Penn Museum
Surviving: The Body of Evidence
3260 South Street
April 19, 2008- May 3, 2009

Three years in the making, this new, interactive exhibition explores the process of evolution and its profound impact on humans. Visitors can see and touch more than 100 casts of fossil bones from the primate and human evolutionary records in an exploration of physical anthropology and its relation to evolutionary science.

11-13 April | Herder, Music, and Enlightenment
An Interdisciplinary Symposium
3619 Locust Walk, Penn Campus
Presented by the Department of Music, University of Pennsylvania

The 18th-century philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder occupies a somewhat marginal position in the humanities. Scholars have habitually portrayed him as the progenitor of ideas that became important only in the work of his successors—a thinker who nourished ideas as if in their infancy. It was Herder who introduced the ideas of history and culture to Kantian critical philosophy before Hegel; who theorized national sentiment before the era of German nationalism; who gathered and composed popular songs and stories before the age of the great German folksong compilers. And, while Herder has acquired some passionate advocates such as Isaiah Berlin, most disciplines remain reluctant or unable to claim his extraordinarily diverse and rhapsodic writings, which appear to mix what one might consider philosophy, theology, literature and criticism. Only truly interdisciplinary study can do justice to Herder’s output. The central premise of this conference is that Herder should be of particular importance to music historians—and, conversely, music to the study of Herder.

History of Sciences Series
PHF Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow Llyd Wells
The Wagner Institute of Science and Free Library of Philadelphia, Independence Branch
18 S. 7th Street, Philadelphia

In this free course taught over 8 Wednesdays this spring, Prof. Wells explores various ways that we have imagined life, using an interdisciplinary approach that includes science, history, and literature. How does the microbial world, evolution, and fiction challenge us to think differently about life, the environment, and ourselves? What is the relevance of that challenge to origin-of-life research, the search for alien life, and current environemntal problems?