Arts & Culture
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17 books to soak up this summer
Harvard Library staff recommendations cover romance, fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, memoir, music, politics, history
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What to make? Let the wheels decide.
‘Randomizer’ gets creative gears spinning in ceramic studio
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Writing to the beat of your inner Miles Davis
Jesse McCarthy sees Black authors during Cold War philosophically opting for none of the above, and improvising their own way
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A modern approach to teaching classics
Martin Puchner is using chatbots to bring to life Socrates, Shakespeare, and Thoreau
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Stumbling through fog, disillusionment of 1970s
Francine Prose’s memoir trails fleeing 26-year-old novelist to S.F., her attraction to deeply troubled, fading counterculture hero
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Finding new art in unexpected places
Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies loaning pieces from collection to areas around campus to widen exposure, spark reconsideration
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A professor’s journey to belief
As part of a speaker series, Professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad shares his winding past toward belief.
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Watching ‘Scandal’ in a Faulkner state of mind
For “Faulkner, Interracialism and Popular Television,” Harvard’s Linda Chavers pairs the white Southern writer’s work with the TV series “Scandal” from African-American writer-producer Shonda Rhimes.
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The plot, and the fog, thicken
Fujiko Nakaya’s climate-responsive fog sculpture at Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum set the stage for a special twilight performance of “Macbeth.”
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The beetles have landed
“The Rockefeller Beetles,” a new exhibit at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, features hundreds of specimens from an exceptional collection that reflects the story of a man whose childhood pursuit grew into a lifelong passion.
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Coetzee recalls a reading childhood
Accepting the Mahindra Award for Global Distinction in the Humanities, Nobelist author J.M. Coetzee treated the audience filling Sanders Theatre to thoughts about his earliest reading and the concept of a mother tongue.
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The search for a California sphinx
At what other event would you hear, “This time there would be no Jell-O?” mused Egyptologist Peter Der Manuelian last Wednesday at the Harvard Art Museums. It sounded like a…
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The great eight
Bestowed by the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, eight laureates received the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal at Sanders Theatre for their contributions to African and African-American history and culture.
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From the page to the stage
Composer and writer Min Kahng talks about how he created his musical “Four Immigrants” in advance of his Harvard visit.
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Why did Jill Lepore write an epic of U.S. history? It’s a long story
Lepore speaks with the Gazette about our shared past, her central argument, Supreme Court fan mail, and more.
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The poetic perspective
Amanda Gorman, the inaugural U.S. youth poet laureate and a Harvard junior, wrote a poem for Harvard President Larry Bacow’s inauguration based on the University’s history, Bacow’s love of running, and his approach to the job that emphasizes the long-term nature of achievement and the importance of working together toward change.
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The serious business of comics
During Harvard visit, artist Scott McCloud explains how comics can promote a new way of seeing.
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Special exhibits mark Bacow inauguration
To honor its past and its future, Harvard will offer special exhibits on Oct. 4 and 5 during the inauguration of Larry Bacow, the University’s 29th president.
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Anthropology with a family touch
Eight expeditions to the Kalahari Desert by a Cambridge family in the 1950s yielded more than 40,000 photographs that captured hunter-gatherer cultures on the verge of disappearing. Many of the photos are now on view at Harvard’s Peabody Museum in a new exhibit, “Kalahari Perspectives: Anthropology, Photography, and the Marshall Family.”
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‘Lens of Love’ focuses on justice
The Rev. Jonathan Walton’s new book, “A Lens of Love: Reading the Bible in its World for Our World,” is an exploration of his interpretive approach, which reads biblical stories through the eyes of the vulnerable and marginalized.
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Where ideas, tensions converge
Mayra Rivera draws on her cross-disciplinary background in her role as Harvard’s faculty chair of the Committee on Ethnicity, Migration, Rights.
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Behind an eerie sound, science, espionage, and dashed dreams
Dorit Chrysler, a musicologist, composer, and leading thereminist, sat down with Harvard physicist John Huth at the Radcliffe Institute on for a conversation set to music.
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Intoxicating art
Nearly 60 examples of animal-shaped drinking objects make up “Animal-Shaped Vessels from the Ancient World: Feasting with Gods, Heroes, and Kings,” a new Harvard Art Museums exhibit that celebrates artistry and the exchange of ideas across cultures and centuries.
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At GSD, a tale of four cities
At the Graduate School of Design, the exhibit “Urban Intermedia” stands as “an experiment and the beginning of an ongoing discussion on new kinds of practices around the study of cities,” said co-curator Eve Blau.
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Dancing with the future
A multimedia production incorporates dance, music, and spoken word to explore how humans might cooperate with future generations to try to solve problems like climate change. “Dancing with the Future” will premiere at Farkas Hall on Sept. 25.
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What’s up in Boston’s fall arts scene
Highlights of what’s happening in music, theater, and art in Boston this fall.
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‘Late Night’ with Degas and van Gogh
Harvard Art Museums opens its door for Student Late Night, giving students an intimate look at its premier art collection and jumpstarting the student-museum relationship that is uniquely available to Harvard affiliates.
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Nakaya’s fog sculptures lift Boston parks
Fujiko Nakaya’s multisensory fog sculptures are on view at Harvard’s Arboretum and four other Emerald Necklace parks through Oct. 31.
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Following Bergman into the dark
“Darkness Unto Light: The Cinema of Ingmar Bergman” shows at the Harvard Film Archive, as well as Brookline’s Coolidge Corner Cinema and Harvard Square’s Brattle Theatre, through Oct. 14.
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Voicing the moods of Langston Hughes
A stage revival of the 1931 Langston Hughes poem “Black Clown” premiers at Harvard’s American Repertory Theater.
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An artist of his times, and ahead of them
The Harvard Art Museums’ exhibit “Mutiny: Works by Géricault” engages with issues of social justice and race in the 19th century and today.
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Terry Tempest Williams, in thought
In an interview, environmental writer and activist Terry Tempest Williams talks about what she learned during a year as a writer in residence at the Harvard Divinity School.
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‘Weathering Change’
Twenty-one Harvard students, faculty, staff, and alumni address climate change through poetry and art in “Weathering Change.”
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A luminous vision for Harvard Yard
Artist Teresita Fernández discusses the installation she created for Harvard Yard, “Autumn (… Nothing Personal).”
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Putting a new face, and new faces, on the 1893 World’s Fair
Seeking a fuller picture of the people recruited from around the world to work in the Midway, Peabody Museum enlists student help.
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Reflections on the ‘Queen of Soul’
Harvard faculty, others reflect on one of the great voices and artists of the 20th century, Aretha Franklin.