OMNIA Podcast

Our new season of Omnia, Democracy and Decision 2024, examines the state of U.S. democracy in the context of the upcoming presidential election. 

The first episode, “Truth and Democracy,“ features Sophia Rosenfeld, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History, in conversation with podcast host Stephanie Perry, Executive Director of the Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies (PORES) and the Fox Leadership Program, who is also a member of the NBC News Decision Desk Team. 

They discuss some of the big questions at the heart of American democracy, like whether common sense has changed in the context of politics, how a healthy democracy works, who decides what’s true in democracy, and much more.

Check out a new episode of Democracy and Decision 2024 from the Omnia Podcast every two weeks starting on October 1, 2024. We'll explore topics like the myths and realities of political polarization, how media is shaping our understanding of the issues and candidates, and how state voting laws have changed. And we’ll even give you some post-election analysis.  

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Produced by Alex Schein and Loraine Terrell 
Hosted by Stephanie Perry 
Edited by Alex Schein 
Theme music by Nicholas Escobar, C'18
Illustration and logo by Nick Matej

Democracy and Decision 2024 is a production of Penn Arts & Sciences in collaboration with the Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies (PORES). Visit our website to listen to every episode of the Omnia Podcast: https://omnia.sas.upenn.edu/podcast

The Arts & Sciences Annual Fund is the most fundamental way to support the School of Arts & Sciences at Penn. Donations mean immediate, unrestricted dollars for the School to use on its top priorities, including the path-breaking faculty and research featured in this podcast. Show your support today: www.sas.upenn.edu/annual-fund

Many people know Philadelphia for the Declaration of Independence, Rocky, and cheesesteaks. Philly’s deep musical history is less familiar, but its influence continues to inspire audiences and artists across the globe. 

For Carol Muller’s graduate-level ethnomusicology field methods class, students focused on documenting the city’s Black music history, interviewing figures ranging from Grammy-award winning hip-hop producer Jahlil Beats to Mark Christman and Anthony Tidd of the Ars Nova Worskhop to radio icon Dyana Williams. The class also produced a podcast based on the book There’s that Beat Guide to The Philly Sound by Dave Moore. Each student created an episode based on a chapter of the book, including music samples to make the material more accessible to all audiences. 

The class was part of the Paideia program at Penn, which is focused on educating the whole student. Paideia funded some of the guests, and other research interviews were supported by a Klein Family Social Justice Grant. 

Muller, a professor of music, has been teaching the field methods class since 2001. Supported by the Penn Global program, she recently has spent time in Australia working with aboriginal leaders— an experience that she says has helped her re-think the focus of her field methods class. The course now centers around deep listening and working to understand the relationships between humans, non-human animals, and the environment. “To fully grasp human sound production, we need to expand how we see, hear, and know the world,” she wrote in the course description. 

Hear from Muller and graduate students Kwame Ocran and Yuri Seung about the experience, and listen to some of the material they created, in this episode of the Omnia podcast.

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Produced, Narrated, and Edited by Alex Schein

Podcast Logo by Hemani Kapoor

Music excerpts by the O’Jays, Teddy Pendergrass, Meek Mill (Pr.  Jahlil Beats), Chris Brown and Tyra (Pr. Jahlil Beats), Big Pun (Pr. Minnesota), Bobby Byrd, Jay-Z (Pr. Just Blaze), Marian Anderson, James Mtume, Rasheed Ali Quintet, Mahal Richard Abrams, Allison Miller’s Boom Tic Boom, Soul Brothers Six, and Barbara Mason.

Additional Music by Blue Dot Sessions 

Visit our editorial magazine, Omnia, for more content from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty, students, and alumni: omnia.sas.upenn.edu

After the enormous success of her translation of Homer’s The Odyssey, Emily Wilson spent another five years translating The Iliad. The book was released this fall, again to tremendous acclaim.

Wilson is the College for Women Class of 1963 Term Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classical Studies. She is the recipient of two prestigious fellowships, the MacArthur “Genius Grant” and the Guggenheim, and was chosen to judge the Booker Prize competition. She’s been invited to speak across the United States and Europe.

Wilson’s translations are notable because they are in straightforward, common English, but she also uses a poetic meter to echo that of the originals. To do so, she read both the ancient Greek version and her translation aloud repeatedly as she worked.

For this episode, we asked Professor Wilson to select and read a few passages from The Iliad in Homer’s original Greek and then from her English translation, after first sharing her thoughts about why she chose the passages she did.

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Produced, Narrated, and Edited by Alex Schein
Theme music by Nicholas Escobar, C'18
Additional music by Michael Levy: "Ode to Athena" and "Umbra Morris" (ancientlyre.com) and Blue Dot Sessions: "Cloudbank"
Podcast Logo by Hemani Kapoor

Check out our feature article on Emily Wilson in the Fall/Winter issue of OMNIA Magazine: bit.ly/3SGMVh6

This July, global temperatures soared to the warmest ever recorded. Ocean surface temperatures hit record highs. Extreme weather-related events are becoming ever more common, seen this spring and summer with the wildfires in Canada and Hawaii, flooding in Vermont, and a tropical storm in Los Angeles dumping almost three inches of rain in one day.

Renowned climate scientist Michael Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth and Environmental Science and the Director of Penn’s Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media, has been following the changing climate for decades, starting with his doctoral work, which focused largely on natural climate variability. In the ’90s, he and colleagues published the now iconic hockey-stick curve, an estimate of how temperatures varied in the past using natural sources like tree rings, corals, and ice cores. His new book, Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth’s Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis, publishes at the end of September.

OMNIA spoke with him about this summer’s weather events, how we can move forward in this climate reality, and why he still believes there’s still time for action.

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Produced, Narrated, and Edited by Alex Schein
Theme music by Nicholas Escobar, C'18
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions 
Podcast Logo by Hemani Kapoor

Visit our editorial magazine, Omnia, for more content from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty, students, and alumni: omnia.sas.upenn.edu

The 2022 midterm elections took place on Tuesday, November 8th in the United States, and are still being decided in many parts of the country. Historically, the president’s party loses in the midterms. And yet this year, Democrats – the party of President Joe Biden – maintained their control of the Senate and may only lose their majority in the House of Representatives by a slim margin. So what happened? In this episode, we speak with political science professor, Daniel Hopkins, about why this year’s midterms were so different than the historical trend and what the next two years might look like in American political life.

Guest:

Daniel Hopkins, Professor of Political Science

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Produced, Narrated, and Edited by Alex Schein
Theme music by Nicholas Escobar, C'18
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions 
Illustration by Nick Matej
Podcast Logo by Hemani Kapoor

Visit our editorial magazine, Omnia, for more content from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty, students, and alumni: omnia.sas.upenn.edu

The pandemic has had a pronounced impact on mental health. Participating in activities that benefit well-being is crucial, but Katherine Cotter and James Pawelski, experts in the field of positive psychology, say being conscious of these benefits, and optimizing participation, is the end goal.

In this final episode of the season, we speak with both researchers from the Positive Psychology Center about how art museum visitation and museum program participation impact flourishing-related outcomes.

Guests:

James O. Pawelski, Professor of Practice and Director of Education, Positive Psychology Center and Director of the Humanities and Human Flourishing Project

Katherine Cotter, Postdoctoral Fellow, Positive Psychology Center

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Produced by Blake Cole
Narrated by Alex Schein
Edited by Alex Schein and Brooke Sietinsons
Interview by Blake Cole 
Theme music by Nicholas Escobar, C'18
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions 
Illustration and logo by Marina Muun

In These Times is a production of Penn Arts & Sciences. Visit our series website to learn more and listen to the first three seasons of In These Times: web.sas.upenn.edu/in-these-times

Visit our editorial magazine, Omnia, for more content from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty, students, and alumni: omnia.sas.upenn.edu

Music is undeniably one of oldest and most essential art forms. The power of song and dance has been the pulse of social movements throughout the world and a source of collective and individual healing during difficult times for millennia. In this episode we speak with ethnomusicologist Carol Muller about the power of song and dance during the apartheid era in South Africa, and Nicholas Escobar, C'18, about his process composing music for the screen, and our very own OMNIA podcast. 

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Produced, Edited, and Narrated by Alex Schein
Interviews by Alex Schein
Theme music by Nicholas Escobar, C'18
Additional music by Nicholas Escobar; Randy Newman, "You've Got a Friend in Me" (from Toy Story 4); Thomas Newman, "May" (from The Shawshank Redemption); Dollar Brand aka Abdullah Ibrahim, "Whoza Mtwana" and "Mannenberg Revisited"; Miriam Makeba, "Soweto Blues"; Duke Ellington, "I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)"; Sathima Bea Benjamin, "Lush Life" and "Solitude"; The O'Jays, "I Love Music" (Mike Maurro Mix).

Illustration and logo by Marina Muun

In These Times is a production of Penn Arts & Sciences. Visit our series website to learn more and listen to the first three seasons of In These Times: web.sas.upenn.edu/in-these-times

Visit our editorial magazine, Omnia, for more content from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty, students, and alumni: omnia.sas.upenn.edu

For as long as humans have had voices, trauma has been told and processed through stories, poetry, and music. In this episode, we speak with author Lorene Cary, Senior Lecturer in English, and poet Fatemeh Shams, Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, on the ability of words to move people, create a community, and help us to heal.

Guests:

Lorene Cary, Senior Lecturer, Department of English

Fatemeh Shams, Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

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Produced by Susan Ahlborn
Narrated by Alex Schein
Edited by Alex Schein and Brooke Sietinsons
Interviews by Jane Carol and Alex Schein
Theme music by Nicholas Escobar, C'18
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and MG & Ma’tthue Raheem for “Vote that Jawn” rap
Illustration and logo by Marina Muun

In These Times is a production of Penn Arts & Sciences. Visit our series website to learn more and listen to the first three seasons of In These Times: web.sas.upenn.edu/in-these-times

Visit our editorial magazine, Omnia, for more content from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty, students, and alumni: omnia.sas.upenn.edu

The legacy of trauma resulting from more than 200 years of slavery in North America, and colonialism abroad, has yet to be fully comprehended. In this episode, Breanna Moore discusses her engagement with fellow student collaborators to recreate the history of Penn’s connections to slavery, which began with a memory book and a journey through her own family’s history. And Deborah Thomas explains how the many mediums of art, including film, dance, and photography, have helped her promote healing within communities marked by trauma in Jamaica and beyond.

This episode includes excerpts from Four Days in May: Kingston 2010 featuring Jacqueline Gordon, Shawn Bowen, and Aaliyah Levy. The documentary film was directed and produced by Deanne M. Bell, Junior “Gabu” Wedderburn, and Deborah A. Thomas.

Guests:

Breanna Moore, C’15 and Ph.D. candidate, Department of History

Deborah Thomas, R. Jean Brownlee Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for Experimental Ethnography

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Produced by Blake Cole
Narrated by Alex Schein
Edited by Alex Schein, Loraine Terrell, and Brooke Sietinsons
Interviews by Blake Cole and Loraine Terrell
Theme music by Nicholas Escobar, C'18
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions 
Illustration and logo by Marina Muun

In These Times is a production of Penn Arts & Sciences. Visit our series website to learn more and listen to the first three seasons of In These Times: web.sas.upenn.edu/in-these-times

Visit our editorial magazine, Omnia, for more content from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty, students, and alumni: omnia.sas.upenn.edu

In coping with the stresses of recent times, many people are finding respite in connecting with nature. Writers extolling the virtues of wellness travel, ecotherapy, and going for a long walk are just one spin on a long tradition of reflections on how to find health, happiness, and wisdom through nature in any of its manifestations, from herbs and flowers, to animals and crystals.

In this episode, Rebecca Bushnell, a noted Shakespeare expert and scholar of early modern literature, discusses nature writing from the past, along with thoughts on why we garden and what we talk about when we talk about nature.

Guest:

Rebecca Bushnell, School of Arts and Sciences Board of Advisors Emerita Professor of English

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Produced by Loraine Terrell
Narrated by Alex Schein
Edited by Alex Schein and Loraine Terrell
Interview by Loraine Terrell
Theme music by Nicholas Escobar, C'18
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions 
Illustration and logo by Marina Muun

In These Times is a production of Penn Arts & Sciences. Visit our series website to learn more and listen to the first three seasons of In These Times: web.sas.upenn.edu/in-these-times

Visit our editorial magazine, Omnia, for more content from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty, students, and alumni: omnia.sas.upenn.edu