Faculty Workshops
Annual Conference
Graduate Workshops

Faculty Workshops

Modern business corporations receive charters from and operate within the legal frameworks of national states. Though they organize and regulate much of the daily lives of a considerable portion of humanity, and though they impact the planet more generally, corporations are not themselves typically constituted internally around ideals such as democracy, citizenship, and egalitarianism, which are associated instead with national political culture. How did corporations as social institutions develop historically, and what role have they played in the rise of modern democratic states? What are and by right ought to be the responsibilities of corporations to their owners, to those who work for them, to the nations in which they operate, and to the planet more generally? What are the national and international roles and responsibilities of multinational corporations who, in the 21st century, often operate on a global scale — and what should they be? How have corporations affected different parts of the world, from Europe and North America, to Latin America, the Middle East, East and South Asia, and Africa? These are some of the questions addressed in the published volume, now available here.

Can the For-Profit Corporation Be a Good Citizen?
Opening Event (Sept. 15, 2011) 
John Abele (Director Emeritus, Boston Scientific), Gordon Bajnai (Former Prime Minister of Hungary), Fedele Bauccio (CEO, Bon Appetit), Bill Cobb (CEO, JM Smith)
Moderator: Nien-he Hsieh (Wharton School)

"The Rise and Embedding of the Corporation"
Walter Licht (Penn History)
Discussant: Randall Collins (Penn Sociology)
Read PDF.

Responsibilities, Rights, and Group Agents
Philip Pettit (Politics, Princeton University)
Discussant: Eric Orts (Ethics & Legal Studies, Wharton School)
Co-sponsored by the Penn Philosophy Department and the Moral and Political Philosophy
No new paper for this talk (for background and context, see "Responsibility Incorporated" from Ethics, Vol. 117)

Corporations and Children
Joel Bakan (Law, University of British Columbia)
Co-sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania Law School

Roundtable on For-Profit Educational Corporations
Jonathan Harber (CEO, SchoolNet Inc.), Michael Moe (Founder, GSV Asset Management), Peter Smith (Senior VP, Kaplan Higher Education)

"Corporate Citizenship and Worker Voice"
Cynthia Estlund (Law, New York University)
Co-sponsored by the Penn Law School
Read PDF.

"Ethno-Being: On the Affective Economy of Belonging"
Jean Comaroff (Anthropology, University of Chicago)
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Corporations in East Asia
Hirokazu Miyazaki (Anthropology, Cornell University)

Fifth Annual Penn DCC Conference

May 4, 2012

PANEL 1: Corporate Purpose and Social Responsibility
Louis Galambos (History, Johns Hopkins University)
Jeffery Smith (Business, University of the Redlands)

PANEL 2: The Power of Corporations for Good and Evil
Lynn Paine (Business, Harvard University)
Rosalie Genova (DCC Postdoctoral Fellow)

PANEL 3: State Governance of Corporations, 1:30 p.m.- 3 p.m.
Peter Gourevitch (Political Science, University of California, San Diego)
Jonathan Macey (Law, Yale University)

PANEL 4: Multinational Corporations
Karen Ho (Anthropology, University of Minnesota)
Katharina Pistor (Law, Columbia University)

Graduate Workshops

“Surface Mining, Public Health, and Human Suffering in Central Appalachia (1960-1990)”
Merlin Chowkwanyun (History & Public Health, UPenn)

“One Vision: Latino Political Identity and Spanish Language Television News”
Mara Cecilia Ostfeld (Political Science, UPenn)
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“Democratic Authority and the Obligation to Obey the Law”
Doug Weck (Philosophy & Law, UPenn)
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“Communities of Practice and Cultural Historical Activity Theory as Theoretical Frameworks for the Analysis of Service Learning and Civic Engagement”
Christopher Pupik-Dean (Education, UPenn)
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“Financing the Korean War: How the Fear of Inflation and Support for the War Created an Anomaly in United States’ History”
Rosella Capella (Political Science, UPenn)
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“Overturning the White Male Republic: The Early Republican Party and the Equal Suffrage Movement”
David Bateman (Political Science, UPenn)

“When I Get My Ax"’: Visions of Community in Civil War Refugee Camps”
Abby Cooper (History, UPenn)
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“The Equitable Role Explanation of Political Obligation”
Chris Melenovsky (Philosophy, UPenn)
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“Cohen’s Interpersonal Test and Managers’ Political Imperative to Provide Public Goods”
Gaston de los Reyes (Ethics and Legal Studies, UPenn)
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“With one definition, two groups: Tracing the inception of Hindu nationalism and its inflexible exclusion of Muslims in India”
Aliya Rao (Sociology, Upenn)
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“Today's Youth, Tomorrow's Leaders?: Changes in Civic and Political Engagement Attitudes across Immigrant Generations”
Radha Modi (Sociology, Upenn)
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“Populist Democracy and the Problems of Indian Subjects in the Seventeenth Century English Empire”
Matthew Kruer (History, UPenn)
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“Republican Deliberation: Debate and Democracy in the Republican Visions of Skinner and Pettit”
Noah Rosenblum (History, Columbia)
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“The Art of Invisible Governance in Progressive Banking Reform: Paul Warburg and the Origins of the Federal Reserve”
Eric Phillips (History, Temple)
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“Polecats in the Lion's Den? Rethinking Hobbes on Democracy”
Jay Mikelman (Philosophy, Boston University)
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“What Kind of Nation?: Deportation in U.S. History and Policy.”
Adam Goodman (History, UPenn)

“Seeking Asylum, Finding Chaos: The Refugee Act and the Crisis of 1980”
Carly Goodman (History, Temple)
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“From Pulpit to Party: The Evolution of the Egyptian Muslim Brothers' Strategy.”
Sarah Salwen (Political Science, UPenn)
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“States and Women's Rights in Central Asia”
Danielle Kane (Duke) and Ksenia Gorbenko (Sociology, UPenn)
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