Arts & Culture

Boston-area high school students will perform “Freedom Acts” on Nov. 2‒3. As part of the A.R.T.’s Proclamation Project, the play tackles questions of what hypocrisies and contradictions exist in what we think of as American freedom.

In a class called “Haunted: Writing the Supernatural,” Harvard students put their imaginations to work creating tales of demons, monsters, and ghosts.

Lonnie G. Bunch III, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, recalls his challenges in founding the National Museum of African American History and Culture

Rapper Queen Latifah, poets Elizabeth Alexander and Rita Dove, Smithsonian secretary Lonnie Bunch III, philanthropist Sheila C. Johnson, artist Kerry James Marshall, and entrepreneur Robert F. Smith were honored with this year’s W.E.B. Du Bois Medals.

“Writing Black Lives,” a Radcliffe talk by three biographers that explored how the lives and work of three influential Americans — federal judge and activist Constance Baker Motley, playwright Lorraine Hansberry, and author James Baldwin — helped shape and are still shaping conversations around black politics, community, identity, and life.

Harvard historian Lizabeth Cohen’s latest book explores the life and career of Ed Logue, a Yale-trained lawyer who became an influential city planner and applied the lessons of Roosevelt’s New Deal to urban renewal.

Amirah Sackett uses dance to challenge conceptions of Muslim womanhood. The Chicago dancer, choreographer, educator, and activist combines hip-hop with Islamic themes to explore her identity and invites viewers to expand their understanding of movement as a mode of self-expression. The Gazette spoke to Sackett about the importance of education in the arts, her activism, and love of poetry.

Since 2002, the Hiphop Archive and Research Institute has been documenting hip-hop’s growing legacy and culture.

A selection of photographs from Nobel laureate Martin Karplus is on display at the Minda de Gunzburg Center’s Jacek E. Giedrojć Gallery until Jan. 13, 2020.

In “The Sound of My Soul: Frank Stewart’s Life in Jazz,” nearly 80 photographs large and small document Stewart’s fascination with capturing the country’s signature art form — one rooted in improvisation — on film.

In an excerpt from the essay “Museum of Broken Hearts,” Leslie Jamison, a 2004 Harvard grad, explores love, loss, and renewal through the relics of her relationships past.

In his 2019–2020 Kim and Judy Davis Dean’s Lecture in the Humanities, Joshua Jay offers listeners a look at techniques involving perception, attention, and surprise that he insists have practical applications well beyond the realm of magic.

The ArtLab, Harvard’s newest Allston lab, open its doors for some creative research.

Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University and Climate Creatives are using art and design to create an event to help people see the urgent need to act on climate change.

Clint Smith is a writer and teacher whose collection of poetry, “Counting Descent,” was published in 2016. He is currently working on a doctoral dissertation exploring how people sentenced as juveniles to life without parole make meaning of education while incarcerated.

Harvard chamber music veterans, Blodgett Artists-in-Residence the Parker Quartet, will perform this Friday in Paine Hall.

Theresa Reno-Weber is a graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and a former lieutenant. She deployed to the Persian Gulf and served as a sea marshal on the first U.S.C.G. cutter to circumnavigate the world. Today, she is president and CEO of Metro United Way in Louisville, Kentucky.

Located on North Harvard Street, the ArtLab is the University’s latest Allston laboratory devoted to creative inquiry, research, and experimentation. Focused on interdisciplinary artistic collaboration, investigation, and connection, the ArtLab will be open to members of the University and the public this week.

“Winslow Homer: Eyewitness,” currently on view at the Harvard Art Museums, traces how the artist’s experience as an observer tasked with accurately documenting the conflict helped shape his career and informed much of his later output.

Carmen Arnold-Biucchi recently retired after almost two decades as the museums’ first curator of ancient coins. During her tenure she helped bring roughly 2,000 other coins to Harvard, small-scale works of art adorned with mythical creatures, ancient architecture, biblical references, important persons, and poignant dates.

A sampling of the season’s best in local music, theater, and visual arts.

Harvard Divinity School pays tribute to the late Toni Morrison during its convocation.

The curtain comes down Sept. 7 on the immersive, disco-insistent “Donkey Show” after a decade-long run at A.R.T.

“Six,” the hit British musical bound for A.R.T., recasts the six wives of Henry VIII as girl-power pop stars.

Matt Saunders is the incoming director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies

Harvard students are keeping busy with summer research projects across multiple disciplines.

A small installation on view through November will feature one of the museums’ recent Rembrandt acquisitions, “Four Studies of Male Heads.”

Members from the Harvard Summer Pops Band share how they became part of the band.

In historian Philip Deloria’s new book, “Becoming Mary Sully: Toward an American Indian Abstract,” he re-examines the art of his “eccentric” great-aunt, particularly her 134 “personality prints,” three-panel pieces inspired, in many cases, by artists and celebrities including Babe Ruth, Gertrude Stein, and Amelia Earhart.

Stephanie Burt’s new book is a guide to understanding an art form that for many feels difficult to access. She talks about creating a “travel guide” for poetry.