Ar ts&Sci e n c es MAGAZINE University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences / Fall 2005

Mo l e c ular Architect “When I was young, I had a dream of creating art with molecules,” says polymer chemist Virgil Percec. Today he builds miniscule monuments invisible to the eye.

EVO LUTION WA RS | BAG HDAD DIARY | TEACHING THE TROO PS | THE HOOTE RS TO DAY | THE MAKER OF MAGIC CA RD S INSIDEPenn Arts Sciences Fea t ures Depa r tme nts

10 Cover The Molecular Architect 3 Letters Chemist Makes Monumental Structures out of Molecules 4 Dean’s Column by Dana Bauer Planning for Eminence in the Arts and Sciences

14 Creative License 6 SAS Journal – Campus News A Biologist and a Philosopher Interns Invade Philly Dissect a Pseudoscience Civil Rights Award by Peter Nichols Swing, Batter! Advising.com 18 Collateral Damage Whimsical Works Preserving the Memory of the Ancient World Q&A with Brian Rose 8 SAS Frontiers – Faculty Research BLAST Off 20 House of Fear East Meets West Undergrad Writes about the Death Delayed Rain of Bombs in Baghdad Continental Divide Book excerpts from Thura’s Diary Talk It Out

24 With Class – Teaching & Learning Briefs Mind Games

5 Rock ’n’ Roll & a Comfy House 26 SAS Partnerships – Advancing Our Mission The Hooters on Stardom and Staying Power Make a Difference for SAS Partners: Partners in Crime 23 The Wizard Gift of Music Mathematician Finds Magic in Numbers Collaborating on Collaboration The Business of Science The Society of Arts and Sciences

30 Last Word Two Poems by Charles Bernstein

31 Last Look Crossing Chords

2 P E NN ARTS & SCIE N CES Cover courtesy of J. Meija and Jon Perlmutter Letters

Penn Arts & Sciences welcomes letters Hit piece and reserves the right to edit.Write to I read with interest Joseph McLaughlin’s us at 3440 MarketStreet,Suite 300, cover story, “Still a Lot More to Do.” Philadelphia, PA 19104-3325 or e-mail at After summarizing Mary Frances Berry’s [email protected]. career in the civil rights movement,the biography dissolves into a hit piece on the George W. Bush administration. What next? There are five paragraphs of negative As a retired faculty member, I was comments and outright attacks against The only political comment that dumbfounded by Dean DeTurck’s the current government and its civil is accurate in the whole piece is that statement in “Down with Fractions” that rights record. Where is the “fair and “minorities’ … longtime loyalty to “in this digital age,[fractions] are as balanced”in this journalism? the Democrats has not been rewarded.” obs o l e te as Roman num e ral s . ” It remi n d ed McLaughlin cites Berry’s charge that Comparing the Cabinet-level appoint- me of efforts by one of the state legis- one of the “contemporary threats to civil ments of the Clinton and George W. lators a few decades ago to change the rights” is the president’s appointment Bush administrations leaves no other value of pi to 3 because 3.14 may be of minorities, such as Secretary of State conclusion. too complicated. Learning fractions in Rice and Attorney General Gonzalez. I trust that in your next issue there elementary school helps develop the What a threat! He quotes Berry as saying will be a piece favorable to the Bush brain just as crawling helps develop that appointments of minorities to administration’s position on civil rights muscles for walking. I have worked with positions of power are applauded by or some other issue of importance to comp u ters since the 1950s. As a consu l t a n t minorities “when it happens for the first provide a semblance of balance. time.”Nothing was then added about for RCA’s Advanced Technology Group, Wes l e y B. Tru i t t ,C ’ 6 1 minority appointments by the president I found that some programmers Mar ina del Rey, CA understood how to program, but they in his second term, which followed the did not have a sufficient understanding appointments in his first. Thus Dr.Rice’s Where does that leave us? of mathematics to program equations appointment was not “the first time” a correctly. In the 1970s,I disallowed the minority served as secretary of state. I just read “Still a Lot More to Do” use of calculators during exams after McL a u gh l i n ’s attack gai n e d momen - regarding Mary Frances Berry. While she several students, in calculating the speed tum whe n he stated that “B ush refuses is to be admired and given the greatest of electrons in a conductor, produced to add r ess the annual conventi o n of th e res p ect for her yea r s of work, does anyone answers greater than the speed of light. NAACP.” How many conventions did see the irony in the first paragraph, Too often, computers and calculators President Bush not attend? One is the wherein she is listed as an Independent lead to reliance on the machines rather answer, but the not-so-clever action verb and also quoted as saying, “If the people than proper education, which develops “refuses” makes it sound like a string of on the right and people on the far left the ability to think. Any nitwit can them. Bush was so badly treated at an both have bad things to say about me, punch keys on the keyboard but not ea rl i e r NAA CP appea ra n c e that he under- then I must be doing alright.”Is the everyone can tell whether the results are st a n d a b ly decli n e d to exp ose himsel fa ga i n . balance in the last statement between correct or even reasonable! What next? The president’s acceptance of the those on the right and those on the far Down with spelling because we have Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative left,and where does that leave us? action is not treason. It is the same spell-checkers? Michael Koehn, Gr’79 position other conservative leaders have Leon W. Zelb y, EE’ 5 6 , Gr’ 6 1 Palos Verdes Estates, CA taken,arguing that special preferences No rm a n ,O K diminish the self - h e lp eff orts of mi n o riti e s and encourage a feeling of victimhood and entitlement.

FA L L 2005 3 Planning for Eminence in the Arts and Sciences BY DEAN RE BE CCA W. B U S HNE L L

D E A N ’ S C O L U M N

n recent years, the School of For the School to prosper, we course requirements. In response We needed to Arts and Sciences has gained must increase facu l t y size to exp a n d to evolving needs of lifelong build on the School’s a reputation for excellence in t o new areas of kn o wled ge , to learners,the College of General mo m e n tum and unprecedented in its history. in n o vat e in educ a ti o n and to achi e ve Studies will review its bachelor’s IThis reputation is grounded in critical mass in key disciplines. and master’s degree programs to shape a future our superb faculty and students, To recruit and retain top scholars, ensure continuing excellence and th a t would bring who are intellectually ambitious, we must also attend to the time, to exp l o re promising new direction s . it to new heights inventive and versatile. Our faculty funding and facilities that support We also believe a Penn education move nimbly across disciplinary teaching and research. Most should be accessible to the very of eminence. boundaries to address emerging critically, the School will pursue best students, regardless of ability que s ti o ns and idea s . The y are known a long-range facilities plan that to pay. The School will make fund- for their eagerness to innovate in includes new construction projects, raising for endowed undergraduate teaching and research,and to such as phase II of the Life Sciences scholarships and the identification engage with local and global com- Bui l d i n g , as well as ext ens i ve reno va- of new sources for graduate munities. The School attracts tio n of cla s s r ooms and laborat orie s . fellowships a high priority. exceptio nal stud ent s who thrive on The School is home to almost All these efforts will be coordi- the challenges and opportunities half of Penn’s students and plays a nated with targeted investments in th e y find on campus, in Philadelph i a central role in the education of five cross-school, multidisciplinary and around the world. nearly all undergraduates and initiatives that engage numerous Our current strength derives from many graduate and professional University partners in a common a strategic plan devised in 1999, students.A more flexible general cause. We believe that many of the under the leadership of my prede- education curriculum,approved by world’s most pressing problems ces s o r, Sam Pres t on. Whe n I beca m e the faculty this past spring, will be and its most compelling questions dea n , I qui ck l y rea l i z ed it was tim e implemented for the Class of 2010. demand mul ti d i s c i p l i n a r y res p ons e s . for a new plan. The Uni versi t y had a The new underg radua t e curric u lu m These initiatives – genetics,neuro- ne w pres i d ent with fresh ide a s ,a n d emphasizes interdisciplinary science and behavior, nanoscience, the School would encounter new learning and global awareness,and cross-cultural contacts,social opportunities to prosper in the it will be sustained by improved dimensions of health,and democ- coming deca de. We needed to bui l d mentoring and advising.The racy and constitutionalism – will on the School’s momentum and School’s Ph.D. programs, which are build on existing strengths at Penn shape a future that would bring it essential to Penn’s standing as a and engage faculty and students to new heights of eminence. world-class research university, in vital global issues. In forging a new strategic plan, I are small and highly selective. To It is an ambitious plan, but I am as k ed facu l t y, stu d ent s , overse ers and enhance their quality, we will confident that achieving its goals al umni to step back and think big . hold individual graduate groups wil l secu r e for the Scho ol a pos i ti o n I also met with deans from Penn’s accountable for performance when of even grea t er promi n en c e in the other schools. The result is a set of allocating resources, provide world and enhance our ability to goals and priorities that will guide incentives for graduate programs use the knowledge we create for our decision making over the next to obtain external funding, and the greater good. ■ fi ve yea rs . Here are some highl i gh t s . simplify the tuition structure and

4 P E NN ARTS & SCIE N CES BRI E F

TH E HO OT E RS O N STA RD OM AND STAYING POWE R

Rock ’n’ Ro ll & a Comfy Hou s e

ric Bazilian,C’75, is hiking through a national park somewhere in northern Sweden. Engulfed by the Ewilderness, Bazilian and his two youngestchildren – ages 4 and 6 – are on the lookout for wolverines, bears and all manner of forestcreatures. “The countryside here is justamazing,”he says of his wife’s homeland,which the family visits each summer. “I used to have to for ce myself to come over here,and the carrot was that I could setup in the barn and write music every day.” Two decades ago, Bazilian and Rob Hyman,C’72, were in the midst of an experience that was equally wild – but now h e r e near as seren e . With their band, the Hooters, th e y kicked off Live Aid in Philadelphia on July 13 , 1985, before a capacity crowd at JFK Stadium and billions of people watc h - ing on TV worldwide. “We were sort of like deer in the Eric Bazilian and Rob Hyman he a d l i g ht s, ” Bazilian says. “W e wer e all con ce nt r ating so hard th a t it took a while to rea l i z e what we wer e exp e r i e n c i n g .” It was a high-water mark for the two friends, who met “Then I realized that after the show, she would getback “IT’SA PRIVILEGE in an electronic music class at Penn and later achieved all on the bus and drive for six hours and I would go back to TO LIVE A SEMI- the trappings of rock stardom – iconic singles like “And We my comfy bed and house with a studio in the back.” Danced,”music awards and concerts with the likes of U2 After lying fallow for the lasthalf of the 1990s, the NORMAL LIFE AND and Bruce Springsteen. “If we weren’twriting, we were Hooters were invited to perform at a 2001 concert in FOR ONE OR TWO recording;if we weren’t recording, we were on tour,” Ph i l a d e l p h i a . The show led to a wel l - a ttended European tou r MONTHS OUT OF Hyman says. “It was a time in music when worlds were in 2003 that has continued over the past three summers. colliding.MTV was new and amazing, and everyone was When the multination Live 8 concerts woke the echoes of THE YEAR, GET ON tuning into that nonstop.” Li v e Aid, the Hooters watched parts of the bro a d c a s tf rom a A PLANE AND BE Unlike most of their contemporaries, however, the hotel in Germany while prepping for the tou r ’ s closing night. A ROCK STAR.” Hooters survived the ‘80s with their music intact. Apart “We’re all very different people,butwhen we play live, from playing with the band,Hyman and Bazilian are something happens. It’s that simple,”Hyman says. “We’ve known around the industry as first-rate songwriters and acc u m u l a ted a lot of riffs over the yea r s ,and th ey ’ re exp l o d - performers, having worked with such artists as Mick ing on stage.” He adds that their recent performances Jagger,Willie Nelson and Ricky Martin. Mostnotably, feature eight to 10 new compositions, some of which are Hyman earned a Grammy nomination for co-authoring planned for an upcoming album. “It’s a privilege to live a Cyndi Lauper’s 1984 hit“Time After Time,”while Bazilian semi-normal life and for one or two months out of the received the same recognition after he penned Joan year, geton a plane and be a rock star,”Bazilian says. “It’s Osborne’s 1995 breakout single “One of Us.” still an incredible thrill to write a song and the nextday Bazilian recalls seeing Osborne play his composition go play itwith the band.” ■ to a packed house in Philadelphia shortly after its release . —JOSEPH MCLAUGHLIN “I started feeling some pangs of jealousy,”he admits.

FA L L 2005 5 S A S S J J O O U U R RNN A A L L Campus N ews

Int erns Invade Philly Civil Rig hts Awa r d When the summer research internship Thomas Sugrue, the Edmund J. and program began in 2004, the plan was to Louise W. Kahn Endowed Term Professor expose College students to the ways and of History, is one of 12 artists, writers and means of research by partnering with scholars to win the inaugural Fletcher campus cultural institutions. The program Foundation Fellowship. The $50 million was so successful th a t it was expanded in its foundation,created by financier Alphonse se c ond year to include premier artistic and Fletcher Jr. advances the cause of racial hi s t orical organ i z ations across Philadelphia. equality as outlined in the U.S. Supreme Several interns were selected to build Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education their research skills at the Philadelphia decision. The $50,000 award fetes those Museum of Art,National Constitution whose work improves race relations and Cen ter and Librar y Com p a n y of Philadelphia. illuminates civil rights issues. Swin g ,Bat t er! As a research intern in the PMA’s education Other honorees include Brandeis Baseball fans have long admired players department,senior Alexis Orenstein was professor Anita Hill,who is known for who can produce a hitwhen their teams responsible for creating and augmenting accusing then-Supreme Court nominee need itmost and are quick to scorn those object files that chronicle the history of Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment, who fail. Butdo some players really rise to some of the museum’s most rever ed pieces . and Kathleen Cleaver, a former Black the occasion as much as the fans like to Orenstein says the experience turned her Panther Party activist.“I was blown away believe,while others fall short? As it turns into a detective of sorts, leading her to art when I saw the list of recipients,”Sugrue out,the answer is yes. That’s according li b r aries and arch i v es all over the city in her says. “It’s a who’s who of major figures to a study by senior Elan Fuld, who took se a r ch for details about each piece of art. in the world of race and the arts, civil itupon himself to determine whether “I took an art appreciation class at Penn rights and black activism. I was very such lofty praise – or universal derision – before my internship,”Orenstein says. happy to be in their company.” is truly warranted. “The research I’ve done here has allowed With the stipend from his award, Fuld’s calculations provide statistical me to take the tools I learned in class and Sugure will finish writing Sweet Land of evi d e n c e th a t pl a yers such as Eddie Murray, apply them to some of the wor l d ’ s great e s t Liberty: The Unfinished Struggle for Racial Frank Duffy and Luis Gomez were all pi e c es of art.” In addition, she learned about Equality in the North, which is scheduled clutch hitters. Fuld,a baseball aficionado all aspects of the museum’s operation for publication by Random House next as well as a dual major in math and through explanatory seminars and was year.“Most of our scholarship in civil rights economics, devised a method of analyzing called on to deliver a spotlight talk about focuses on the South – the classic period 1,075 Major League players from 1974 a piece from the museum’s collection. between the Brown decision and the through 1992. He modeled players’ at-bat assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. outcomes using the importance of the in 1968,”Sugrue says.“The story of civil game situation to make his determination. rights in the North has been told in little “On c e situational importa n c e rose to … a bits and pieces – like the struggle over cer tain level , the player would start to th i n k busing in Boston – butno one has really this is very important and do something putit all together.” th a t ma k es him hit be t t e r , if he’s clutch, or panic and do something that makes him hit worse,if he’s a choke hitter,” Fuld says. He was surprised to find that some pl a yers who had rep u t a tions as choke arti s t s wer e actually quite clutch. Bill Buckner, th e il l - f ated Boston Red Sox first baseman who infamously missed a routine ground ball in the 1986 World Series, was statistically pr oven to be an above- a vera g e clutch hitter. Alexis Orenstein

6 P E NN ARTS & SCIE N C ES Advis i n g .com College Dean Dennis DeTurck and a team of four advising experts gathered in a Towne Building classroom on June 29 to discuss freshman year at Penn with incoming first-year students. But instead of seeing fresh young faces, DeTurck and company were metwith a makeshift te l e vision studio and computer equipment. That’s because the students-to-be were home – sitting in front of their computers – waiting to begin the College’s firstlive advising webcast. Over the next hour or so, the Penn experts fielded such common questions as “How does advance registration work?”and “How can I be sure to getthe classes I want?”posed to them from all over the world. “Because you are now or will be 18, your grades are sent to you,and who else you letsee them is entirely up to you,”DeTurck said when asked whether parents received student grade reports. “People at Penn will not reveal your grades to your parents unless you give us permission.” The three advising webcasts held this pastsummer occurred at three different Ray Eames with prototype of The Toy times of day to accommodate a global audience. DeTurck began the first webcast at 9 p.m . and started the final one at 8 a.m. Whimsical Works On display were two structural building Although their purpose was to help A little-known legacy of furniture toys, several examples of plywood in c oming freshmen arran g e their schedules, manufacturers Charles and Ray Eames furniture and three short films: “Tops,” the conversations were wide ranging. found a home this pastsummer at the “Toccata for Toy Trains”and “Kaleidoscope Much of the information covered in the Arthur Ross Gallery. Staged by students in Jazz Chair.” In addition,the presentation webcasts remains useful even though the Halpern-Rogath Curatorial Seminar – featured photographs taken by the office classes already have begun. You can watch pa r t of the Master of Liberal Arts prog ra m of Charles Eames that chronicled the Dean DeTurck lead the sessions by going in the College of General Studies – the creation of these objects. to http://www.college.upenn.edu and click exhibition feat u r ed toys, ch i l d re n ’s furniture Charles and Ray Eames are mostly on the “webcastarchive”link. and fanciful films by the husband-and- known for introducing molded-plywood wife design team. and plastic furniture to America. They are “Whimsical Works: The Playful Designs credited with helping to modernize the of Charles and Ray Eames” focused on the country after World War II by partnering couple’s lighthearted approach to serious with the federal government and top things and earnesttake on playful things. businesses.Charles became one of the “Toys are not really as innocent as they country’s leading cultural diplomats, look,”Charles Eames once said. “Toys and helping to shape arts-related programs games are the preludes to serious ideas.” through his service on various councils.

FA L L 2005 7 S A S F R O N TI E R S Faculty Re s e a rc h

BL AST Off The view through even the best who heads the project.BLAST’s journey telescopes on Earth is obscured by the carried it from the launch site in atmosphere, and the cost of putting one Kiruna, Sweden, to Inuvik in the north in orbit is, shall we say, astronomical. Canadian tundra. During the five-day How then,can scientists get a better flight,260 detectors harvested photons peek at the stars for bargain-basement from far-off regions of the universe. prices? Easy.Suspend a Chevy-sized The data “will address some of the most East Meets Wes t instrument from a 33-story balloon, important cosmological and galactic Tabloids keep us up to date on the and float it up into the very edge of questions regarding the formation and frolics of glamorous stars and the back- space. That’s what Mark Devlin and an evolution of stars, galaxies and clusters,” stabbings of ruthless powerbrokers in international team of scientists did in Devlin reports.A second and longer Tin s el t own. In his latest book , Hollyw ood June with the Balloon-borne Large data-gathering mission is planned for and the Culture Elite: How Movies Aperture Sub-millimeter Telescope the end of 2 0 0 6 .“ It’s rela t ively uncha r ted Became American, Peter Decherney (BLAST) that they created.“Balloon- territory,” the cosmologist notes.“Not examines the flipside of pop culture based astronomy offers many of the only are we collecting some unique and reveals surprising connections perks of space-based telescopes at a and interesting information about the between Hollywood bigwigs and the fraction of the cost,” says Devlin,the universe, but we’re also pioneering stewards of high culture at such places Class of 1965 Endowed Term Associate technologies that will pave the way for as Har vard , Colu m bi a , and the Mus eu m Professor of Physics and Astronomy, other planned balloon projects.” of Modern Art. Decherney, an assistant profes s o r of ci n e ma studies and Engli s h , writes that “Film didn’t become art until Hollywood moguls decided it was good business for film to become art and the leaders of American cultural institutions found it useful – politically useful – to embrace and promote Hollywood film.”His book looks at the mutual emb race of hi gh b row instit ution s on the East Coast and a money - m a k i n g pop- c u l tu r e ent erprise on the West Coas t during the golden era of Hollywood’s st udio syst em. Both cent ers of influence wanted to reach a mass audience that spanned the coasts.East reached out to West to “maintain their hold on American art, education, and the idea of American identity itself.”The studios met East-Coast establishments halfway to solidify their hold on popular culture and to benefit financially. That coll a b orati o n with mu s eu m s ,u n iversi ti e s and government, writes Decherney, “redefined Hollywood as an ideal Ame rican indus t ry, the perfect marria g e of art and commerce.” Mark Devlin

8 P E NN ARTS & SCIE N CES Death Dela yed Talk It Out “Why do I overlive?” Adam cries out in New research has shown that cognitive Paradise Lost. Author Emily Wilson, in therapy, which teaches people to under- Mocked with Death: Tragic Overliving stand and change harmful thoughts, from Sophocles to Milton, uses Adam’s works as well as changing people’s body dark lament as the basis for a literary chemistry with pills.A recent study by analysis of living too long.Wilson, an psychology professor Robert DeRubeis assistant professor of classical studies, Conti n e ntal Divid e and a colleague at Vanderbilt challenges probes the fate of living on when death American Psychiatric Association When surveying the national landscape, seems preferable in works by Milton guidelines that tout medications as the Penn sociologist Jerry Jacobs and NYU and four of his literary predecessors: best treatment for depressed patients. professor Kathleen Gerson point to the Sophocles, Euripides, Seneca and Published in the Archives of General “dra m a t ic cha n g es in the ways Ame ric a n s Shakespeare. Each writer composed Psychiatry, the study is the largest yet to organize their work and family lives.” works in which the main character determine the relative merits of the two In their study of family time pressures, undergoes unbearable suffering or loss approaches. The experiment divided The Time Divide: Work, Family, and and calls out for death but goes on 240 depres s e d patie nts into three grou p s , Gender Inequality, Jacobs and Gerson living.The tragic tradition,she argues, treating one with antidepressants and argue that society’s “dilemmas and som e times finds its ener g y in a cha r acter’ s another with cognitive therapy. The conflicts” come from the diversity of living on rather than in dying when third group was given a placebo. After families in the workforce – from two readers would expect. “Why am I 16 weeks,the results for those receiving wage earners to single mothers to mocked with death,and lengthened talk therapy and those on drugs were workers without kids. Their research out/To deathless pain?”Milton’s Adam statistically identical. The researchers punctures the prevailing myth that moaned. Certainly in our time, we also found that subjects who were given Americans are working longer hours, sometimes hear echoes of Adam’s drugs were more likely to relapse into suggesting that the time squeeze is far anguished cry in patients hooked up depression, suggesting that cognitive more nuanced.“Understanding the to life support or from those enjoying therapy continued working after average is important,” explains Jacobs, the mixed blessing of a longer life. treatment ended. “We believe that the Merriam Term Profes s o r in Soci o l o gy, “Tragedies of overliving disturb the … cognitive therapy might have more “but there are more exceptions to the reader,” Wilson writes, “by reminding us lasting effects because it equips patients rule than ever.” If you look at working that life may feel too long and endings with the tools they need to manage families, instead of individual workers, may seem to have come too late.” their problems and emotions,” says the coauthors say, “time divides”– DeRubeis, who is also associate dean between the overworked and the under- for the social sciences in SAS. employed, between women and men, between parents and non-parents – are apparent.“Many feel tremendous time pressures due to demanding jobs, especially in dual-career families,” explains Jacobs, “but others are looking for more work. Managers and profes- sionals work very long weeks, but the work week among those with less education has not grown over the last Emily Wilson 30 years.”The book makes many recommendations, and the authors’ insights should find their way to the conference rooms of policy-makers.

FA L L 2005 9 PE R E C WA N TSTOBU I L D

H I S OW N V E R S I O N O F

AQUA P O R I N – A C H A N N E L

W H O S E A RC H I T E C T U R E C A N

B E T W E A K E D TO F I LT E R

WAT E R, O N E M O L E C U L E AT A T I M E. “ NO O N E H A S DO N E I T Y E T, BU T I T H I N K M AY B E W E A R E C LO S E,” H E S AYS. COVER STORY

The Mole c ular Architect

CHE M I ST MAKES MO N UM E NTAL STR U CTURES OUT OF MO L E C UL E S

BY DANA BAUE R

irgil Percec is one of fi g u r ed he must have said somet h i n g his 1991 discovery of aquaporin. the world ’ s grea te s t important in that lecture.” Years later, researchers at the pol yme r chemists, but Klug’s message was deceptively Berkele y Lab uncovered its struc ture . this morning, over dark simple: “Structure determines Percec wants to go a step furth e r and andV smoky espresso, he’s telling function.”It was the lesson passed build his own versi o n of aqu a p orin me about a time when he wasn’t. down by the scientific generation – a cha n n e l whose archi t ectur e can “You’ll like this,” he says. In before him, by DNA mavericks like be twea k ed to yie ld a host of pos s i bl e 1982, when he was a new assistant Watson and Crick. By the time functions that include filtering professor at Case Western Reserve Klug got his Ph.D., says Percec, “he water, one molecule at a time. Uni versi t y, the physicist Aar on Klug had decided that DNA was over, so “No one has done it yet, but I came to campus to give a lecture. he moved on to the next cha ll en ge , ” think maybe we are close,” he says, “I was invit ed to have dinner with un d erstanding the interactio ns of a smile playing on his lips. Klug that evening.The dinner was rea l ly big molecules and prot eins – to be at the most expensive French work that earned him the Nobel. Laying the foundation restaurant in town,so I felt obliged And more than 20 years later, “I didn’t intend to become a to go to the lecture.” Percec,now the P. Roy Vagelos chemist,” Percec tells me. We’re The name Klug doesn’t register, Professor in Chemistry at Penn,is sitting in his fourth floor office in so I lean in to catch the details applying Klug’s dictum to a new the Vagelos Labs, surrounded by of Percec’s story. He speaks softly, and decidedly modern pursuit: stacks of papers and books.On the with a thick accent from his building designer molecules that wall above his desk hangs a bright native Romania. work like the real thing. orange, yellow and red painting “I thought the lecture was very “Now here’s an interesting that,at first glance,looks like a boring,” Percec continues.“He was problem,” says Percec, showing bouquet of fiery flowers. Actually, giving it to the physics community, me a computer image of a tangled sa ys Percec, it ’s a sphe rical molecu l e and it didn’t seem connected to st ruc tur e nickn a m e d “the hourgla s s . ” he built in the lab.The painting what I was doing. I was very naive.” Within its curvy silhouette, red was an award from the Royal A few days later, Percec was read- spheres parade single file through a Netherlands Chemical Society. ing The New York Times on a plane. ho ll o w col umn of coil e d and col o rfu l “I loved art whe n I was a boy,” he On the front page was a picture of rib bons . We’re looking at a model conti nu e s . His father was a painter Klug . “I thought he must have done of aqu a p orin , a prot ein cha n n e l that and musician who encouraged something wrong.You don’t get on tran s p orts pure water into cells at a his son in both areas. “Although I the front page of the paper in this rat e of a bill i o n molecules a second . became addicted to art, I did not country unless you do som et h i n g “I t’s an amazing struc ture , ” he says. want to be second to my father, wrong . Well, Aar on Klug had receiv- “It makes manmade methods and therefore I decided to study ed the Nobel Prize. And the shock of water purification look like ar chi t ecture , ” he told Ch e mical and was not that he had received the something out of the Stone Age.” En gi n e ering News in 2004. But two Nobel Prize, but that he received it Peter Agre of Johns Hopkins org anic chem i s t ry cou r ses du ri n g for chemistry as a physicist. So I Uni versi t y won the Nobel Priz e for his last semester of high school

Virgil Perec at the Off the Wall exhibit,a wall of experimental shapes by artist Robinson Fredenthal, GAr’63, in Penn’s Architectural Archives Photo by Jon Perlmutter

FA L L 2005 11 PERCEC’S PORE not return. “That night I rode the train from Buch a re s t . You can never be sure if they’ll let you across the border. Even with a passport,they can turn you away.” He made it to the conference, where he told colleagues he was defectin g . The next step was to get his wife , who is also a ch em i s t ,a n d young daughter out of Romania. Dozens of prominent scientists, in c luding Nobel laurea t e Paul Flory, Top view showing the 12 Side view of the protein pore Cross section showing the wrote letters to the Romanian dendritic dipeptides that form assembled from dendritic inner part of the pore the opening of the pore dipeptides constructed from layers of embassy in Washington, D.C., on dipeptides (blue and white) Percec’s behalf. Only when the scientific community threatened to boycott a major conference in Bucharest and embarrass Elena cha n g ed everyth i n g , and he deci d ed But one day in the late 1970s, Ceausescu,the president’s wife to switch to chemistry. Percec returned from an interna- and host of the conference, were That decision made his parents tional conference to discover that Percec’s wife and daughter allowed very unhappy. “The Romanian sys- a KGB officer had reported him to to join him. tem, you see, was more comp l i c a t ed the government.“I don’t remember With his family by his side and than the American system. Usually why exactly. I probably said some- the constraints of the Romanian it’s quite a dangerous experiment thing about the freedom in the government behind him, Percec’s to change direction li k e that.” West compared to the East,” he scientific career took off. By 1986, Because universi t y programs were speculates. As a consequence, his he was a full professor at Case li m i t ed and speci a l i z ed, Percec traveling privileges were curtailed, Western, and in 1999,he joined risked not getting a position in any and he had to turn down all the Penn faculty. The move seems program. That was the last thing invitations to do research and give to have accelerated his already his parents wanted. He was the first lectures around the world.“For a distinguished career. An ambitious in the family with a chance to go to combination of reasons,” he says, and prolific scientist, Percec has college. His grandfather had been a including his family history, more than 500 papers, 32 patents teacher and politician, “but when Percec imagined a limited future and 700 invited lectures to his the Communists took over, he was in his homeland. name. In the last few years, he has thrown into prison and his seven Several years later, the Romanian won several major aw a rd s ,i n clud i n g kids were kicked out of school.” government granted permission to the 2004 Ame rican Che mical Soci e ty Percec’s experiment paid off. travel to conferences in Russia and Award for Polymer Chemistry. He In 1976, he earned a Ph.D. at the Italy. However, his requests for a is widely recognized as one of the Institute of Macromolecular passport to attend a meeting of the most creative and innovative Chemistry in Jassy, Romania, International Union of Pure and polymer chemists working today. specializing in polymer chemistry, Applied Chemistry in France were the science of large molecules repea t edly deni ed . “The governm en t Building blocks made of simple repeating units. As probably thought, ‘this guy Percec Creating a synthetic version of a a young researcher at the institute, cannot be trusted,’”he surmises. protein channel isn’t an easy task, he got off to an auspicious start. Finally, a colleague who was explains Percec, pointing to the His work on the synthesis and close to the entourage of Nicolae image aquaporin on his 12-inch structural analysis of a certain type Cea u s e s c u , the Romanian pres i d ent , Macintosh laptop. The pleasing of polymer is still used by scientists intervened and helped him get a and colorful picture gives no hint today as a blueprint for the design passport. Percec decided that if he of the multi-leveled, step-by-step of large helical-shaped molecules. got out of the country, he would building process.

12 P E NN ARTS & SCIE N CES “Mo t h e r Natu r e has spent bill i on s builds itself depending on the of yea r s working this out. We ,m o s t properties of the bricks.” li k ely, wil l not be able to underst a n d Percec’s choice of “brick” makes it in less time. So, therefore, am I his work unique. He and his team going to give up? Say that it is not are using dendritic peptides, tree- possible because I won’t be around like polymers that can be altered for billions of years?” in countless ways. If the research Instead, he and his research group is trying to build a sphere team have developed techniques in (like the one in the painting in the lab that mimic what happens Percec’s office),they start with in nature. They start by choosing cone-shaped dendritic peptides chemical building blocks that come that cluster together with the together much like the components tapered ends touching at a single of proteins do. point. Building blocks shaped like “Proteins have multiple levels pie slices come together to form of structure,” Percec explains. The disks that can stack into columns. first level is a polypeptide chain, “Small changes in the dendritic Architectural Twins: A layer of dendritic dipeptides from a string of tightly bonded amino peptides can give you big changes Percec’s pore over the Rose Window from the west facade of acids spaced evenly along a in structure,” Percec explains. Chartres Cathedral in France chemical backbone. The second level of structure is caused by Molecular cathedrals “local” chemical attractions, the Last summer, Percec reported in TW E A K I N G T H O S E A RC H I T E C T U RA L twisting of the polypeptide chain Nature the creation of a helical M OT I F S TO Y I E L D N EW S T RU C T U R E S W I T H along its backbone. The next level structure that looks and works is the overall three-dimensional like protein pores in a cell – the N EW P RO PE RT I E S I S PA RT O F T H E A RT A N D shape of the molecule – the way it holes through which “all the bunches and turns in on itself so materials that make life possible” S C I E N C E O F PE RC E C’SWO R K. that the “water-hating” parts of the pass into and out of the micro- molecule are grouped together on organism. Percec’s creation is the inside and the “water-loving” the first successful attempt at “What do you think? Twins, pa r ts are on the outs i de . Some tim e s a synthetic pore that is stable, maybe?” several polypeptide chains come functional and flexible. He and He’s being playful, of course, but together to form an even larger his team are now modifying the the comparison gets at one of the structure. It is this final three- size and shape of the minuscule fundamental aspects of his work: dimensional shape that gives the structure to make it selective like developing architectural motifs – protein its biological function. aquaporin,allowing only certain wedges and cones, for example – “The primary structure is the molecules to pass through it. that assemble into structures that driving force for the higher-level Structure determines function. are “beautiful”in both a functional structures,” Percec says. The Percec likes to compare his and aesthetic sense. chemistry of the initial polypeptide protein pore mimic to the Rose Tweaking those architectural chain – the type of amino acids Window on the west facade of motifs to yield new structures with and side chains,its size, whether it Cha r tres Cat h ed r al in Fran ce . He new properties is part of the art is “right-handed or left-handed” – sh o ws me a comp u ter image of th e and science of Percec’s work. That’s determines how the structure will pore superimposed on an image of where the creativity comes in. “self-assemble” into the desired the win d ow. The res em bl a n c e is “When I was young, I had a three-dimensional shape. uncanny. The dendritic peptides dream of creating art with In the lab, the process is similar. have branching tendrils that radiate molecules,” he says.“I still have Andres Dulcey, one of Percec’s from a central core,and th e that dream.” ■ research assistants, explains it this ca t h ed r al win d ow has a series of Dana Bauer is a freelance science way: “We choose the bricks, but we tea r- s h a p ed stained- g lass panels writer in Philadelphia. don’t build the house. The house that radi a t e from a cent ral win d ow.

FA L L 2005 13 Creative License

BY PETER NI CH O LS

enn anthropologist and literary stylist Loren Eiseley, P Gr’37, once struggled with how he might an s w er a stud ent in a scienc e cou rs e who asked, “Whe re did I come from?” The question has a Baltimore Catechism ring to it, but Eiseley’s response is,if not pure science,then science that is poetically rendered.“‘Son,’ you say floundering … ‘There was an odd fish in a swamp and you have his lun gs . ’ Or you say,‘On c e there was a reptile whose jaw bones are in you r ea r .’Or you try agai n . ‘The re was an ap e and his teeth are in your mouth . Your jaw has shrunk and your skull has risen. You are fish and reptile and a warm-blooded affectionate thing that dies if it has nothing to cling to whe n it is you n g . You are all of these things. You are also a rag doll made of patches out of many ages and skins.’” The intrus i o n of sc i en t ific answers into what were once thought of as reli g ious que s ti o ns has been trou bl - ing to believers,especially to those who read the Genesis story as a sc i en c e text book . It took more than 350 years for the Catholic Church to admit the errors of inquisitors who persecuted Galileo when he offered proofs that Earth was not the cent er of the universe . With the publication of Origin of Species (1859),science revealed that we

Science philosopher Michael Weisberg holds a tray full of beetles from the collections o f the entomology department at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.

“I think t h ey wa nt to cut

14 P E NN ARTS & SCIE N CES A B I O L O G I S T AND A PHIL O S O P H ER DISSECT A P S E UD O S C I E N C E

are, in Eiseley’s words, a “rag doll” Dover is the nation’s first school deconstructs the Dover statement. Photos by Lisa Godfrey descended from non-human – even district to place intelligent design The board had singled out evolu- non l i ving – ances t ors. Mol ec u l a r before students as a scientific tion,he notes, but it didn’t urge the bio l o gists have ela b orat ed Da r win ’s explanation for the origin of life. same open mindedness toward any th e ory of evol uti on ,c a s ting all life The boar d did not mandate instruc - ot h e r theory by name. No discla i m e r as a restless patchwork of genes and tion in this new “science,” only that admonished that atomic theory or proteins, woven and rewoven over teachers should read a statement relativity or plate tectonics might vast eons of time into a crazy qui l t casting doubt on evolution – be wrong or controversial, and thus of fu r red, finned, winged and “Darwin’s Theory … is not a fact.” deserving of learners’ circumspec- leaved species. – while holding up intelli g ent des i g n tion. “Clearly, th a t ’s not what the “I don’t have any trouble with as a via b le alterna t ive .S tu dents were boar d was tryin g to do with this,” religion being part of how people invited to explore the competing he stresses. “They were asking live their lives,” says Penn biologist explanation in 60 copies of the students to do more than keep an Paul Sniegowski, “but I do have intelligent-design manifesto Of open mind – or less.” real problems,as a scientist, with Pandas and People, which had been In a letter signed by 30 members making matters of faith part of given to the school district by an of the biology and philosophy how we evaluate scientific findings anonymous donor. “With respect departments, Sniegowski and and theories.” to any theory,” the statement Weisberg told the Dover board that Sniegowski studies genetic advised, “students are encouraged “the quality of science education mutations that get passed down to keep an open mind.” in your schools has been seriously through generations of laboratory Weis b erg , who studies theoretic a l compromised.” Science,they bacteria.Last winter, he and models in evolutionary biology, explained,is “based on ideas well Michael Weisberg, an assistant professor of philosophy, wrote an open letter to the Dover school board , whi c h overse es the educ a ti o n of 3,600 pupils 100 miles west of campus. The board had voted to Be e t l e mania in t roduc e its stud ents to “i n t elli g ent A cleric once asked J.B. S . Haldane (1892-19 6 4 ) , the British population gen e t i c i s t , design” in order to assure “a fair wh a t he might in f er about the deity,based on his lifetime of close observati o n and balanced science curriculum.” of the natu r al wor l d . Haldane replied th a t the crea tor seemed to have “an Intelligent design is a critique of in o rd i n a te fondness for beetles.” En tomologists have described and named evolution that claims life is too mo r e than 350,000 species of col e o p t e r a since 1758. “One of ever y five species complex to be explained by natural of living organisms – which includes plants, animals, bacteria,fungi and causes but requires the guiding everything else – is a beetle,”says Jason Weintraub, entomology collection hand of an outs i d e intelli g ence . Not manager at Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences. Due to their hard all advocates are biblical literalists. exos ke l e to n s ,beetles are plentiful in the fossil reco r d too .Pal e o e n tom o l o g i s t s A few are scientists. They don’t say have tracked their ancestors back as far as 2 70 million years. ■ whose fingerprints they’ve found in Chiasognathus granti, Darwin’s stag beetle the natural order, but they contend their position is based on science.

our understanding of nat u re to fit theological pre co n ce p t i o n s .”

FA L L 2005 15 consonant with Christian and out the details of the theory, and theistic convictions.” The quote is there are internal controversies from Discovery’s “Wedge Strategy,” about how certain things should be a 20-year action plan posted on the interpreted, but certainly for the Internet in 1999. The Wedge calls last 75 years there has been full for a far-reaching campaign to pry scientific consensus.”Any “gaps” or open gaps in court decisions that “problems” in evolutionary theory rul e d tea ching crea ti o nism uncons t i- are the places where investigators tutional because it brought God pose new questions and carry out into the classroom. Those verdicts research. The curiosity of scientists left open the possibility of lesson and their eagerness to be part of plans that present other “scientific” that long lineage of question and origin theories alongside evolution. answer and question again is what Eric Rothschild, L’93,a lawyer keeps scientific inquiry alive. with Pepper Hamilton,LLP, and “Evolutionary theory is testable the lead attorney in the case against and has been tested and continues “ Evo l u t i o n a ry t h e o ry is t e s t a b l e the Dover board, observes that to be tested and to produce fruitful “intelligent design is a perfect new hypotheses that can be tested,” and has been tested and illustration of evolution at work. Weisberg points out. But intelligent co ntinues to be tested and to Creationists were confronted with design is a strikingly incurious an inhospitable legal environment, sc i en ce . Its most comp elling finding, p ro d u ce fruitful new hy p o t h e s e s so in order to sur vive they cont rived that nature gives evidence of an t h at can be t e s t e d .” a new label – intelligent design – outside designer, has not prompted for the same basic concept.” defend ers to pose the next que s ti on : By sidestepping talk about a Who is the designer? There have cre a t or, Rot h s c hild ex p l a i n s ,p u bl i - been almost no papers in refereed supported by evidence,” which is cists spin intelli g ent des i g n as a new science journals and hardly a so l i d ly the case for evol ution a r y the- movement of heretical scientists hint of a research program at the ory. Intelligent design is “a form of whose vie ws des e rve equal time wit h Discovery Institute. That, declares cre a ti o nism propped up by a bia s e d Darwinian orthodoxy. It’s about Weisberg, is what marks it a pseu- and sele ctive vie w of the evid ence . ” academic freedom.Schools,they doscience. Intelligent design is little Sniegowski, not to mention the in s i s t , should “tea ch the cont roversy .” more than a “series of critiques” 11 parents who brought a suit in So eff ective has their publi c i t y been that predi c ts and produc es nothing, federal court against the board, that President Bush spoke on mes- and ends with an untested – and contends the Dover policy tries to sage at a summer roundtable with un te s t a b le – hypot h e s i s . These anti- slip reli gi o n into the scienc e curric u - Texas reporters when he remarked evol ution i s t s , he add s , “sp end a lot of lum . Promo t ers of in t elli g ent des i gn , that “both sides should be properly time trying to cha r acteriz e the sort of led nationally by the Discovery ta u g ht … so people can underst a n d comp l ex i t y that they think requi r es Institute,a Seattle think tank, what the deba t e is about . ” a des i gn e r.”The des i gn e r might be studiously avoid references to God. In fact,say the scientist and the God ; it could be an alien, proponen t s “But if you look below the surface,” phi l o s o phe r, th e re is no cont roversy coyly respond when pushed. And Sniegowski maintains,“you can see – the quarrel is being played out then they cling to that ignorance they are the lineal descendants of almost entirely in sound bites and as a virtue – or a legal expedient. the creationists” who lost the anti- media hype. At worldwide science “I think they want to cut our evol utio n cou r t battles of the 1980s. conventions and in peer-reviewed un d erstanding of na tu r e to fit theo- After their defeat,creationists j o u rn a l s ,s c i en tists have long moved lo gical preconc epti on s ,”Sni e gowsk i regrouped and forged a new past debate over the soundness of st a te s .“ D epend a b le knowled g e abou t approach to undercut the teaching evolutionary theory. “It’s a non- nature is hard-won and extremely of evolution by putting forward issue,”Weisberg says. “There are valuable. It’s what lets us run cars intelligent design, “a science scientists who continue to work and cure diseases. Evol ution a r y

16 P E NN ARTS & SCIE N CES THE HYPOTHESIS science is a vital part of that tradi- better. “The controversy,” he adds, GOD tion. There really is no reason to need not be so polarizing. change the rules about how we get Loren Eiseley was a scientist dependable knowledge and every enchanted and awed by the sheer reason not to.” strangeness of evolution. “I too The authors of the Wedge am a many-visaged thing that has Strategy see Darwinism as a secular climbed upward out of the dark religion that overthrew traditional of endless leaf falls and has slunk, forms of Christianity and “infected furred, through the glitter of blue virtually every area of our culture” glacial nights.” Through Darwin’s with “materialism,” a belief that the eyes, he saw that life is a shape- world holds nothing more than shifter and humanity the latest

what can be grasped by the scientific “bloom on a curious animal Elizabeth Trost mind. Richard Dawkins, a fellow of extrusion through time.” It is the Paul Sniegowski the Royal Society and widely read science-formed poet in Eiseley popularizer of evolution, confirmed who speaks here. How natural is hen physicist and mathematician Pierre- – and inflamed – that perception “natural”? he wondered. To his way Simon Laplace published Mécanique Céleste, when he stated that Charles Darwin of thinking, Darwin’s theory did W Napoleon asked why there was no mention “made it possible to be an intellec- not diminish the human race but of God in his five-volume treatise on how the heavens tually satisfied atheist.” If that is true, opened a doorway to what he work. After all, the emperor pointed out, the great Isaac it is not a scientific finding but a sometimes called “the unexpected Newton, whose theories Laplace had built upon, had personal discernment that Dawkins universe.” What is it we are part of ? found a place for the divinity in his system. The French came to. Science, Sniegowski and he would ask. It’s not exactly a scientist replied,“I have no need of that hypothesis.” Weisberg are quick to point out, science question, although it comes Almost 100 years before, Newton had given a compre- has nothing to say about God, from scientific insight, and it may hensive account of terrestrial and celestial motion, intelligent designer or otherwise. not belong in a biology curriculum. which culminated in a theory of universal gravitation. Scientists of a reductionist stripe “Skins may still prickle in a In Principia, he laid out, like the innards of a clock, the may be satisfied that the answers modern classroom,” Eiseley physical laws that govern the machinery of the universe. of science are the last word, but observed, no doubt from personal Still, some observations were not as predicted, so Newton many investigators ply its method experience. Those goose bumps conjectured that the deity periodically reset the astro- without professing the belief that once fluffed fur that warmed long- nomical clock to keep it running on time. science explains everything. For gone ice age ancestors – or bristled By the early 19th century, the English philosopher them, it is a tool of discovery that their hair in fear, the forebear of awe. William Paley thought he had glimpsed the handiwork opens up a way of knowing nature “No living thing, not even man, of the creator in the intricate order of nature, just as one rather than a dogma that shuts the understood upon what journey he would infer that a watchmaker had devised a watch door at genes and quarks and stars had embarked,” Eiseley wrote. But, one came upon. “[I]ts several parts are framed and put and fossils. Within the ranks of as he noted in another context, together for a purpose,” he speculated, likewise the highly researchers, many question if there “there’s no use reporting it to the wrought apparatus of the world implied a world maker. are more things in heaven and Royal Society.” With the publication of Darwin’s Origin, even the cogs earth than are dreamt of in science, and wheels that turn the machinery of life could be and some are even churchgoers. “I bared and understood without invoking the interven- can’t reconcile those two things,” tion of an intelligent designer. “The old argument of “There really is no Sniegowski comments, “they haven’t design in nature, as given by Paley,”Darwin wrote,“which been reconciled for 2,000 years, but reason to change formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails, now that I would point out that there are lots the law of natural selection has been discovered.” the rules about how of things in our lives that we can’t “I can tell you, as a working scientist,” biologist Paul reconcile.” Religion and science, he we get dependable Sniegowski says, “that the whole history of science is seems to suggest, are not natural predicated on not taking it on faith. It’s predicated on knowledge and every enemies, although they may need to putting things to the test. Supernatural explanations of mark territorial boundaries a little reason not to.” natural phenomena never explained much.”

FALL 2005 17 P RE S E RV ING THE MEMO RY OF THE ANCIE NT WO RL D COLLATERAL f Helen of Troy was “the fac e th a t launched a th o u s a n d A new lectu r e series he developed for the U.S . mi l i t a r y, s h i p s, ” she also launched a co m p a rable number of under the auspices of the Archaeological Institute of America, I archaeological digs and academic papers. C.Brian Rose, con tinues his focus on arch a e o l o g y and war . Ne ws rep o rt s who joined classical studies in the fall as the James B. Pr i t c h a r d ab o u t the looting of Baghdad museums and Iraqi arch a e o - Pr ofessor of Arch a e o l o g y,is one scholar who’s been on a lifel o n g logical sites, including the ancient city of Babyl o n , led Rose to od ys s e y to study the city th a t Homer immorta l i ze d . For 15 yea r s pr opose a prog r am for tr oops heading off to war . “If you look (1 9 87 - 2 0 0 2 ) , he was in charge of Gree k , Roman and Byzant i n e at eB a y and do a search on Sumerian cylinder seals,you get a lot exc avations t h e re , which ex p l o red the Po s t- B ro n ze Age of hits,”he says. “Each one of these pieces will end up in a settlements overlooked by earlier expeditions more intent on different museum or private collection in a different part of Rose (right) with statuary Ho m e r ’ s Troy. Notable finds include a cache of gold jewel r y and the world. We can never link them to their original contexts head of Caesar Augustus from Troy excavation the sculpted heads of Roman emperors Hadrian and Aug u s t u s . and reconstruct the history of their use in ancient society. It A ditch th a t mi g h t ha ve been a defense agai n s t chariots in th e es s e n tially amounts to the murder of histor y.” se t t l e m e n t as s o c i a ted with the Trojan War was also unearth e d . The military was interested. Rose offered the firstseminar Cu r re nt l y , Rose is in charge of the Granicus River Val l e y Survey to the Marines at Camp Lejeune in the spring. Notlong after, Pro j e ct , which is mapping the giant mounds of earth th a t cover we talked to him aboutthe experience. ancient Greco-Persian tombs near the Turkish city of Biga.

Q. How did you get the idea of an was instrumental in arranging the with the proto l i t erat e period , whi c h educational program for troops? repatriation of artifacts stolen began abou t 3500 B.C . I take them from the Baghdad Archaeological through the monuments and A. Last year at the annual conven- Museum. He supported the idea history of Iraq and Afghanistan. tion of the Archaeological Institute all the way and helped me under- I deal with political propaganda, of America, I helped put together stand how I could best phrase and showing them the monuments a colloquium on the protection organize a proposal that would that the kings of Persia,the rulers of cultural property in Iraq and be sent to General John Abizaid, of Mesopotamia and Alexander Afghanistan. The director of the he a d of the U.S . Cent ral Comm a n d . the Great had erected,and then Afghanistan Archa eol o gical Ins ti t ute It took about nine months for monuments commissioned by came. He said it was too bad we the proposal to make its way Saddam Hussein, who exploited couldn’t make troops more aware through the proper channels of those ancient tradi ti on s . I highl i gh t of looting and the problems of the State Department. issues with which I think they archaeological conservation. I would be familiar.Almost all have th o u gh t , well, why don’t we do that? Q. Can you tell me about this read the Bible,so they know the Why can’t we simply launch a cultural heritage and how you talk Tigris and the Euphrates,the lecture program under the auspices about it to the troops? Tower of Babel and the names of of the AI A , of whi c h I am vic e A. Complex societies in Nebuchadnezzar and Abraham. pres i dent, and arrange for lecturers Mesopotamia were developed I can link all of those into specific to go to military bases? I contacted thousands of yea r s ago, but I start areas in the country. Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, who

18 P E NN ARTS & SCIE N CES DAMAGEDAMAGE

I emph a s i z e the damage that’s been Q. Why do you think it’s important American families – and they were done to these sites over the years. to create that impression? losing friends in the process. When I tell them what archaeologists do you’re in the middle of a military A. I’d like them to feel as much of and why the sites that they will base, surrounded by a thousand an affinity for the material as gu a r d and the artif a cts they wil l see Marines and their families telling possible. By discussing issues that ar e so essenti a l . Most people don’t you this,and then you go past a resonate with them, my hope is ha ve a clear understanding of wha t memorial in the hallway decorated that they’ll be especially vigilant in archaeologists do and how vital with dog tags of the men and safeguarding the archaeological each object is in reconstructing women who ’ve been kille d in action , sites and museums. When I speak the history of ancient societies. it’s incredibly moving.At the end to the troops,I tell them that the In particular, I emphasize smaller of my talk, they gave me a medal Brian Rose speaks with Archaeological Institute of America marines at Camp Lejeune things like cylinder seals,and I tie and the Marine Corps flag and a T- wants to thank them for patrolling them into my analysis of other shirt that said, “The few, the proud, these sites and hindering the loot ers, evid enc e to pres e nt a recons t ruc tio n the brave.” I was overwhelmed. ■ who are essentially accomplices to of who lived in a particular place at the murder of civilization and a particular tim e , and how they lived. history. Without such patrols,more I try to emphasize the links of history will be destroyed. between antiquity and the present. My hope is that they will come to Q. What was the experience at I read, for example, the Code of Camp Lejeune like for you? understand that this heritage is closer to Hammurabi, whom they know because he is now the dominant A. I was very nervous at first, but their own world than they otherwise image on the new currency in Iraq. it was incredibly moving in a way Hammurabi’s inscription records I never expected. The Marines would have thought. la ws conc erning reli gi o n and military thanked me repeatedly for having service and relations between the been willing to give up my normal sexes,among other things. That’s activities and devote my time to something that resonates with the them. Many felt that Americans troops. My hope is that they will had turned their backs on the come to understand that this troops and pointed out that,not heritage is closer to their own only were they giving up years of world than they otherwise would their lives to protect the country have thought. and their own families, but all

FA L L 2005 19 HOUSE OF FEARIt makes me terrified, Undergrad Writes About the Rain of Bombs in Baghdad

arl von Clausewitz,the 19th-century Prussian Her father and mother and two sisters moved to Jordan general and military strategist,famously defined last year after Sama,her youngest sister,disappeared K war as “the continuation of politics by other means.” following a car-bomb explosion at the elementary school. For sophomore Thura Al-Windawi,war is family and friends Many children and teachers were killed. Her mom was on – and whether they get ground up in the teeth of this other the phone with Al-Windawi,telling her she had lost hope kind of “politics.” “What’s going to happen to us?” she wrote of even finding Sama’s body. All at once her mother gasped, in a diary as the full force of Shock and Awe fell upon her “Your sister has come home.” Someone had removed and the city of Baghdad. “There is only fear in my house.” Sama from the site of the attack and taken care of her. The thoughts and experiences Al-Windawi recorded over Al-Windawi is a striking blend of sweetness and guts. She six months in 2003 were later published as Thura’s Diary: keeps in touch with her family mostly through webcam and My Life in Wartime Iraq. The diarist eventually found her e-mail. Her father,a London-educated professor,has found way to Penn’s campus,where she has struggled with a work as a U.N. consultant to support the family,which in Iraqi new language,new customs and a new style of learning. society extends to grandparents,aunts,uncles,cousins and “I sometimes feel I’m almost an American,” she says, even friends. None of those earnings go to his daughter at “because now I eat Chinese.” Penn,who works at the admissions office,a scandal to the extended family. So is her “improper” going out at night with friends. Al-Windawi holds the line on some values of Iraq’s conservative Islamic society,but she’s never made peace with how the role of women is defined. She wants to be a human rights lawyer. Her father sometimes has his doubts too, says Al-Windawi,“but he knew there was something strong in me that I’m able to stand on my feet by myself.” Her father continues to travel back and forth between Jordan and Iraq looking after the family,and Mrs. Al-Windawi worries about him,about her daughters,and about all the relatives back home. For now,the family is,if not together, then at least alive. And that’s a lot to be thankful for as the “politics” of ethnicity and nation-building and Islam and oil go grinding on. “The really hard times are when I have to show a strong face for my mother and my sister,” Al-Windawi says,“which is an image that is not really real.” In the spring, Thura’s Diary was selected as a 2005 Christopher Award winner. Christophers recognize books, films and TV productions that “affirm the highest values Thura (right) and parents with of the human spirit.” The following are excerpts from sister Aula Thura’s Diary.

From Thura’s Diary by Thura Al-Windawi, translated by Robin Bray, copyright 2004 by Thura Al-Windawi. Used by permission of Viking Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014. All rights reserved.

20 P E N N ARTS & SCIE N C ES always thinking, Am I going to live or am I going to die?

 March | What is happening to my city? My family  April | Today is April Fool’s Day, but now’s not the and I drove past the passport office in Baghdad today. time for jokes. I saw a coffin being brought into the There was a huge line, with hundreds of people pushing neighborhood, covered with an Iraqi flag. Everybody and shoving to get to the front. They’re trying to run was looking outside wondering if it was a relative of from this hell. I have always known this war was theirs – their son or their husband or their brother. … coming, but now, for the first time, it seems real. People At eight o’clock in the morning Mum told everyone to are not acting as they usually do. They are starting to get up. Then she listened to what they were saying on the panic. I wonder if any of them will be leaving relatives news about the way the war was going. No one pays any behind to save themselves. attention to what the politicians are saying any more.

 March | I hear and feel the first missiles  April | In the middle of the night we were thrown exploding – when the earth shakes, your whole body out of our beds by such massive explosions. With the shakes as well. … A little while later everything went whole city in pitch darkness, no one knew what was quiet outside, and all of us in Granny’s room were happening. The explosions were coming from some- silent, too. Granny told everyone to go back to bed. where nearby. … Some of the missiles flew over our We were all looking at each other calmly but no one house and we could see the huge flashes light up the said anything, although there were all sorts of questions sky when each one hit, followed by the deafening going through our minds. Everyone looked confused. sound of the explosions and a great gust of wind. We “I don’t want any of you to be afraid,” Granny said. also heard glass shatter nearby. … We all got up except “We’re going to be hearing noises like these all day, for Sama, who was too scared and asked me to stay every day, so we’d better get used to them.” We all next to her. Just as Mum was hurrying to open all the respect Granny and love her so much. She’s a very doors of the house, another explosion went off, making strong woman … and she has seen many wars. She the house shake and the lights jiggle about; I had the kept telling us not to be afraid and to control our feeling the roof was about to fall in on us. We were all tempers, as “there is so much more to come.” rooted to the spot, looking at each other wondering what was going to happen next when the third missile  | Today was a really sad day. The Doura March fell. … Everyone is just drained and worried, and we district in south Baghdad came under attack from don’t know what to do. Sometimes we forget where cluster bombs. We’ve got quite a few friends who live the candles are or have to search for a match just to there, as well as one of my other cousins and his family. have a light. And then when we find each other again, We were all so worried about them, but we couldn’t we sit down together, just waiting and waiting and phone or go to see them. … On TV they’ve been waiting. Overhead it’s raining, not water but missiles, showing children who’ve been taken to hospital with and we wonder when the rain will stop. terrible burns. I had tears pouring down my face as I watched, wondering if such terrible things could happen to me, or any of the people I love. … There are men and children dying, and women crying for them. What kind of hatred must they be feeling for the invaders whose Al-Windawi in Baghdad,August 2003 leaders say they’ve sent in their armies to liberate us? And what kind of hatred for the Iraqi leadership as well?

FALL 2005 21 Overh e ad it’s ra i n i n g, n ot wa ter but missiles, and we won der wh en the rain wi ll stop.

 April | Last night we didn’t sleep. The air was full  April | We saw many of fumes from the bombs. My head was on the pillow Americans up close.One but I was not comfortable inside the room. Sleeping was around my age. He had together, there is no space and we were all looking beautiful sunglasses, and around and listening for each bomb. How far away are when I got close I could see th e y? How near? It makes me terri f i ed ,a lw ays thinking, he was really handsome. … Am I going to live or am I going to die? I had all sorts of questions I wanted to ask him, to do | To our huge relief Uncle Ali and his wife  April with the way we saw him arrived tonight. They were both completely exhausted; and the way he saw us. Will we and the Americans ever they’d been trapped in their home while the fighting come to understand each other? Will I be able to talk was going on in south Baghdad, but last night the to that soldier one day? … I tell Dad that if he comes Americans moved on. They were the first members near us,I hope he will be friendly – but I think he’s of our family to see the Americans. “They were just probably a monster. as scared as we were,”Uncle Ali said.  April | There is a lot of crime these days. In some ways,if the Baath Party were still around, it would be safer because they’d keep things under control. … [T]he party was not all bad. They did solve all sorts of problems, but the Americans don’t make distinctions. … Will my country ever be at peace? I ask myself. The problem now isn’t just the Americans,it’s the Iraqis th em s e lves , who ’ve started killing each other. It’s terribl e . … [T]he streets really aren’t safe at the moment. I’ve learnt a lot this year and gained a lot, but what do the years ahead hold in store for me?

 December | Today is a historic day. It’s been confirmed that Saddam Hussein was captured last night. … [E]ven though it was an incredible day, the troubles for my country are not over. There will still be fighting between Iraqis and Americans and the problems in Iraq will continue. … A part of me felt sad too, but not because Saddam was gone. I think it was just because we were used to seeing him like a lion. We were used to being afraid. But now, the lion is gone. I hope the fear will go away too. ■

22 P E NN ARTS & SCIE N C ES BRI E F

MATH E MATI CIA N FI N DS MAGIC IN NUM BE RS The Wiz ard

trategy and luck – that’s what proven. A great game also has a set Richard Garfield,C’85, Gr’93, of rules that players use to reach a S is all about. A former math preferred outcome,that is, to win. professor, Garfield created a new Garfield merged his two great genre of trading-card game when he loves and created a runaway hitthat released Magic: The Gathering in combines the fantasy of Dungeons 1993. What began as a favorite of and Dragons, the strategy of chess fantasy aficionados huddled at table- and the logic of Go – with a little luck tops alchemized into a worldwide in the shuffle of the deck. In Magic, phenomenon that includes national fictional creatures and their strengths tournaments and pro tours. Today, are represented on cards. As in there are more than 6 million Magic games like poker and pinochle,some pl a yer s , and Garfield has started looking cards trump others. Butunlike those at the world of electronic gaming. games, there is no standard deck, GA R F I E L D M E RG E D H I S TWO G R E AT LOV E S As a teenager, he discovered so players can buy and trade cards to Dungeons and Dragons, a role-playing build their creature collections and A N D C R E AT E D ARU NAWAY H I T. game popular in the 1970s, as well as better their chances. ch e s s , br i d g e and the Japanese strate g y Each player – each wizard – begins game Go. In his undergra d u at e days the game with 20 life points . Al t h o u g h sometimes more than once – and at Penn,Garfield never imagined there are as many ways to play Magic will keep trying something until he making a career in games, which had as there are cards, the object is for grows to like it. So he’ll dine on natto always been a serious hobby. His plan players to use the creatures on their (pungent,fridge-ripened beans, was to work in academia. At first, cards to defeat an opponent’s slightly bloated and covered in spider he was drawn to English and physics menagerie. The game ends when webs of slime) and those black, before exploring music theory and one wizard loses all life points. fermented,thousand-year eggs. philosophy. It was in junior year, Even though he is something of a Like the endings in the games he however, that luck – setin play by an mythic figure among Magic devotees, loves, Garfield himself is the outcome eagerness to try new things – led Garfield never stops challenging of strategy and luck. The strategy? him into mathematics, which finally himself to find something to like in Being open-minded and going after trumped every other major. everything. He believes the first new experiences. And the luck? In hindsight,itseems a given that impulse one feels to dislike something Finding the math card in Penn’s deck. he would find himself engrossed in can be willed to be otherwise,which Su d d e n l y , th a t magical mix landed him numbers. Like games, Garfield says, means we have control over what in a career he never thought he’d be each math system has its own frame we like and what we don’t.With that lucky enough to have. Somehow, he of rules, which structures what can be in mind,he will eat anything once – must have played his cards right. ■

FA L L 2005 23 Mind Ga mes S T U D E N TS TEACH THE A B C S OF NEUROSCIENCE

24 P E NN ARTS & SCIE N CES WIT H CLAS S

Teaching & Learning

clutch of nine stud ent s they might have missed, and each member along the pathway. is gathered around a som e times he seiz es the opportun i t y Other students gather crumbled blacktopped table in to give a neuroscience mini-lecture. newspaper to stand in as food. the basement of the Mostly, though,he’s a hands-off “Is that dessert?” one of the kids Solomon Psychology teacher, leaving room for his cracks. Balls of paper get passed LabA. A laptop, aglow with the students to devise their own lesson through the mouth and down the outline of a lesson plan, is at the plans for interactive,hands-on line to Giselle Kohler, the stomach, center of their brainstorming. It’s activities that will teach high who stands in a bul g ing garb a g e bag. the weekly planning session for the schoolers how the brain works. Amid the turbulence and the ABCs of Neuro s c i en ce , and the cla s s Each Thursday, after a Tuesday talking out of turn, the Penn is preparing a lesson on memory strategy session,the Penn students students doggedly translate the some of them will teach at the ho p vans into West Philly with plans behaviors and sensations of eating Sayre School just west of campus. and props and attention-grabbing into brain science. This fall, the Words and idea s , those bum p tio u s activit ies abou t some aspect of brai n ninth-graders will put their new brainchildren, bounce around fu n c tion . Topics includ e neur ons , kn o wled g e to work whe n they help the room from brain to brain – ta s t e and smell ,l e a rn i n g, depres s i o n build interactive learning statio ns for coruscating across neurons, leaping and add i c tion . This week ’s class is th i r d- and fou rt h - g raders for a Kid ’ s synapses, changing minds. The on hun g er and obes i t y. Jud g e! Neuro s c i en c e Fair on Penn ’s class has to explain how the brain The Sayre kids wear black and ca m p u s . The Sayre stud ents seem to stores and retrieves information, white uniforms. Some are slumped be picking up the terms and idea s but they need to do it in a way in cha i rs , but most are cha t t erin g .A le ft behind by their ABC instruc tors. that ninth-graders can wrap ba n n e r above the bla ckb oar d in front Penn student Rushil Rao reports their minds around. of the cla s s r oom read s , Wan t ed: that during one lesson,some “class “We’ll stage a kidnapping in Inqu i r ing Min d s . Hea p ed on a clowns mentioned a neurotrans- front of the class,” Tyler Wallen ta b le at the back are whi t e buc kets , mitter uptake mechanism that strategizes.“It’ll demonstrate how pl a s t ic funnels , toil e t paper roll s had been introduced weeks ago. I the memories of eye witnesses wrap ped in duc t tape and strin g s of literally snapped my head in their aren’t always reliable.” li g hts that togeth e r made a room- direction and said,‘Holy cow! “The kids might interpret the si z e neur on in an earli e r lesson. Where’d that come from?’” skit as carte blanche for free time,” “What is hunger?” Clara Lee Narek Shaverdian,another Penn som e one cauti on s . The stud ents are begins. “What happens?” undergrad, believes the ABCs of groping for the ideal mix of sc i en c e “Your stomach growls and your Neuroscience has sown “sparks of and fun – fun with a lid on it. mouth waters,” a ninth-grader excitement” in the minds of the Steve Fluharty, C’79, Gr’81, a responds. Sayre students, but Fluharty traces veterinary school professor, is at “And how do you know when the pathway back the other way. the table too, scribbling notes. you’re full?” Speaking of the ninth-graders,he “You should think about time To demonstrate how the brain comm en t s , “These kids don’t rea l i z e management,” he offers.“Each knows when to stop eating, they what a wond erful learning opportu- demon s t rati o n wil l take abou t five build a “human pathway model.” ni t y they’ re giving to our stud ent s . ” ■ mi n utes , ri gh t ? ”F lu h a rty directs the The Penn students marshal a —PETER NICHOLS Sch oo l ’ s bio l o gical basis of beha vio r group of kids into a line,each one program,the multidisciplinary repres en t ing a part in the interli n k ed major that most of these students brain-nutrition signal system. A The students are groping for t h e have declared. Now and then he picture poster of a brain or small th r ows in a heads-up on somet h i n g intestine or other organ hangs on ideal mix of science and fun.

Top:Ste ve Fluharty (left) and Penn students at Sayre School Bottom:2004 Kids Judge! Neuroscience Fair

FA L L 2005 25 SSAS A S P JA O R UTN REN RS A HL IPS A d vancing Our Miss i o n

Make a Difference for SAS Man y alumni are looking for ways to do more for the School while maintaining Lawrence Sherman and Jerry Lee their lifestyle. With charitable gift an nu i ti e s , you make a gift of ap preci a t ed st ock or cash, and we provid e you wit h PA RTN E R S pa yme nts for life. Bene fits include : Par tne rs in Crim e •Guaranteed fixed income at a high rate (up to 9.5 percent, a portion of e found me on the Internet,” Lee established in 2001 with an initial $5 which may be tax-free or taxed at “HAlbert M. Greenfield Professor mi ll i o n gift from the Jerry Lee Fou n d a ti on . favorable capital gains rates); of Human Relations and renowned The idea for the center sprang from • Quarterly or monthly payments that criminologist Lawrence Sherman quips of their recognition of a need for an inter- can start now or in the future; how he met Jerry Lee. Lee,a pioneering disciplinary resource devoted to the broadcaster with a lifelong concern for scientific study of crime that would build • A current income tax deduction; the problem of crime, elaborates:“I was on Penn’s foundation of criminology •Vital support for SAS at your passing; surfing the Web when I came across a scholarship. Sherman, who directs the • Membership in the prestigious report [which Sherman co-authored] on center, points out that it has become Harrison Society. the Department of Justice page entitled the “world’s largest program of ‘Preventing Crime: What Works, What randomized controlled trials of crime For more inform a ti on ,i n cluding a Doesn’t, What’s Promising.’ I downloaded prevention and justice.” person a l i z ed illus t rati o n of ho w a gif t it and read it almost nonstop.” Days Lee, who funded two assistant profes s o r- an nu i t y or estate intenti o n can help you later, Sherman and Lee were sitting face ships in the criminology department, ma k e a difference , cont a ct the Office of to face discussing their shared interest in says that Sherman brings to the center Gift Planning at 800-223-8236 or vis i t crime prevention. “a brilliant and open mind”as well as an ht tp : / / w w w. a l u m n i . u p enn . e du/ gi f t pla n n i n g . Today, more than eight years later, they ability to implement ideas.Sherman, continue to work together toward a better me a n whi l e , explains that Lee is the source of un d erstanding of the causes and preventi o n ma n y of these ideas and calls him “the force of crime.One of the most frui t ful res ults of that keeps me and the enterprise going.” th e ir coll a b orati o n is the Jerry Lee Center —BROOKE ERIN DUFFY of Criminology, a research institute that

Gift of Mus i c The new Fisher-Bennett Hall needs a few baby grand pianos. Please consider good pianos. Part of the $23 million donating one to help complete the new renovation of Fisher-Bennett Hall will music comp l e x in Fisher-B enn e tt Hal l or for include extensive revamping of the fourth practic e rooms in the Coll e ge Hou s e s . The floor to enhance the teaching of music at cost of mo ving and tran s p orta ti o n wou l d Penn. The refurbishment will also make ne ed to be includ ed in your gif t . Send a little available to students round-the-clock music into the world . To dona t e a piano, practice facilities. The classrooms and please cont a ct Beth Wrig ht at 215-898-5262 practice spaces are in need of high-quality or [email protected].

26 P E N N ARTS & SCIE N CES Coll a b orat ing on The Business of Sc i en c e Coll a b orati o n Following in the tradition of successful graduates for management careers in Last year, David B.Weigle,W’69, wanted in t ersch o ol initia t ives like the Hun t s m a n such rap i d ly growing fields as pha rm a - to put music where the students are. Program in International Studies & ceutic a l s , human health, ag ric u l tu re , So he provided funding for the College Business comes Penn’s newest inter- animal health, genetics and basic House Music Program. The idea was to disciplinary initiative,the Roy and biological and biochemical sciences. bring professional musicians to under- Diana Vagelos Program in Life Sciences According to College Dean Dennis graduate residences for lessons and and Management. The new program DeTurck, “the program takes advantage recitals. Now he wants to bring students will combine the liberal arts education of Penn’s unique combination of to the library. The result is the David B. offered by the School of Arts and strengths in the life sciences and its Weigle Information Commons,a joint Sciences and the business education outstanding undergraduate business un d ertaking by SAS and Van Pelt Librar y provided by the Wharton School to school.”Although the program is only that wil l sup port underg radua t es as give stu d ents the scient ific and ent repre- a few months old,he added, student they conduct research and experiment neu ri a l background needed for success interest is already strong. with technology and collaborative in the complex world of biotechnology. The new coll a b orati o n has been made learning. “When Dean Bushnell called The curriculum integrates science pos s i b le throu g h the vis i o n and sup port the information commons one of her and business coursework and includes of former Penn trustee P.Roy Vagelos, top priorities but needed additional internships in both fields as well as a M.D.,C’50, Hon’99, who, with his wife, funds to make it happen,I knew I had year-long independent research project. Diana, made a generous commitment to act,” said Weigle, who is president of Students will earn either a B.A.in through the Marianthi Foundation. Swan Engin e ering and a librar y overse er. science with a business concentration Rob e r t L. B e n z ,M . D. ,C ’ 74, and Marie Ube rt i - The Weigle information commons, or a B.S. in economics with a science Be n z , M.D., Res’82, David D. Elliman,C’73, sl a t ed to open this sprin g , wil l be housed concentration. The program, which WG’77, and Decision Resources Inc. have in the library and incorporate the st a r ted in the fall, wil l prepa r e under- also pledged their support. College Tech Center, the Digital Media Center and the Student Learning Laboratory. The technology-rich space will support study groups and collabo- rative projects, and will offer training, equipment and support for work with video, Web publishing and other digital media. There will also be programs and se rvic es to make stud ents bett er learne rs, writ ers, pres en t ers and res e a r che rs. “The in f orma ti o n comm o ns wil l provid e a cent ral loca ti o n for students to enhance their skills,” Weigle notes. “As an undergraduate, I could have used these resources.”

FA L L 2005 27 S A S PA RTN E R S H IPS

THE SOCIETY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS Cynthia Frank Edelson,C’80, & Anonymous David B. Edelson Melissa Beth Eisenstat,C’84, G’88, The Society of Arts and Sciences recognizes Harish Ahuja,parent Sunil Ahuja WG’88 individuals who have enhanced the Vairam Alagappan,C’84 Bonnie Tannenbaum Eisler, C’79, & excellence of the School of Arts and Sciences Edward Alosio, Jr.,C’53 Clifford R. Eisler, W’79 by giving $100,000 or more over the lastfive Ralph D.Amado, HoM’62,parent Car ol & Mich a el D. E ll i s ,C ’ 6 6 ,p a rent s Paul M. Arrouet,C’93 Andrew Ellner, W’79,& Jill Ellner years.Its members embody the spirit of the Bernard M. Axelrod,C’41, WG’43, Kenneth M.& Sherry Endelson, School with their dedication to achieving parent parents and maintaining distinction in the liberal arts.They demonstrate Jay G. Axelrod,C’74,parent Tak H.Eng, W’76, G’78, & Anita P. Ho, W’77 a unique awareness of the importance of balancing tradition Emilio Bassini,C’71,W’71, WG’73, & Reina Marin Bassini,CW’72, Marjorie G.Ernest,CW’56 and innovation in higher education and champion both in equal GEd’72,parents Edward J.Falk,W’66 measure. Their vision informs our pursuit of excellence,and their Matthew R. Beizer, C’79,GEd’79, Dalck & Rose Feith generous support moves us forward. L’84, WG’84 Lori Fife,C’80,& Mark Fife,W’78, Robert L. Benz,M.D.,C’74, & parents Marie Uberti-Benz,M.D.,RES’82 Jay S.Fishman,W’74, WG’74, & Elizabeth & Rodney B. Berens,C’67, Randy Fishman,parents WG’72,parents Julie Hinds Franklin,C’87, & LIFETIME MEMBERS Eleanor Meyerhoff Katz & Jeffrey Berg & Denise Luria,parents Martin Ellis Franklin,C’86 The support of the Society’s Herbert D.Katz,W’51,parents Mitchell R. Berger, C’76, G’76 Sarah Wilder Fuller, CW’71,parent lifetime members, those who Paul K. Kelly, C’62, WG’64,parent Dennis Berman,C’73,W’73, & Elinor Colker Ganz,CW’55 Robert W. Gelfman,W’53 have contributed a total of $1 James Joo-Jin Kim,W’59, G’61, Marcia Wishinsky, SW’78 Gr’63,parent Jill & John N.Gilbert,Jr.,W’60, million or more to the School, James R. Berman,C’88 Paul Koether Tracy Margel Bernstein,C’88, & parents sustains the Univer s i t y ’ s scholarly Cathy & Marc Lasry, parents Adam Bernstein,W’85 Michael J. Glosserman,W’68,parent tradition in the liberal arts.The Leonard A.Lauder, W’54,parent Joanne C.& Richard N. Bing, C’65, Joseph A.Goldblum,W’71,parent School is proud to acknowledge Jerry Lee parents Daniel H.Golden,parent these extraordinary donors. Martin Lipton,W’52,parent Jonathan L. Bing, C’92 Susan UdolfGoldenberg, C’85, L’88, Carolyn Hoff Lynch,CW’68, & Matthew Blank,W’72 & Jeffrey Goldenberg Anonymous Peter S. Lynch, WG’68,parents Amy M. Blumenthal,C’88 Joseph B. Goldsmith,C’92 Anilesh,C’89,& Tania Ahuja Rao Makineni Margo K.& Mitchell J. Blutt,C’78, John E.Golob, Gr’92 Leonore C. Annenberg, Hon’85 Robert L. McNeil,Jr. M’82, WG’87 Judith S.Gordon,CW’71,ASC’91, & Roberta & Stanley M. Bogen,W’58, Ella Warren Shafer Miller, CW’51, & David Boies III Sh el d on S. Go rdon, WG’ 5 9 ,p a rent s parents Paul F.Miller, Jr.,W’50, Hon’81, Roxanne Conisha Bok,C’81, & Ronald B. Gordon,W’64, & Mary & David Boies,parents parents Scott L. Bok,C’81,W’81, L’84 Claire Israel Gordon,CW’64 Christopher H. Browne,C’69 Barbara & Edward Netter, C’53, Kevin R. Brine,parent Stephen M.Gorn,C’84 William Polk Carey, W’53 parents Madeline M. Brine,parent Jon Gray, C’92,W’92, & Christopher J.Carrera,C’88 Lena Magaziner Pincus,CW’36 Kenneth L. Browning & Mindy Gray, C’92 Raymond Ch’ien, Gr’78, & Karen Bress Rose,CW’67,GEd’68, & Shelley Browning, parents Ilana & Marc R. Green,parents Hwee Leng Whang,G’75,parents Gary D.Rose,C’67,parents Elise Jaffe Brownstein,CW’76, & Barry S. Greene,W’67,parent Tay Yun Cho,G’78,& Kunho Cho, Judith R. Rosenberg, CW’41 Andrew R. Brownstein,W’75, Shirley Klotzbaugh Griffin, G’54, & C’75,parents Katherine Stein Sachs,CW’69, & C’75, WG’76 William M. Griffin,W’52 Silas K. F. Chou,parent Keith L. Sachs,W’67 Clifford N. Burnstein,C’70, G’71 Vicki Panzier Gross,W’87, & Betsy Marks Darivoff,C’79, & The Jay & Jeanie Schottenstein & Purnendu C. Chatterjee Michael Gross Philip M.Darivoff,W’79, WG’85 Jesselson Families Diana Cheng, CW’72 The Groveman & Belz Families Paul W. DiMaura,C’65, & Alvin V. Sh o ema k er, W’ 6 0 , Hon’9 5 , & Yon K. Cho, W’84 Vir g inia Steele Grub b, C W ’ 5 1 ,G E d ’ 5 4 Karen DiMaura Sally P. Shoemaker, parents Jim & Gail Citrin,PT’79 Harry E. Gruber, C’73,M’77,parent Mary Elberty, CW’55 David M. Silfen,C’66, & Scott S.A. Coby, W’67 Henry B. Gutman,C’72 David D. Elliman,C’73, WG’77 Lyn G. Silfen,parents Doritte & Alfred Cohen,parents Leslee Halpern-Rogath,CW’73, & Nan Farquhar Gayfryd & Saul P. Steinberg, W’59, Betsy Z.& Edward E. Cohen David Rogath Richard L.Fisher, C’63, G’67 parents Martha & Jonathan J.Cohen,W’56, Annette Quinn Halprin,C’88, & Robert A. Fox,C’52,& Penny Ione Apfelbaum Strauss,CW’54, parents Jos e ph R. Hal p ri n ,C ’ 8 7 ,W ’ 8 7 , L’9 1 Grossman Fox,Ed’53 parent Robert A. Cohen,C’84 Jed A. Hart,W’89, & Leonard Goldberg, W’55, & Richard M. Thune,C’69,parent John T.Colas,W’84, & Allison Brody Hart, C’98 Wendy Goldberg, parents Diana T. & P. Roy Vagelos,C’50, Dorcas Lee Colas,C’84 Edward T.Harvey, Jr.,C’71, WG’75 Steven F. Goldstone,C’67 Hon’99,parents T. Scott Coleman,C’76, & Barbara H. Havenick,CW’72, & Martin D. Gruss,W’64 Andrew & Erna Finci Viterbi Yasmine Zyne Coleman,W’76, Fred S. Havenick Mindy Halikman Heyer, C’79,W’79, Frederick J.Warren,ME’60, WG’61, parents Robert P. Heidenberg, C’80, & WG’80, &Andrew Heyer, W’79, parent Bill Constantine,C’66, WG’68, & Susan Heidenberg WG’79,parents David B. Weigle,W’69 Maggie Constantine,parents George E. Heinze,C’51,parent Stephen J. Heyman,W’59,parent George A. Weiss,W’65,parent Robert Cort,C’68, G’70, WG’74, & William H. Helfand,CHE’48 Fl o renc e & Herbert Irvin g , C’ 3 9 , G’4 0 Cha r les K. Wil liams II, Gr’ 7 8 , Hon’9 7 Rosalie Swedlin James M. Higgins,C’76,GAr’78, Elliot S. Jaffe,W’49, & Catherine M. Crowley, CW’75 WG’87 Roslyn S. Jaffe,parents Celia P. & Daniel E. Dos o ret z ,p a rent s Jeffrey S. Himmel,W’75, & Harry P.Kamen,C’54 Frederic k E. Dou c ett e III, C ’ 7 5 ,p a rent Leslie Wohlman Himmel,CW’75, Edward W. Kane,C’71, & Jude T. Driscoll,C’86 parents Martha J.Wallace James D.Dunning, Jr.,W’70,parent

28 P E N N ARTS & SCIE N C ES Peter A. Hochfelder, C’84, & Sunil Mittal Donna ReffShelley, C’82, & Stacy Hochfelder Ronald L. Moelis,C’78,W’78 Lawrence A.Shelley, W’80 Make your gift Richard M. Horowitz,C’83, & Gregory B. Moore Lawrence W. Sherman, HoM’99, & Ruth M. Farber-Horowitz,C’83, Donald T. Netter, W’83 Eva F. Sherman,parents to the WG’88 Muriel W. Nickles Ned L.Sherwood,W’71, & James W. Hovey, W’67,GCP’72 Daniel L. Nir, C’82,& Jill B.Nir Emily Layzer Sherwood,CW’73 Allen T.Y.Huie,C’80,W’80, L’83 Frances Bickell Novelli,CW’64, & Alan A .S hu ch , WG’7 5 , & Ann Shuc h Sc hoo l of Arts Beth Altschul Hurwich,CW’68, & William D. Novelli,C’63,ASC’64, Wilma Bulkin Siegel,CW’58 Joseph M. Hurwich,W’68,parents parents Howard A. Silverstein,W’69, & and Sciences Suzanne Denbo Jaffe,CW’65, Harry David Nudelman,C’85,W’85, Patricia Bleznak Silverstein,C’81 Jonathan S. Denbo, C’95, & WG’89 La u r enc e B. Si m on ,C ’ 6 8 , G’ 7 4 ,p a rent Mark B. Denbo, C’92 Daniel S.Och,W’82 Mark J.Simon & Howard Kagan & Douglas Ostrover, C’84 Melissa Weiss Simon,NU’88 CHECK Janet Maisel Kagan,C’84 Stephen H. Paneyko, C’65 Irene Fortgang Simpkins,C’81 Send your check,payable to the Robin Harrison Kaplan,C’91, & Gordon A. Paris,C’75, WG’77 Steven G. Singer, C’82, & Trustees of the University of Jeffrey Kaplan,W’87 James N. Perry, Jr.,C’82 Rebecca Feghali Singer, C’84 Pennsylvania, to Laura Weber, Betsy Weis e r Kar p, C’ 7 6 , & Eric Kar p George Pine J. Peter Skirkanich,W’65, & Jeanne Gittelman Kaskey Julie Beren Platt,C’79, & Geri Skirkanich 3440 MarketStreet,Suite 300, Charles R. Kaye & Marc E.Platt,C’79,parents Robert J. Sobel,C’85 Philadelphia, PA 19104. Sheryl Drangel Kaye,W’86 Marsha M.Plotnitsky, C’78, WG’80 Rajiv Sobti, Gr’84,parent, & Donald B. Keim, HoM’88,parent Frederick W. Plugge IV, C’53 Sanjiv Sobti, WG’85, Gr’86 CREDIT CARD John J.King II,C’74,& Pamela David Chun-Yee Pong, W’91 E. Roe Stamps IV & Make a gift online at Smith King, parents David S. Pottruck,C’70, WG’72, & Penelope Stamps,parents htt p : / / w ww.s a s . u p e n n . e d u / Bradford R. Klatt & Emily Scott Pottruck Michael H.Steinhardt,W’60, & ho m e /views/alumni.html. Robin Friedman Klatt,parents Maury Povich,C’62 Judith A.Steinhardt,parents Gerald D.Knorr, W’82, WG’86, & Michael J. Price,W’79, & Dana A.H.Stubgen,parent APPRECIATED SECURITIES Monica Thomas Knorr, W’85 Vikki L. Price Marcie & Miles M.Stuchin,parents Contact Laura Weber at Jonathan W. Kolker, W’57, & Howard E. Rachofsky, W’66 Lynne Tarnopol,CW’60 Judith E. Kolker, parents Edward Raice,C’78,W’78, & Jay D.Tartell,C’78 215-898-5262 or Lori Kono l i g e & Kit Kono l i ge , WG’89 Lisa Herman Raice,W’79, WG’79 David J. Teece, Gr’75 [email protected]. Ara Kradjian,W’55 Ann Nolan Reese,CW’74,parent Evan C Thompson,W’64 Carole Steinberg Krumland & Daniel S. Reich,parent Frederick Tucker, C’55, L’61 OTHER ASSETS, Ted C. Krumland,parents John R. Reinsberg, C’78 The Tung Foundation LIFE-INCOME GIFTS AND Mel Kutchin,C’50,& Mitzi Kutchin Donald P.Rosen,C’78,parent Richard B. Urban,C’79,V’82 ESTATE INTENTIONS Cha r les L.S. & Isa K.L. L a m ,p a rent s Harold L. Rosenberg, W’79 Edmond D.Villani, Gr’73 Gifts can be made using Michael Lam,C’97 Susan K.& Howard David Ross, George H. Walker IV, C’91,W’91, assets like real estate,art or Janet Brief Landau,C’79, & W’78,parents WG’92 collectibles.Some can even Mark S.Landau,C’79 Peter E. Roth,C’81, WG’85, & Daniel & Jill Wallen,parents Mary Perednia Landy, C’83, & Michelle Roth Alan G. Weiler, W’55, & pay you income for life or be Joseph P. Landy, W’83 The Rothfeld Family Elaine Gordon Hoffman designated to benefit SAS Imelde D. Langebartel, G’41, & Nancy Horwich Rothstein,CW’75, Nina & Gary M. Wexler, parents when you pass on. For William W. Langebartel, Gr’48 & Steven A. Rothstein,parents Allen D.Wheat,W’71,parent information, contact Penn’s Mar cia Sat in Lavi po u r, CW ’ 6 6 , G’6 7 , Steven J.Routh,C’79,& Linda Stein, Paul C. Williams,W’67,parent Office of Gift Planning at Gr’77,& David F. Lavipour,G’69, parents Stacey Winston-Levitan,C’84 800-223-8236 or WG’75,parents Amy Bright Ruben,C’82, & Hwee Yong Yap-Whang, parent [email protected]. Seng Tee Lee,W’50,parent Richard Ruben Ehsan El-Tah r y Zaya n ,C W ’ 7 3 ,p a rent Edward J. Lenkin,C’71 Nancy Peters Ryan,CW’61 William J. Zellerbach,W’42,parent upenn.edu. Daniel M. Lerner, C’54,ASC’61 Susan Small Savitsky, CW’75,parent Barbara & Walter Zifkin,parents Eric T. Levin,C’92, & Brian Scanlan,W’84, & Arthur S. Zuckerman,C’81, & MATCHING GIFTS Jennifer R. Levin Cynthia Chang Scanlan,C’84 Connie K. Zuckerman,C’81, Many organizations match Stephen A. Levin,C’67,parent Sonia S.Schacterle,CW’50, G’51, & parents gifts to the School from their Felicia Madison Levy, C’87, & George R.Schacterle employees.Ask your employer Sander M. Levy, W’83 Steven M.Schatz,C’69 List current as of 6/30/05 for more information. William J. Levy, W’57, L’64 Howard B. Schiller, W’84, & Annabel F. & Philip B. Lindy, W’52 Debbie Schiller Carol B. Lowenstein,W’80, & B. Andrew Schmucker, C’87,W’87 & Michael B. Lowenstein,C’80 Linda N.Schmucker, C’86 Helen L. Luyben, Gr’61 Mark J. Schwartz,W’79, & William L. Mack,W’61 Marie L.Schwartz A. Bruce Mainwaring, C’47, & Barry A.Schwimmer, W’79, & Margaret Redfield Mainwaring, Barbara M.Schwimmer, W’82 Ed’47 Richard S. Seltzer, C’63 Edward J.Mathias,C’64 Joan & Jerome Serchuck Marc Frederic McMorris,C’90, Elizabeth Nicholson Sevier, Ed’45, WG’94 GEd’47,& Francis A.C. Sevier, Sreedhar & Saroj Menon Ed’47, GrD’55 Audrey Stein Merves,CW’56, & Corey R.Shanus,C’78, & Stanley Merves,parents Amy Wagner Shanus,C’82 The Millstein Family Foundation

FA L L 2005 29 L A ST WO R D

Two Poems

BY CH A RLES BE RN STE IN

every lake has a house Let ’s Just Sa y & every house has a stove & every stove has a pot Let’s just say that every time you fall you never hit the ground & every pot has a lid Let’s just say that when the day ends the night refuses to come & every lid has a handle Let’s just say that if all else fails you at least you can count on that & every handle has a stem Let’s just say that a bird in the fist is better than a bird and a foot & every stem has an edge Let’s just say that the scarlet ambrosia of your innermost longing is & every edge has a lining the nectar of a god who never chooses to visit & every lining has a margin Let’s just say that if chance accords possibilities, melancholy & every margin has a slit postpones insomnia & every slit has a slope Let’s just say that sleep is the darker side of dreams & every slope has a sum Let’s just say that sometimes a rose is just a read flower & every sum has a factor Let’s just say that every step forward is also a step nowhere & every factor has a face Let’s just say that the thirst for knowledge can only be quenched if one & every face has a thought learns how to remain hungry & every thought has a trap Let’s just say that green is always a reflection of the idea of green & every trap has a door Let’s just say that I encounter myself not in the mirror but in the manure & every door has a frame Let’s just say that each door leads to another door & every frame has a roof Let’s just say that we think it before we see it or bett er we see it as we think it & every roof has a house Let’s just say that a stone’s throw might be a world away & every house has a lake Let’s just say that love is neither here nor there Let’s just say that the girl is the mother of the woman Let’s just say that without disorder there can be no harmony Let’s just say that the aim is not to win but not to lose too bad Let’s just say that a knife in the back is better than a knife in the heart Let’s just say that between sleep and dreams is the reality behind reality Let’s just say that I am very weak and want to take a bath Let’s just say that the truth is somewhere between us Let’s just say that the top of a tower is not a good place to hide Let’s just say that mankind suffers its language Ch a r les Berns t ein is the Donald T. Regan Profes s or of Let’s just say that a bird cannot always be in flight Eng lish and co- d i re c tor of Penn S ou n d , an audio poetry Let’s just say that we’re not far from where we would have been ar chi ve (http: / / w w w .writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/). if we had lived better lives His recent books include Shadowtime, With Strings, Let’s just say that pretty ugly is an aspiring oxymoron and Republics of Reality, 1975-1995. Bernstein wrote Let’s just say that if the sun is a rock burning in space then a libretto for com po s er Brian Ferney h ou g h’s opera the earth is a shard hurtling from its designation Shadowtime, which made its American premier at Let’s just say that little is gained when nothing is lost New York’s Lincoln Center Festival in July. Let’s just say that the lie of the mind is the light of perception

30 P E N N ARTS & SCIE N CES L A S T L O O K

Crossing Chords Photo by Lisa Godfrey

Almost every day, Kate Thomas dresses up all in white. The nex t thing she does is unsheath e a sword – “weapon” is what they call it at the Fencing Academy of Philadelphia. Thomas, a fencing instructor and national competitor, is a graduate student in the music department. “I used to sing pr etty seriously,” she com m e nt s , “but fencing gotin the way.” When she’s not crossing swords, she’s working on her dissertation,crossing chords with a longstanding love of Hollywood musicals. “It’s fun music,”she says. Non- P rofi t U.S . Pos t a g e PAID Permit #2563 Philadelphia, PA University of Pennsylvania 3440 Market Street, Suite 300 Philadelphia, PA 19104-3325

COLLEGE AT PENN GRADUATE DIVISION COLLEGE OF GENERAL STUDIES

Penn Arts & Sciences Magazine is published by SAS External Affairs.

Edi t orial Office s School of Arts and Sciences Un i v ersity of Pen n sy l v ania 3440 Marke tS t re e t , Suite 300 Ph i l a d e l p h i a , PA 19104-3 3 2 5 P h o n e :2 1 5 -8 9 8 -5 2 6 2 Fa x :2 1 5 -573 - 2 0 9 6 E- m a i l :p e n n s a s @ s a s . u p e n n . e d u Web : htt p : / / w ww.s a s . u p e n n . e d u / ho m e /ne ws/ nwsl t r _ i n d e x.ht m l

Reb e c ca W.Bu s h n e l l De a n , School of Arts and Sciences Peter Nichols Edi to r Joseph McLaughlin As s o c i a te Edi t or Ar thur Cop e l a n d Ar t Di re c tor SCH OOL OF ARTS AND SCIE N CES HOM E COM IN G Gallini Hemmann, In c . Design and Prod u ct i o n Friday, November 4, 2005

The University of Pennsylvania values diversity and seeks talented students, fac u l t y , and staff from diverse backgro u n d s . The University of Pennsylvania does not discriminate on the basis of race,sex, sexual orientation, religion, color, national or ethnic origin,age,disability, or status as a Vietnam Era Veteran or disabled veteran in the administration of educational policies, programs or act i v i t i e s ; admissions policies; sc h o l a r s h i p and loan awards; athletic, or other Un i v ersity administered prog r ams or employment. Questions or complaints regarding this policy should be directed to: Exec u t i v e Direc tor , Offic e of Affir m at i v e Action and Equal Opportu n i t y Programs, 3600 ChestnutStreet, Sansom Place Eas t , Suite 228, Ph i l a d e l p h i a , PA 19104-6106 or 215-898-6993 (voice) or 215-898-7803 (TDD).

The End of Space and Time The Penn Symphony Orchestra 4:30 p.m. 8:00 p.m. Logan Hall, Room 17 Irvine Auditorium 249 South 36th Street 3401 Spruce Street Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 Hear cosmologist Vijay Balasubramanian, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.5 from the physics and astronomy department, describe Einstein’s concept of space-time Join the Penn Symphony Orchestra for a and discuss an emerging picture of a far performance of two of the mostpopular stranger reality – one where space and time Romantic masterworks, featuring Wharton can appear and disappear into timeless senior and winner of the 2005 Concerto and spaceless voids. Competition Jennifer Lee. Music Director, Brad Smith.Admission is free.