Penn Program on Race, Science, & SocietyThe Penn Program on Race, Science, and Society (PRSS) invites applications for a postdoctoral research associate to work with PRSS and the Penn and Slavery Project, July 1, 2019-June 30, 2020. The Penn and Slavery Project investigates the University of Pennsylvania’s relationship to the institution of slavery. PRSS’s work in the Penn and Slavery Project focuses on the legacies of slavery and racism in medical education.
News
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February 5, 2019
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January 18, 2019
Professor Sebastián Gil-Riaño recently published an article in The British Journal for the History of Science.
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January 18, 2019
PRSS affiliate Professor Sebastián Gil-Riaño has signed a contract with Columbia University Press to publish his book, the working title of which is Redeeming Race?: Anti-racist Science and Postcolonial Development in the 20th Century. The book will be part of the press's Race, Inequality, and Health series, which is co-edited by Columbia University Professor Samuel Roberts, Jr. and PRSS Working Group member and Drexel University Professor Michael Yudell. Congratulations to Professor Gil-Riaño!
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January 17, 2019
Professor Quayshawn Spencer has co-authored a book that will be published by Oxford University Press in May 2019. What Is Race? Four Philosophical Views presents the opinions of philosophers Joshua Glasgow, Sally Haslanger, Chike Jeffers, and Spencer on the concept of race, as well as their replies to their co-authors. You can read more about the book here.
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January 16, 2019
Professor Quayshawn Spencer recently published a paper in Philosophical Studies. The article, "A racial classification for medical genetics," uses a philosophical framework to take up the argument that "there's a racial classification with medically relevant genetic differentiation," though it does not take a position on whether such a classification should be used in medicine or not. You can read the article here.
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January 16, 2019
Congratulations to PRSS Working Group member Quayshawn Spencer, who recently received tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor! Professor Spencer has also been named the Robert S. Blank Presidential Associate Professor of Philosophy. He is the first Black professor to earn tenure as a primary member of the Department of Philosophy since 1963, when William Fontaine became the first Black professor to receive tenure at Penn. You can read more about Professor Spencer here.
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December 5, 2018
On November 29, PRSS Director Dorothy Roberts delivered the Morris Dillard Lecture, hosted by the Program for Humanities in Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine. The title of Professor Roberts' lecture was "Mistreating Health Inequities in the Genomic Age."
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October 25, 2018
The American Society of Human Genetics recently released a statement denouncing "attempts to link genetics and racial supremacy." In the October 19 statement, the ASHG cited a 2016 Science article written by PRSS Director Dorothy Roberts, PRSS Working Group members Michael Yudell and Sarah Tishkoff, and Rob DeSalle of the American Museum of Natural History.
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October 5, 2018
Congratulations to Oliver Rollins, a former PRSS Postdoctoral Fellow and current professor at the University of Louisville, on the publication of an article in Ethnic and Racial Studies.
Prof. Rollins' article, co-authored with Julien Larregue, is titled, "Biosocial criminology and the mismeasure of race." The article argues "that biosocial criminology solicits social constructionism as a shield to re-insert antiquated biologic notions of race through a guise of bio-sociality." You can read the article here.
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October 5, 2018
PRSS Director Dorothy Roberts and PRSS Working Group member Dr. Sarah Tishkoff recently held a discussion at the Franklin Institute about genetic ancestry testing and social constructions of race. You can listen to a recording of the discussion, "Does Race Exist? Exploring the Future of Genetics, Ancestry, and Medicine," here.