T UAT I O N S T H AT P E O P L E L I V E I N

T H AT A R E F U L L O F PA I N. A LOT O F I T I S J U S T P OV E RT Y.”

17W I N T E R 2004

with employee ownership, but theyalso are determined to keep thebusiness in the black. It’s all amatter of pushing reality as far asyou can—until it pushes back.

Camden’s “youth crisis,” helearned, is too big for one person—or one organization. Sometimes,in the precarious lives of the youthshe has worked with, illness, crime,job loss, and any number ofmisfortunes can force someone to drop out of school and find anyMcJob that will keep the familyafloat. “That’s an example of thereality overwhelming all the goodyou can do,” he says. “I’m notgoing to be the savior of all thesepeople. Hopeworks isn’t going to be the savior.”

Back in Camden, the weeds thatonce caught trash in front ofHopeworks are gone, and there are

flowers blooming in the bed Groveand his parents helped preparewith their chainsaw. A sweet gumgrows there too, a seedling fromElvis Presley’s Graceland mansion,which one of the trainees won at a GIS conference in Texas lastsummer. Hope—and a little grace.“It’s humbling,” says Grove. “Iguess you just have to trust thatthere will be other people in thelives of these youths who will helpthem with the different problemsand situations that come up.” ■

C amden’s numbers* are daunting. It is NewJersey’s poorest municipality with morethan a third of the population and almost

half of the children living below the poverty line.The crime rate is nearly double that of thesurrounding nine-county area. About two-thirds ofthe students in the public high schools drop out.Three of the last five mayors are in prison oncorruption charges, and the city government is nowrun by the state. Camden is also a “resource” usedby surrounding communities for sewage treatment,state and county prisons, garbage incineration, andre-apportioned low-income housing. Suburbanitesdrive through the shells of decaying neighborhoodsfor entertainment on the city’s newly developedwaterfront—a facelift for a patient sufferingcardiac arrest. Fr. Putthoff visited a nearby suburbin the fall and was startled to see the trees thereaflame in autumn colors. “There’s just not a lot ofgreen [in Camden],” he sighs, “and that’s a realpoverty too.”

*statistics supplied by Hopeworks

CAMDENPATHOLOGY REPORT

Lisa Godfrey

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

19W I N T E R 2004

Joe Rosenthal, who snapped the picture of the Iwo Jima flag raising, confided to Alyssa Cwanger,C’04, not long ago that he had almost missed the shot because his equipment wasn’t ready.

Cwanger, a fine arts major and pre-med student,dreams of taking iconic photos like his and vows never to be unprepared. When she was five, she had a blue-and-red Fisher Price camera and took picturesof Barbie dolls and stuffed animals. These days shealways takes her Nikon D100 whenever she goes toclass or to work in a med-school cancer lab or to aphotography assignment for the Boston Herald,the Baltimore Sun, or the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Cwanger is a prize-winning photojournalist. She isso soft spoken, so demure, that you have to wonder howshe got a fireman to take her up on a cherry picker toshoot a fire. The Sun called her for images of the fallenWorld Trade towers when none of its picture journalistscould get onto the site. The Herald sent her to stalkcelebrities with the paparazzi, and Ben Affleck’s dadinvited her into his home. “I’m persistent,” she says. “IfI feel like I want to do something, there’s always a way.”

The results are often striking, occasionally quirky,and sometimes profoundly sad. “This is a splendidbody of work,” notes Julie Schneider, her advisor andundergraduate chair of the fine arts program. “She hasthe ability to capture the critical moment.”

Last year, Cwanger was chosen as a photojournalismintern for Gift of Life International and accompanied a team of pediatric heart surgeons and nurses toRomania. She documented not just the life-savingskills of American medical volunteers, but the tear ofa quiet-weeping baby, a mother’s head bent overclenched hands, the smile of a dad at the child lifted inhis arms. With a click of a shutter, Cwanger pluckedthe critical moments of joy and grief, love and pain,and all the happy and unhappy endings from the high-tech bustle of modern medicine. ■

—PETER NICHOLS

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SENIOR MAKES ART OUT OF JOURNALISM

T o attorney Andrew JaySchwartzman, C’68, L’71,even whale calls are

broadcast-worthy. The fact thatthe sonorous groans can be emittedover the radio waves of KodiakIsland, Alaska—where the chamberof commerce nets whale songs withmicrophones below the ocean—means that Andy is doing his job.

The Ralph Nader of the airwaves,Schwartzman is now in his thirddecade of creating static for giantmedia conglomerates like Viacomand AOL Time Warner. Mostrecently, he pulled off a stunningupset by successfully fighting tostay new FCC rules looseningrestrictions on media ownership.The ruling was a major setback forFCC chairman Michael Powell.

Schwartzman, the tenaciouspresident and CEO of Media AccessProject (MAP), a telecommunicationslaw firm in Washington, D.C., harpscontinually on the need for on-airdiversity and local ownership.Democracy, he insists, works onlywhen everyone’s voice gets heard.Mostly, he works with small, defiantgroups like civil rights organizations,churches, school districts, andenvironmental activists. “Many ofthose I’m up against see the FirstAmendment as just another deviceto protect their revenue stream,” hecharges. “My clients are living,breathing people, not artificialpeople like these companies.”

Schwartzman defended the 1992Cable Act, which requires cablecompanies to carry local TVstations. He’s paved the way forlow-power radio stations—thosetiny blips under 5,000 watts on thedial between the big stations—tooperate legally. And, as co-counselin a Supreme Court case thattoppled the Communications

“ B I G I S B A D I N T H E M E D I A

B E C AU S E YO U LO S E TO U C H

W I T H T H E P E O P L E .”

FEISTY LAWYER BATTLES BIG MEDIA

THE RIGHT TO HEARAND BE HEARD

Jason Hinebaugh

BY JOAN CAPUZZI GIRESI

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

W I N T E R 2004 21

Decency Act, he helped to establishfree-speech rights on the Internet.

“I love the media! I just want to make it better,” exclaimsSchwartzman, whose shockingwhite hair is partially concealed by the headphones he wears tochannel-cruise radio and TV.

Aprecocious consumer ofjournalism and avid follower oflegendary New York Times columnistJames Reston, young Andy wasreading the Times by the age of six.So fascinated was the boy by themedia’s impact on public decisionsthat he would line up three TV setsand scrutinize the spins each stationplaced on the same news stories.

The one-time sociology majorgrew up in a politically activehousehold in New York’s WestchesterCounty. His physician father, Joel,C’31, GM’46, and journalist motherwere active in local Democraticpolitics. (Brother Paul, C’71, is aHollywood film agent.) In lawschool he spent a semester in thenation’s capital working for a public-policy law firm, evaluating standardsfor misleading advertising. Later hejoined the communication office ofthe United Church of Christ, wherehe promoted minority employmentand ownership in broadcasting.He started working for MAP in1978 and has never left.

A small public-interest law firm,Media Access Project grew out of amovement that began with litigationagainst a Mississippi TV station forfailing to serve the black community.Most of the firm’s caseload involvestelevision, the rest radio andInternet. Its three attorneys andvarious interns operate on astarvation budget of $650,000 ayear, a sum less than the annualsalary of many corporate lawyers.

“He’s been doing this thing on a

nickel and a dime for years becausehe’s doing what he believes in,”says Shaun Sheehan, Washingtonlobbyist for the Chicago-basedTribune Company and frequentSchwartzman opponent. “You haveto admire that.”

Pete Tridish, technical directorfor the Prometheus Radio Project,Schwartzman’s client in the FCCcase, is awed by his encyclopedicknowledge of the regulatory agency.“His political sense of the FCC islike that of a naturalist who’s beenwatching a weird bird for years andunderstands its ins and outs,” saysTridish, who is amused by hislawyer’s quirky habit of nestinghimself in “thousands andthousands of papers everywhere.”

Many of Schwartzman’sopponents call his argumentsrepetitive and without merit. Hecounters that the FCC is a highlypoliticized bird, dominated bywell-funded interests with powerfullobbies. Lifetime wins have beenfew, but Schwartzman has stuckwith his plan and his arguments.On September 3 of last year, thattenacity paid off.

Working on behalf ofPhiladelphia-based Prometheus, anonprofit activist organization thatfights for democratic ownership andregulation of media, Schwartzmansurprised everyone—includinghimself. He defeated legal teamsfrom the FCC and three majorbroadcast networks by convincingthe court to freeze the new FCCownership rules on the day beforethey were set to take effect.

Arguing before the Third CircuitCourt of Appeals, Schwartzmanclaimed that the new rules, whichenable media companies to seizegreater market share than underthe current rules, impede diversity

in ownership and operation ofbroadcast stations. “Big is bad inthe media because you lose touchwith the people,” he contends.

The hearing on the future ofthe rules is scheduled for earlyFebruary. Schwartzman, whospends his spare time readingnewspapers and magazines andworking computer keys to surf theInternet, will again insist that havingmany media owners will yield adiversity of perspectives. Unmovedby opponents’ arguments thatcorporate ownership meanspolished newscasts with highlytrained on-air personalities, he willalso drive home the importance oflocal ownership of media outlets,which, he maintains, preserves tiesto communities. “We think thatlocalism and having the opportunityto present different points of view ismore important than slickness.”

Although many of Schwartzman’sclients engage in public protests andcivil disobedience, he stays withinmore conventional bounds, believingthat the order and justice of the legalsystem will prevail. By using the lawto protect the rights of the littleguy, he strives “to improve how wefunction as a democratic society.”

“What keeps me in it is the sensethat I’ve made a difference inpeople’s lives. Many of thesethings—free speech on the Internet,women and minority involvement inmedia management, ownership andnewsgathering—are abstract. But,”he stresses, “they are no less real,” noless real than songs of whales overthe airwaves of Kodiak Island—orthe First Amendment principlesAndy Schwartzman champions. ■

Joan Capuzzi Giresi, C’86, V’98, is ajournalist and veterinarian in thePhiladelphia area.

“ I LOV E T H E M E D I A ! I J U ST WA N T TO M A K E I T B E T T E R .”

D E M O C R AC Y, H E

I N S I ST S, WO R KS

O N LY W H E N

E V E RYO N E ’ S VO I C E

G E T S H E A R D.

S hirin Ebadi wassurprised to learn shehad beaten out the Popefor this year’s Nobel

Peace Prize. She is the firstIranian Muslim woman to winthe honor. The state-run mediarefused to acknowledge theaccolade for several hours afterthe world had already begun to laud the decision by theNorwegian Nobel Committee.Most Iranians had been apprisedof the news by the international

media, and many openly embraced the choice. Thegovernment finally acknowledged her accomplishmentwith a passing statement. That non-reaction did notgo ignored by the Iranian public. When she arrived inTehran as a Nobel laureate, Ebadi’s compatriotsgreeted her at the airport with flowers.

Ebadi has dedicated her career to defending therights of the voiceless and underprivileged in Iran.Since the Revolution of 1979, which supplanted thesecular Pahlavi government with Islamic rule, she hasstriven to protect political dissidents and defend therights of women and children. Forced out of herposition as one of the country’s first female judges,Ebadi resumed work as a human rights lawyer. Shehas been arrested for her activism, but even the fear of imprisonment and death has not stopped her fromcontinuing the struggle against political oppression.

Working within the strictures of the Islamic legalsystem, Ebadi has argued that Islam can accommodateand co-exist with modern interpretations of humanrights. This conviction has empowered her to effectchange in Iran’s rigid political climate, forcing, for

instance, a reassessment of child custody and divorcelaws. In addition, she has supported Iran’s burgeoningdemocratic movement by representing students whowere attacked in their dormitory several years ago bythe police. She has also taken on high profile casessuch as the murders of political dissidents Dariush and Parvaneh Foruhar.

In an interview with the Sunday Times of London,Ebadi is quoted as saying, “All I want is legal equalitybetween men and women. What I represent is a smallpart of a deep-rooted reform movement in Iran thatcannot be stopped. In every society there comes a time when people want to be free. That time has come in Iran.”

Ebadi’s recognition comes at a sensitive moment in the evolution of Iranian society and indeed of theIslamic Middle East. As the United States confrontsthe unpleasant reality of occupying Iraq, conservativeIranian politicians watch with a mixture of trepidationand defiance. Though firmly ensconced in thegovernment, they are increasingly challenged byreformers seeking to instill democratic values andpractices in Iranian politics. Ebadi’s Nobel Prize is a tacit nod of approval for the reform movement aswell as a message to the United States to re-think its“Axis of Evil” doctrine and to give grassrootsdemocracy a chance in Iran.

Shirin Ebadi stands out as an exceptional womanwhose success and recognition serve to inspire otherMuslim women and human rights activists. To thosewho dare to defy oppression and to challenge the statusquo in their societies, her message is one of hope. ■

Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet is an assistant professor ofhistory who specializes in the history of the modernMiddle East, the Ottoman Empire, and Iran. She grewup in Iran and calls herself “culturally Muslim.”

Profile in Courage—and Hope

E B A D I ’ S N O B E L P R I Z E I S A TAC I T N O D O F A P P ROVA L F O R T H E

R E F O R M M OV E M E N T A S W E L L A S A M E S S AG E TO T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S

TO R E - T H I N K I T S “AX I S O F EV I L” D O C T R I N E A N D TO G I V E

G R A S S RO OT S D E M O C R AC Y A C H A N C E I N I R A N .

S H I R I N E B A D I

BY PROFESSOR F. KASHANI-SABET

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

BY PROFESSOR BRUCE KUKLICK

From the time of the Spanish-American War, this countryhas flaunted the essence of evil in its enemies. When thebattleship Maine was destroyed in Havana Harbor,William McKinley literally got down on his knees andprayed for divine guidance in striking out against the evilthat was Spain. Americans demonized Germany in bothworld wars and the North Koreans and Vietnamese insubsequent wars. Today, with the exception of NaziGermany, it is generally thought that the evil attributed toour enemies never really existed. There were differencesof opinion—there were good guys and bad guys—butthere wasn’t the kind of incarnate malice that was used to justify entry into these wars.

The second example is the standard argument peoplemake that civil liberties take a hit during wartime. InWorld War I, A. Mitchell Palmer, a renegade attorneygeneral, deported and jailed all sorts of foreigners andimmigrants during the first Red Scare. In World War II,there was the incarceration of the Japanese in thedetention camps. The Korean War is well known for therise of McCarthyism, and the Vietnam War is associatedwith expansion of the powers of the FBI and the CIA.

What really happens in wartime, I think, is not just a curbin civil liberties but exaggerated responses to them.Although you had the Red Scare during World War I, youalso had the impetus for women’s suffrage that led to theFourteenth Amendment. Besides relocation camps, WorldWar II also brought an expansion of work opportunities forAfrican Americans and women. The Korean War helpedintegrate the armed services, and there was an efflorescenceof social movements during the Vietnam War—a generalloosening of American culture, the Civil Rights Movement,the movement for gay rights, and the women’s revolution.

The last thing is what I call the relatively untouchednature of the U.S. during wartime. Teddy Roosevelt calledthe Spanish-American War a “splendid little war” becauseit gave us a chance to flex our muscles—at very little cost.World War II was an enormous conflict, and there were

375,000 American deaths. The Soviet Union had acomparable population and lost 20 million. We used the Russians like mercenaries in that war, supplying them with enormous quantities of tanks, clothing, andarmaments. When we do get into war, we rely on ourenormous technological superiority. And when Americansbegin to take casualties, as happened in Korea andVietnam, the Truman and Johnson administrations weredriven from office.

I watch CNN a lot, as I’m sure many of you do. The waythe media intrudes on the private miseries of Americanfamilies who have lost kids in Iraq seems obscene to me,especially in comparison to what the Iraqi people aresuffering. What it suggests is that Americans have verylittle sense of how ghastly war is. This, it seems to me,makes us more willing to engage in war. ■

Bruce Kulkick, C’63, Gr’68, is the Roy F.and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor ofAmerican History. This article isadapted from a talk he delivered in thefall at the home of Pam, CW’73, andTony Schneider in Bryn Mawr, PA.

Through a Glass Historically

H ISTORIAN’S PERSPECTIVE ON TH E WAR I N I RAQ

BEING A HISTORIAN

MEANS THAT YOU

BELIEVE YOU CAN’T

REALLY UNDERSTAND

WHAT’S GOING ON

UNTIL 30 YEARS LATER,

AFTER A GENERATION

HAS PASSED.

23W I N T E R 2004

I’ve been asked on many occasions to talk about current events. Being a historian means that you believe you can’treally understand what’s going on until 30 years later, after a generation has passed. What historians can do is lookat patterns that have occurred in the past. Those patterns may or may not be relevant to questions people areasking today about the war in Iraq. Here are some examples of what I mean.

Stua

rt W

atso

n

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

Help the Asch Center help refugees Conflict among ethnic groups has displaced 40 millionpeople around the world. In response to this crisis, theSolomon Asch Center for Study of EthnopoliticalConflict (http://www.psych.upenn.edu/sacsec/index.htm)conducts psychosocial research and training to addressthe plight of displaced populations.

The center has conducted self-care, job training,education, conflict-resolution, and trauma counselingprograms in Sri Lanka and Sierra Leone. It offersworkshops for relief workers on the psychologicalneeds of refugees and holds monthly meetings for themany people and organizations in the Philadelphiaarea who work on refugee issues.

A recent grant of $625,000 from the Andrew W.Mellon Foundation will help the center expand theseinitiatives, but only if the School can raise $500,000 in matching gifts from alumni and friends. The grantand matching contributions will endow the position of director of refugee initiatives, as well as support thecenter’s research and training programs for refugeesand those who work with them. Anyone interested inmaking a matching contribution should contact theSchool’s external affairs office at 215.898.5262.

Gift annuities pay off for alumna and her husbandTwo of the newest members of the Society of Arts andSciences made their contribution to the School througha planned gift. Sonia Shahinian Schacterle, CW’50, G’51,and her husband George recently established a seriesof charitable gift annuities to support graduatefellowships. They made their gift, which honors thememory of Sonia’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Garabed SitalShahinian, after receiving an annual appeal letter forthe SAS Graduate Fellowship Fund. They had recentlyestablished a scholarship through a gift annuity at Temple University, where George had been both astudent and professor, and they wanted to dosomething similar for Sonia’s alma mater. Sonia holdsa master’s degree in English, and they were delightedto be able to assist future graduate students whilememorializing her parents. The fellowship support wasthe couple’s first major gift to the School. When askedwhat prompted them to make such a generous gift,they responded, “Because someone asked!”

Gift planning: Focus on gift annuitiesA planned gift can bring financial benefits to both SAS and you by generating lifelong income,diversifying low-yielding assets, reducing capital gainscosts, creating income tax deductions, or reducingestate taxes. There are several ways to give, but manydonors create charitable gift annuities, the simplest life income gift arrangement.

A gift annuity is a contribution that contractuallyobligates Penn to pay you, or those you name, a fixedincome for life. The minimum contribution is$10,000 in cash or securities, and the person receivingthe income must be at least 55 years of age. Single andtwo-life income rates are based on age as shown in thechart below. A portion of the gift qualifies for anincome tax deduction as determined by IRS formulas.

To illustrate, if an alumnus aged 75 donates$25,000 in stocks (cost basis $10,000) toward a giftannuity, his income is $1,775 a year, of which $466 istax-free, $699 is capital gain, and $610 is ordinaryincome. He has an income tax deduction of $10,565this year and saves $951 in capital gains tax. Upon hisdeath, the School will use the proceeds of his gift forthe Graduate Fellowship Fund.

Many options exist. Penn’s gift planning staffcan advise you on the full range of opportunities,financial implications, potential tax savings, and theimpact your gift will make on the School. To learnmore, call Janine Ehsani at 800.223.8236 or215.898.1098 or ehsani@ben.dev.upenn.edu.

PENN GIFT ANNUITY RATES

AGE RATE AGES RATE

55 5.5% 55/55 5.0%60 5.7% 60/60 5.4%65 6.0% 65/65 5.6%70 6.5% 70/70 5.9%75 7.1% 75/75 6.3%80 8.0% 80/80 6.9%85+ 9.5% 85/85 7.9%

Children in Sierra Leone refugee camp

S A S P A R T N E R S H I P S

School meets challenge for Korean studiesWith support from alumni, parents, and friends, SAShas completed a $5 million challenge to strengthen itsKorean studies program. The challenge was extendedin 1997 by the Korea Foundation, which pledged $2.5million with the requirement that the School raise anadditional $2.5 million. Major commitments fromUniversity Trustee James Joo-Jin Kim, W’59, G’61, Gr’63,and two anonymous donors helped meet thefoundation’s challenge. Mr. Kim, the first person tosignificantly invest in Penn’s commitment to Koreanstudies, said, “I was delighted that I could help aninstitution of Penn’s stature promote greater knowledgeand understanding of this important part of the world.”

Political science professor Chong-Sik Lee, consideredthe founder of Korean studies in the United States,began Penn’s program in 1963. These gifts have builton his work by establishing two Korea FoundationProfessorships as well as a Center for Korean Studies,which is directed by Korea Foundation AssistantProfessor of History Milan Hejtmanek, an expert onKorea’s Chosôn dynasty. Now that the challenge hasbeen completed, the School has authorized the searchfor the second Korea Foundation Professor. Thesegifts have also been used to expand Korean studiescourses, launch a minor, increase library acquisitions,establish a lecture series, and bring visiting scholarsand notable speakers to campus.

President Judith Rodin announced the completionof the challenge at an alumni reception in Seoul inOctober. The event was part of her final internationaltrip as Penn president. Joining her at the event wasDr. Lee, who is now a professor emeritus.

Writing programs reorganized foraccessibility, creativityThe School has launched a new center to bringtogether, for the first time, Penn’s many writingprograms. The Center for Programs in ContemporaryWriting (http://writing.upenn.edu/), directed by KellyFamily Professor Al Filreis, aligns the critical writingprogram, creative writing program, and Kelly WritersHouse, making it easier for students to find thewriting resources they seek and allowing moreimaginative collaboration among the three areas.

Under this new plan, the nationally recognizedcritical writing program offers writing seminarsacross many disciplines, while the creative writingprogram provides rigorous apprenticeships witheminent writers, and the Kelly Writers House hostshundreds of writer-led symposia, readings, spoken-word performances, literacy projects, and workshopseach year. Linking these three areas has created alively writing neighborhood on campus wherestudents can easily find writing courses, workshops,manuscript exchange groups, writing advisors,apprenticeships, activities, and mentors.

Alumni and friends can make gifts to endow thecenter and its directorship, provide research andtravel funds for student writers, develop courses suchas documentary/non-fiction writing, bring visitingwriters to campus, and hire writing teachers, tutors,and advisors.

For more information, contact Patti Scullin at215.898.5262 or pschind@sas.upenn.edu.

W I N T E R 2004 25

CPCW director Al Filreis (left) welcomes guests to the center’s new homeat 3808 Walnut Street.

Professor Emeritus Chong-Sik Lee (left) speaks with Penn PresidentJudith Rodin while Chul Hong, Gr ’79, President of the University ofInchon, looks on.

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

INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS AnonymousEdward Alosio, Jr. and

Carolyn Jean Alosio (Sherley)Ralph D. AmadoEdward T. and Lois Gelson AndersonPaul M. ArrouetBernard M. AxelrodJay G. AxelrodC. Hilyard Barr, Jr.Emilio Bassini and

Reina Marin BassiniElizabeth and Rodney B. BerensMitchell R. BergerJoanne C. and Richard N. BingJonathan L. BingMargo K. and Mitchell J. BluttGordon S. BodekRoxanne Conisha Bok and

Scott L. BokKevin and Madeline BrinePurnendu Chatterjee

Diana ChengRaymond K. Ch’ien and

Hwee Leng WhangJim and Gail CitrinDavid T. P. ClancyBetsy Z. and Edward E. CohenMartha and Jonathan J. CohenJonathan Z. Cohen and

Julia Bennett PershanRobert A. CohenT. Scott Coleman and

Yasmine Zyne ColemanWilliam J. ConstantineRobert Cortn and Rosalie Swedlin Catherine M. CrowleyPaul W. DiMauraCelia P. and Daniel E. DosoretzFrederick E. Doucette IIIJude T. DriscollMelissa Beth EisenstatBonnie Tannenbaum Eisler and

Clifford R. Eisler

LIFETIME MEMBERS The support of the Society’s lifetime members, those living donors who have contributed a totalof $1 million or more to the School,sustains the University’s scholarlytradition in the liberal arts. The School is proud to acknowledge these extraordinary donors.

AnonymousLeonore C. AnnenbergRoberta and Stanley BogenChristopher H. BrowneWilliam Polk CareyChristopher J. CarreraSilas K. F. ChouBetsy Marks Darivoff and

Philip M. DarivoffNan FarquharRichard L. FisherRobert A. Fox and

Penny Grossman FoxLeonard and Wendy GoldbergSteven F. GoldstoneStephen J. HeymanFlorence and Herbert IrvingElliot S. and Roslyn S. Jaffe

Harry P. KamenEleanor Meyerhoff Katz and

Herbert D. KatzPaul K. KellyJames Joo-Jin KimLeonard A. LauderJerry LeeMartin LiptonCarolyn Hoff Lynch and

Peter S. LynchRao MakineniRobert L. McNeil, Jr.Ella Warren Shafer Miller and

Paul F. Miller, Jr.Barbara and Edward NetterLena Magaziner PincusJudith R. RosenbergAlvin V. and Sally P. ShoemakerDavid M. and Lyn G. SilfenGayfryd and Saul P. SteinbergIone Apfelbaum StraussRichard M. ThuneP. Roy and Diana T. VagelosAndrew and Erna Finci ViterbiFrederick J. WarrenGeorge A. WeissCharles K. Williams II

THE SOCIETY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

Membership recognizesindividuals who haveenhanced the excellence of the School of Arts andSciences by giving $100,000or more over the last fiveyears. The members embodythe spirit of the School withtheir dedication to achievingand maintaining distinctionin the liberal arts. They

demonstrate a unique awareness of theimportance of balancing tradition andinnovation in higher education andchampion both in equal measure.

Their vision informs our pursuit ofexcellence, and their generous supportmoves us forward.

S A S P A R T N E R S H I P S

27W I N T E R 2004

Mary ElbertyDavid D. EllimanHarold W. Emery, Jr.Kenneth M. and Sherry EndelsonTak H. Eng and Anita P. HoMarjorie G. ErnestEdward J. FalkDalck and Rose FeithRobert W. GelfmanJill and John N. Gilbert, Jr.Michael J. GlossermanDaniel H. GoldenSusan Udolf Goldenberg and

Jeffrey GoldenbergJohn E. GolobJudith S. Gordon and

Sheldon GordonStephen M. GornBarry S. GreeneShirley Klotzbaugh Griffin and

William M. GriffinVicki Panzier GrossAndrew J. and Jan B. GrovemanVirginia Steele GrubbHarry E. GruberMartin D. GrussHenry B. GutmanEdward T. Harvey, Jr.George E. HeinzeBarry J. HersheyJames M. HigginsJeffrey S. and

Leslie Wohlman HimmelThomas Sai-Yin HoRichard M. Horowitz and

Ruth M. Farber-HorowitzJames W. HoveyBeth Altschul Hurwich and

Joseph M. HurwichJeanne Gittelman Kaskey and Richard

A. Kaskey*Donald B. KeimGerald D. and

Monica Thomas KnorrJonathan W. and Judith E. KolkerCarole Steinberg Krumland and

Ted C. KrumlandMel and Mitzi KutchinCharles L. S. and Isa K. L. LamMichael LamJanet and Mark S. LandauMary Perednia Landy and

Joseph P. LandyImelde D. and William W. LangebartelSeng Tee Lee

Edward J. LenkinFelicia Madison Levy and

Sander M. LevyWilliam J. LevyAnnabel F. and Philip B. LindyEdward J. MathiasRebecca C. and Dan W. Matthias, Jr.Gerald H. McGinleyMarc Frederic McMorrisSreedhar and Saroj MenonAudrey Stein Merves and

Stanley MervesSunil MittalRonald L. MoelisGregory B. MooreDonald T. NetterMuriel W. NicklesDaniel L. and Jill B. NirFrances Bickell Novelli and

William D. NovelliHarry David NudelmanDaniel S. OchDouglas OstroverGordon A. ParisJames N. Perry, Jr.George PineJulie Beren Platt and Marc E. PlattFrederick W. Plugge IVDavid Chun-Yee PongMaury PovichMichael J. and Vikki L. PriceHoward E. RachofskyEdward and Lisa Herman RaiceAnn Nolan ReeseJohn R. ReinsbergGary D. and Karen Bress RoseDonald P. RosenHarold L. RosenbergPeter E. RothRothfeld FamilyNancy Horwich Rothstein and Steven

A. RothsteinNancy Peters RyanSusan Small SavitskyBrian and Cynthia Chang ScanlanSonia S. and George R. SchacterleSteven M. SchatzRichard S. SeltzerJoan and Jerome SerchuckElizabeth Nicholson Sevier and

Francis A. C. SevierCorey R. Shanus and

Amy Wagner ShanusDonna Reff Shelley and

Lawrence A. Shelley

Ned L. and Emily Layzer SherwoodAlan A. and Ann ShuchWilma Bulkin SiegelLaurence B. SimonMark J. and Melissa Weiss SimonIrene Fortgang SimpkinsRajiv and Sanjiv SobtiMichael H. and Judith A. SteinhardtMarcie and Miles M. StuchinJay D. TartellEvan C ThompsonDebbie Feith Tye and Cary S. TyeEdmond D. VillaniClifford G. VinerGeorge H. Walker, IVDaniel and Jill WallenNina and Gary M. WexlerPaul C. WilliamsHwee Yong Yap-WhangWilliam J. ZellerbachBarbara and Walter ZifkinArthur S. and Connie K. Zuckerman

List current as of 8/1/03.

*deceased

Make your gift to the School of Arts and Sciences

BY CHECK Use enclosed envelope ormail to Laura Weber 3440 Market Street, Suite 300Philadelphia, PA 19104.

BY CREDIT CARDUse the enclosed envelope or make a gift online athttp://www.sas.upenn.edu/home/views/alumni.html.

APPRECIATED SECURITIESContact Laura Weber at215.898.5262 orlweber@sas.upenn.edu.

PLANNED GIFTSGifts to the School can alsobring financial benefits tothe donor. For moreinformation, contactJanine Ehsani in Penn’s Office of Gift Planning at800.223.8236 or 215.898.1098or ehsani@ben.dev.upenn.edu.

MATCHING GIFTSMany organizations willmatch gifts to the Schoolfrom their employees.Ask your employer for more information.

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Penn Arts & Sciences News ispublished by SAS External Affairs.

Editorial Offices School of Arts and Sciences3440 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

Samuel H. PrestonDean, School of Arts and SciencesSusanne BradfordManaging EditorPeter NicholsEditorTracey Quinlan DoughertyAssociate Editor Gallini 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).

David McCullough: Qualities of LeadershipDavid McCullough is a historian whose skill as a wordsmith hasearned the highest praise from critics across the country. He is knownfor his ability to bring historical figures to life, and his books havebeen praised for their exceptional narrative sweep, their scholarship,and their insight into American life. The New York Review of Bookscalled his book John Adams “By far the best biography,” and theWashington Post noted that “If nations appointed historians laureate,David McCullough would be ours.” His monumental biographyTruman also won literary distinction.

The author is familiar to PBS fans as host of Smithsonian Worldand The American Experience. He has also narrated a number ofdistinguished documentaries, including The Civil War and Napoleon.His numerous honors include two Pulitzer Prizes, two FrancisParkman Prizes, and the National Book Foundation DistinguishedContribution to American Letters Award.

Admission to the 2004 Dean’s Forum is free. Tickets must be obtainedin advance. Tickets will be available beginning March 1, 2004,through the Annenberg Center box office, 3680 Walnut Street,Philadelphia or over the phone at 215.898.3900. Box office hours are Monday-Friday, 12-6 p.m. There is a limit of two tickets perperson; seating is limited. Tickets are available on a first come,first served basis.

A CELEBRATION OF INTELLECTUAL EXCELLENCE

Wednesday, March 31, 20044:30 p.m.

Irvine Auditorium34th and Spruce streets

Philadelphia, PA 19104

2004 DEAN’S FORUM