Arts & Culture
-
17 books to soak up this summer
Harvard Library staff recommendations cover romance, fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, memoir, music, politics, history
-
What to make? Let the wheels decide.
‘Randomizer’ gets creative gears spinning in ceramic studio
-
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
-
A modern approach to teaching classics
Martin Puchner is using chatbots to bring to life Socrates, Shakespeare, and Thoreau
-
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
-
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
-
Designing outside the box
A Harvard Graduate School of Design salon on Tuesday will probe the cross-disciplinary approach to creativity and creative solutions to problems.
-
A voice for creative leadership
Since August, Deborah Borda has been a Hauser Leader-in-Residence at the Center for Public Leadership at the Kennedy School, where she has been sharing her passion for the arts and imparting life lessons to leaders-in-training.
-
Amid the Old Burying Ground
Cambridge’s Old Burying Ground is the final resting place of Harvard presidents and paupers alike, and has centuries of tales to tell.
-
Age-old enchantments
During an afternoon demonstration and evening concert and reception, “Ancient Near East 103: Ancient Lives” students assembled, tuned, and played replicas of the world’s oldest known instruments, and sampled food based on 4,000-year-old recipes.
-
For gallery visitors, a chance to be one with the art
A new installation at Radcliffe by a collaborative of engineers and artists transforms viewers into virtual artists.
-
Behind the show, pages (and pages) of pain
New show explores the meeting of art and illness with help from the work of author Ayn Rand and composer Ludwig van Beethoven.
-
South Asia Institute hosts exhibit for Nepal
Harvard’s South Asia Institute (SAI) is hosting an exhibit and fundraiser to help the country of Nepal and its people rebuild after the devastating earthquake of April 25. Thousands of Nepalese citizens were killed; tens of thousands more were injured and made homeless, while many of the city’s magnificent buildings and places of worship were destroyed or seriously damaged.
-
Body of work
An émigré physician at Harvard Medical School has written a book about the multitude of anatomy-based English expressions.
-
Art that lights the mind
A photographer and a neurobiologist explored the science and art behind seeing during a HUBweek lecture at the Harvard Art Museums.
-
Israel’s Grossman reflects
The celebrated Israeli novelist David Grossman reflects on writing and warfare. The right has won the debate in his country, he says, but hope for peace remains.
-
Radcliffe Fellow sheds light on the science of poetry
Inspired by her love of science and her exploration of the universe’s mysteries, Sarah Howe wrote a poem dedicated to Stephen Hawking. A video has Hawking reading Howe’s poem, marking National Poetry Day, Oct. 8.
-
Chasing wonder to the finest detail
“Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” author Rebecca Skloot, at Radcliffe as a visiting scholar, talks about her new book project, on the bond between humans and animals.
-
Barbara Klemm comes to Harvard
The distinguished German photojournalist Barbara Klemm will show her works this month in the Center for European Studies (CES) exhibit titled “West Meets East,” which commemorates the 25th anniversary of the reunification of Germany.
-
A cultural institution
While volumes of poetry, sadly, may not sell the way, say, a Stephen King novel does, Ifeanyi Menkiti knows firsthand that poetry’s gifts are priceless. That’s why, in 2006, he purchased the Grolier Poetry Book Shop, a historic literary enclave down an unassuming Harvard Square side street.
-
A miracle of preservation
HarvardX’s MOOC “The Book” uses technology to mine ancient texts and bridge the modern and the medieval.
-
New arts concentration gets warm welcome
New concentration brings excitement by merging three disciplines and capitalizing on Harvard’s vast creative resources.
-
A childlike vision artfully refined
A new exhibit at Houghton Library spans the many pursuits of the British artist Walter Crane.
-
Testament to Manchukuo
A growing Harvard collection documents life and propaganda in the controversial, short-lived Asian state of Manchukuo.
-
History in the making
A new collection of materials donated to Harvard Library from the José María Castañé Foundation is keenly focused on major conflicts and transformative events of the 20th century, including the Russian Revolution, the two World Wars, the Spanish Civil War, and the Cold War.
-
Images to act on
Kellie Jones, an associate professor in art history and archaeology at the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University, discussed “Civil/Rights/Act: Art and Activism in the 1960s” as part of the W.E.B. Du Bois colloquia this fall.
-
A wall of color, a window to the past
Curious visitors who turn left off the Harvard Art Museums’ elevators on the building’s fourth floor are greeted by the Forbes Pigment Collection, a floor-to-ceiling wall of color compiled from about 1910 to 1944 by the former director of the Fogg Museum.
-
Out of the blue, strokes of brilliance
A phone call last month led to the acquisition of Corita Kent prints at Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library.
-
Weighed down
Harvard anthropologist Susan Greenhalgh’s new book, “Fat-Talk Nation: The Human Costs of America’s War on Fat,” delves deep into the national obsession with thinness.
-
Roman history, trowel by trowel
A Harvard undergrad learns by doing, digging through a Roman historical site during a summer excavation program.
-
Haunted vision
Dave Malloy traces the inspiration for “Ghost Quartet,” set to run at Oberon Sept. 9-12, to the scary stories of his youth.
-
Housing that reflects the world
An exhibit at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design showcases, explains half a century of lessons in living around the globe.
-
Life behind the pose
“Black Chronicles II,” at the Cooper Gallery, explores issues of race and identity through archival photographs from Victorian England.
-
Putting an artist in her place
A new exhibit at the Harvard Art Museums reviews the work of pop artist and activist Corita Kent.
-
Who needs answers?
The 2015 Arts and Passion-Driven Learning Institute traced connections among inspiration, imagination, and creative work.
-
Uncovering what Thoreau uncovered
Harvard’s Houghton Library has acquired Henry David Thoreau’s notes from the scene of the shipwreck that killed social reformer and writer Margaret Fuller.