Seminar Descriptions - 2008

Philadelphia and the Immigrant Experience

A Seminar led by Dr. Walter Licht, Professor of History, and History Department Chair

With immigration once again a prominent and fractious issue in the public mind, this seminar is a timely examination of the role of immigration and the nature of the immigrant experience in the America past. Philadelphia provides a vital case study. The city has received repeated waves of newcomers and its neighborhoods, economy, politics, and culture have been shaped, and continue to be influenced, by the arrivals of tens of thousands of people from different countries. How has the immigrant experience changed over time? What have been the contributions of various immigrant groups and individuals? How have newcomers been received and what burdens and obstacles have they faced in their attempts to achieve footholds in Philadelphia? What does the recent surge of immigration portend for Philadelphia, and American society at large, in the globalized world of the 21st Century?

While this subject is of obvious importance for teachers of Social Studies, immigration raises questions and involves resource materials appropriate for teachers of Language Arts, elementary grades, and other subjects at many levels. Immigration, especially considered in local historical context, can naturally inspire the creation of engaging and relevant curricular units. And teachers in this workshop will be able to draw on a remarkable base of information and materials that reside in area historical societies and libraries.

Teaching Science With Science Fiction

A Seminar led by Dr. Mark Adams, Associate Professor of History and Sociology of Science

We live in the age of science, and science fiction is our mythology. Ever since Jules Verne and H. G. Wells founded the genre more than a century ago, science fiction has delighted an ever-expanding worldwide audience with tales about the human future, based on the principles and possibilities of current and future science and technology.

Today, in popular books, films, and television shows, SF themes have become part of our common culture and worldview. SF has often served to popularize rather esoteric scientific ideas, but it has sometimes anticipated later scientific developments with remarkable accuracy, and its authors have inspired many generations of young people to take up careers in science. As such, the genre provides rich opportunities for teaching students about science.

In this seminar, through lectures, and selected short stories, novels, and films, we will explore the emergence of modern SF and track its relation to contemporary scientific developments. After exploring the nature and origins of the genre, we will take up common SF themes ¬- utopias, aliens, robots, superman, bioengineering, evolution, space science, religion -- and discuss their relationship to contemporary developments in math, technology, astronomy, chemistry, biology, physics, and cosmology. The course will also serve as a workshop on using SF in crafting classroom materials and enriching effective teaching.

The Public Health Issues of Child Obesity

A Seminar led by Dr. Seema Sonnad, Associate Professor, Department of Surgery

Obesity among children is growing in the United States. Overweight and obesity increases the risk of chronic diseases and associated health care costs. This has led to government intervention from the community to federal level. The institutes of medicine have recommended goals for stakeholders including schools, public health organizations and communities to:

• Lead and commit to childhood obesity prevention.
• Evaluate policies and programs.
• Monitor progress.
• Disseminate promising practices.

The report also listed specific recommendations for the government, industry and media, communities, schools and households. We will explore the issues, proposed solutions and what might be done in the classroom to impact this problem in positive ways

Teachers of elementary and middle grades science, biology, health, and perhaps chemistry and others may find topics for curriculum units with this seminar applicable to their classrooms.

From West Africa to West Philadelphia: Cultural Routes to Common Ground

A Seminar led by Dr. Mary Hufford, Director of the Center for Folklore and Ethnography

In West and Southwest Philadelphia, there are diverse communities of people with African ethnic and cultural roots. Immigrants from the Caribbean, and peoples from West Africa have joined native-born African Americans in many neighborhoods. Each group carries with it varying cultural themes that are identifiably African in origin, yet modified by the historical experience of the group. Both African Americans and Caribbean islanders have been physically separated from Africa for centuries, with former affected by life in the larger American culture, and the latter group exposed to British, Spanish, and French colonial cultures. What are the common elements, and have these elements evolved over time? How have cultural characteristics specific to each group developed in their stories, and customs?

This seminar will examine folklore of the various groups that may form the basis of curriculum materials that are quite suitable to classroom make up in many schools, and which serve the purpose of building bridges of understanding among various communities of people of African descent. Teachers of Language Arts, Elementary grades, Social Studies, Music, Art, and other subjects may find the material rich with classroom topics.

The Aesthetics of Hip Hop

A Seminar led by Mr. Edward Epstein, Fine Arts Instructor, Director of the 40th Street Artist-in-Residence Project

The late 1970s and early 1980s saw a flowering of urban music and art forms that would come to be known as “hip hop.” These included rap music, break dancing, and graffiti. In the Bronx, rap pioneers like Kool Herc were sampling beats from earlier funk records to create the sonic backdrop for a musical revolution. With forlorn buildings and subway cars as their canvas, graffiti writers created masterpieces of the “wild style.” On the street, new dance forms appeared, with innovators like Jimmy D and Crazy Legs from Rock Steady Crew battling one another to perform new feats of agility and stamina.

Almost as soon as it appeared, each of these forms was adopted by the commercial mainstream. Blondie borrowed from rappers Fab Five Freddy and GrandMaster Flash in the hit song “Rapture.” Artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring took graffiti from subway tunnel to gallery. And the movie “Flashdance,” which featured performances by Rock Steady Crew, became one of the most successful films of the era. Today, hip hop aesthetics dominate youth culture, with rap supplanting rock ‘n’ roll as the pre-eminent musical idiom among young people of many races, ethnicities and geographic regions.

Whether hip hop merely reflects or in fact perpetuates the violent street culture out of which it was forged is a question that dominates discussions of this idiom. This question, however, will not be the main focus of our seminar. Instead we will look at the origins of the art forms themselves. We will examine, for example, the dept rap owes to previous musical styles, including jazz, funk, soul, reggae, and African forms. We will also look at the post-modern universe in which hip hop emerged, noting the influence of pop culture, television, emerging digital technologies, and the fascination with borrowing (“appropriation”) that was very much a feature of 1980s art. The seminar will encourage the creation of curriculum units which link hip hop to a variety of academic subjects, including art, music, poetry, social studies, and even science. The hope is that these units will challenge students look beneath the surface of the music, dance and visual forms that are part of their everyday lives.