Since 2003, the 60-Second Lecture Series has challenged Arts and Sciences faculty to distill a wealth of knowledge into a one-minute talk.

Every Wednesday in September and April sees Penn Arts and Sciences faculty members standing at a podium on College Green and lecturing on topics ranging from human history, to fractions, to fly fishing—all in under a minute.

The latest OMNIA podcast recaps the fall 2018 lectures and highlights two old favorites. In this episode, you’ll learn about greening vacant lots and what that means for crime rates, little-known medieval words that accurately describe the 2018 midterm elections, interpreting the Constitution, the very nature of time, and the evolving cultural and political questions raised ever-improving technologies of speech recognition and information retrieval.

Our dip into the archives features a 2009 talk titled “Why Achievement Isn’t Normal,” given by Angela Duckworth, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Psychology, 2013 MacArthur Fellow, and New York Times best-selling author of Grit, and a 2015 lecture, “What Video Games Have Taught Me About Shakespeare,” by Rebecca Bushnell, School of Arts and Sciences Board of Overseers Professor of English, and former Dean of Penn Arts and Sciences.

Many thanks to our fall 2018 lecturers:

John MacDonald, Professor of Criminology and Sociology and the Penny and Robert A. Fox Faculty Director at the Fels Institute of Government

Emily Steiner, Professor of English, and Aylin Malcolm, Ph.D. student in English

Samuel Freeman, the Avalon Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy and Law

Jamal Elias, Walter H. Annenberg Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies and South Asia Studies

Mark Liberman, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Linguistics.

To view the complete archive of 60-Second Lectures featuring faculty, students, and alumni, visit the Penn Arts and Sciences Vimeo library: https://vimeo.com/channels/60seclec

Produced by Penn Arts and Sciences

Subscribe to the OMNIA Podcast by Penn Arts & Sciences on iTunes (apple.co/2XVWCbC) and Stitcher (bit.ly/2Lf2G9h)