Event

Penn Medical Hall, 1872

This symposium, Medicine and the Afterlives of Slavery, will examine Penn Medical School’s historical entanglements with the institution of slavery and the continuing legacies of slavery in the production of medical knowledge, practice, and policies. The Penn Medicine and the Afterlives of Slavery (PMAS) Project was launched by Professor Dorothy Roberts in 2019 as part of the Penn Program on Race, Science & Society with a two-fold mission: first, to research and document Penn Medical School’s history and its connections to enslavement, as well as the institution’s use and treatment of African descended people—as patients, research subjects, and medical practitioners. The project seeks to re-humanize these individuals and re-center their contributions in the history and development of modern medicine—at Penn specifically and in the United States generally; and, second, to operationalize this research, cultivated for worldwide dissemination, in order to effect meaningful change in the field of medicine. The symposium will feature panel presentations by graduate students and scholars affiliated with PMAS whose research advances these objectives.

This event is hosted by the Penn Program on Race, Science & Society and supported by the Office of the Provost.

University of Pennsylvania | Virtual
Thursday, April 14, 2022 | 9am-5:30pm ET

9:00 – 9:10 Welcome & Introduction

Dorothy Robert, Professor of Africana Studies, Law & Sociology & PRSS Director, University of Pennsylvania

9:10-9:30 Keynote Address

Eve Higginbotham, Professor of Ophthalmology & Vice Dean for Inclusion, Diversity and Equity, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

9:30 – 11:00 Panel 1 | History

VanJessica Gladney, PRSS Affiliate Student, University of Pennsylvania

Paul Wolff Mitchell, PMAS Affiliate Doctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania

Brittany Farr, Sharswood Fellow & PMAS Affiliate Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania

Moderator: Nic Ramos, Assistant Professor of History, Drexel University & Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in PRSS, University of Pennsylvania

Please click here to register for welcome, keynote & panel 1.

11:00 – 11:15 Break

11:15 – 12:45 Panel 2 | Race Correction

Amaka Eneanya, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania

Marie Plaisime, National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in PRSS, University of Pennsylvania

Rebecca Feldman Hamm, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pennsylvania Hospital

Dorothy Roberts, Professor of Law, Sociology & Civil Rights & PRSS Director, University of Pennsylvania

Moderator: Brittany Farr, Sharswood Fellow & PMAS Affiliate Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania

Please click here to register for panel 2.

12:45 – 1:45 Lunch

1:45 – 3:15 Panel 3 | Medical School Curriculum

Jaya Aysola, Assistant Professor of Medicine & Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Kaliya Greenidge, Program Assistant at Penn Medicine Center for Health Equity Advancement, University of Pennsylvania

Christina Amutah, Student, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Sanjna Surya, Student, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Moderator: Hafeeza Anchrum, PRSS Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania

Please click here to register for panel 3.

3:15-3:30 Break

3:30 – 5:15 Panel 4 | Community Engagement

Nic Ramos, Assistant Professor of History & Africana Studies, Drexel University & Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in PRSS, University of Pennsylvania

Hafeeza Anchrum, PRSS Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania

Ezelle Sanford III, Assistant Professor of History, Carnegie Mellon University & Former PRSS Postdoctoral Fellow & PMAS Project Manager, University of Pennsylvania

Adam Biggs, Postdoctoral Fellow in Department of the History of Medicine & School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University

Eugenia South, Professor of Emergency Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Moderator: Marie Plaisime, National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in PRSS, University of Pennsylvania

5:15 – 5:30 Closing

Dorothy Roberts, PRSS Director

Please click here to register for panel 4 & closing remarks.