Fall Research Expo 2021

Carleton Stevens Coon and The Legacies of Scientific Racism in Anthropology

     The goal of this project was to create a mini-documentary. The documentary is part of a larger project, led by Dr. Deborah Thomas, which attempts to begin to ‘decolonize’ the anthropology department at the University of Pennsylvania. The focus of the documentary is trilateral: on the history of the discipline of anthropology in the United States during the latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th; on the role of the University of Pennsylvania in perpetuating older legacies of anthropology; and on the controversial figure employed by the University of Pennsylvania-  a Dr. Carleton Coon.     

     This project was multi-tiered, and was commissioned to two undergraduate students. The steps undergone by our team were as follows: attending a summer class (Film 101 at the University of Pennsylvania), conducting archival research (at the Penn Museum Archives, and at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History Archives), conducting interviews with various experts in the field of anthropology and its history, reviewing the data gathered from archival research, synthesizing the data into an overarching storyline for the film, editing together clips from interviews and external images, and post-editing (fine-tuning and adding titles, labels, and sound).  
 

PRESENTED BY
PURM - Penn Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program
College of Arts & Sciences 2024
CO-PRESENTERS
Jesus Elian Pallares - College of Arts & Sciences 2024
Advised By
Dr. Deborah A Thomas
R. Jean Brownlee Professor of Anthropology
Join
  • Aleia
  • Jesus
for a virtual discussion
PRESENTED BY
PURM - Penn Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program
College of Arts & Sciences 2024
CO-PRESENTERS
Jesus Elian Pallares - College of Arts & Sciences 2024
Advised By
Dr. Deborah A Thomas
R. Jean Brownlee Professor of Anthropology

Comments

This project is so cool especially with how relevant it is to modern day! I can't wait to see the larger outcome of this!