Works of Hartt

In 1999, David Hartt shut down his art practice and left the galleries he’d been working with. He took the next 10 years away from all of it. Now he's teaching at Penn and exhibiting around the world—including in three new exhibitions that just opened in a span of 25 days.

Who is America?

GOP nativists have taken aim at a fundamental principle defining the American republic: birthright citizenship. Their legal rationale has an unlikely source: a liberal professor who totally opposes their aims. And that’s just where things start to get interesting with Constitutional law scholar Rogers Smith.

Wordsworth’s American Champion

Nearly two centuries ago, Penn professor Henry Hope Reed put William Wordsworth on America’s cultural map. More or less forgotten today (make that more), Reed was an impressive scholar whose enthusiasm for Wordsworth and English Romanticism helped shape the nation’s literary values.

Rush on the Mind

A focus on mental illness was a constant throughout the multi-faceted career of Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, prolific writer, longtime Penn faculty member, and the most prominent—and controversial—physician of his day.

The Vent Man

The Vent Man was somewhat of a fixture on Penn's campus in the 1970s, silent but constant. Four decades later, David Bolger D'79 is still thinking about him.