May|June 2016
Volume 114, No. 5
FEATURES
Julian Wasser C’55’s photographic love affair with Hollywood began more than half a century ago. He’s been loving and hating and shooting it ever since.
By Samuel Hughes
Eight years ago, Stephen Kieran GAr’76 and James Timberlake GAr’77 turned their Penn Design senior studio upside down. They demoted design in favor of research, gave aesthetics a back seat to social science and data analysis, and took all their students to Bangladesh.
By Trey Popp
There’s a lot more to King Midas than history’s most celebrated case of “be careful what you wish for.” Drawing on decades of excavations at Gordion in modern Turkey, a blockbuster exhibition at the Penn Museum illuminates the world of ancient Phrygia’s greatest ruler.
By Julia M. Klein
DEPARTMENTS
First Person: Essays
NOTES FROM THE UNDERGRAD The comforts of home
ALUMNI VOICES Loving the Penn Relays
ELSEWHERE Mixed use, Dhaka-style
EXPERT OPINION “Enlightenment is for anyone”
Gazetteer: News & Sports
With a Penn assist, Philadelphia named first US World Heritage City
The University’s economic impact in PA: $14.3 billion in 2015
Alumnus Fritz Steiner, of UT-Austin, named new PennDesign dean
Wrestling alumni-led Beat the Streets helped freshman Jon Guevara
Costs—and financial aid—to rise 3.9 percent for 2016-17
IUR panel debates ETA for driverless cars
Unveiled: Penn-Novartis Center for Advanced Cellular Therapeutics
Steve Weiner WG’16’s VetTechTrek matches veterans with tech firms
New book on ENIAC emphasizes machine’s operations—and operators
Second round of President’s Engagement Prize-winners announced
Scholarship established to honor Joseph R. “Beau” Biden III C’91
Women’s basketball team are Ivy champions
Chris Swanson W’16 is Penn’s first-ever NCAA champ in swimming
Ivy coaches vote unanimously to cut tackling from football practices
Arts
MAGAZINES Karen Rile C’80 wields Cleaver
FILM Cinema studies’ Peter Decherney on Hollywood history
MUSIC Jennifer Higdon G’92 Gr’94’s first opera, Cold Mountain
Alumni: Profiles
Rachel Cohen C’12 founded and Penny Ellison L’98 runs Hand2Paw
Lawrence Haas C’78 tells how Harry & Arthur created the Free World
MAPP alumni honor Christopher Peterson with Character Strengths Matter
Steve Zeitlin W’69 Gr’78 showcases New York culture at City Lore
Former “socialist” Julian Brodsky W’56 helped found Comcast