Time Stretcher

From swinging standards to avant garde nonconformism, Penn music professor, jazz drummer, and shapeshifting composer Tyshawn Sorey has won acclaim for “awesomely confounding” music whose “vulnerable virtuosity” can “open different portals in your depth of feeling and imagination.”

Mann in the Middle

Michael E. Mann has been a central figure in the battle for the environment since the “hockey stick” graph made him a target for climate change deniers 25 years ago. Now on Penn’s faculty and heading the Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media, he’s fending off a new generation of “inactivists” comprised of climate change deflectors on the right and doomists on the left to get out the message that it’s still within our power to save the planet.

The Olden Bough

Humans have revered ancient trees for about as long as we’ve chopped down forests. What does that fraught relationship reveal about our past? And can it illuminate a path toward a more hopeful future?

Night Fever

DJ “Michael the Lion” (also a researcher and lecturer in the Weitzman School of Design) is a big believer in the nighttime economy.

Getting it Right(er)

PIK Professors Philip Tetlock and Barbara Mellers have figured out a better way to predict the future. Open minds welcome. Experts, not so much.

Thinking About Ukraine

Penn faculty examine the conflict from multiple perspectives—sometimes clashing, sometimes meshing, and often thought-provoking. Plus: Mike Logsdon C’03’s photographs from Ukraine.

Tim Beck’s Final Brainstorms

Recalling their near-weekly conversations over the two-and-a-half years before mental health pioneer Aaron T. Beck’s death at age 100, the author—possible biographer, irritating interviewer, admiring friend—bears witness to the founder of cognitive therapy’s ceaseless quest to live a “rich full life.”

A First-Rate Version of Himself

Loren Eiseley G’35 Gr’37 was associated with no great discoveries in his field of anthropology, “awkwardly shy” and “not very comfortable with students” in the classroom, a disaster as Penn’s provost—and a writer of unmatched brilliance on the natural world and the human condition.

Choice and Change

We know what we should do when it comes to leading healthier and happier lives. But too often we default to easier, more pleasurable wants. Behavioral scientist and Wharton professor Katy Milkman is determined to help us change for the better—and for good.
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