Arts & Culture

Charles Follen (1796-1840), 10-year Harvard professor, is remembered for bringing holiday tradition from Germany

Vince Guaraldi’s quintessential holiday soundtrack, “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” made an indelible mark on many, including Harvard Law School faculty assistant Brad Conner.

Cass Sunstein, Robert Walmsley University Professor, is writing a book about lessons that can be drawn from the box-office phenomenon “Star Wars.”

Scholars gathered at Harvard’s Observatory of the Spanish Language to ponder how Spanish can continue thriving as the second-most-common language in the United States.

In the yearly cycle of a Harvard student, before the comfort of the festive year-end season, comes the stress of finals season. This weekend, as the community braces to clear that last hurdle, the Kuumba Singers of Harvard College offer the perfect antidote: their annual Christmas Concerts.

Peter Galison and Robb Moss’ documentary “Containment” is an unflinching look at the challenges of nuclear waste disposal.

While the daily news conveys a world beset by horrific acts of terrorism, brutal civil war, and frequent mass shootings, Professor Steven Pinker brought a hopeful message to a talk at Emerson Hall, saying global violence is actually in decline.

With her first solo Boston show on view at the Carpenter Center, Lorraine O’Grady, 81, explains her art and influences during an address at the Harvard Art Museums.

A mayoral proclamation, a Harvard Art Museums exhibit, and a StoryCorps project all salute Corita Kent, Boston’s pop art icon.

Harvard’s Cabaret, a collaboration between graduate students at the A.R.T. Institute and Harvard undergrads, mixes song, dance, mischief, and monologue.

On view at Loeb Music Library through Dec. 18, “One Hundred Years of Chinese Piano Music” sheds light on a robust tradition of song influenced by native folklore, poems, and philosophy, as well as Western compositional techniques.

Delivering the second Provostial Lecture of the Mahindra Humanities Center at Menschel Hall on Tuesday, University Provost Alan Garber ’76 made a compelling case for the continuation of this tradition, in academia, careers, and beyond.

Radcliffe Fellow Ross Gay is a finalist for the National Book Award in poetry.

Artist Shahryar Nashat uses video, sound, and shapes to “intervene” in the space designed by Le Corbusier, while connecting his work with “Private Practice” inside Harvard Art Museums. The goal of the exhibits is to bring together these two gallery spaces as a result of this unique collaboration.

Harvard’s Elisa New will introduce poet Alicia Jo Rabins, who will read from her book “Divinity School” and play with her band Girls in Trouble on Nov. 16 at Harvard Hillel.

The Grammy-winning Benin-born singer Angélique Kidjo will bring her passion for music and for giving back to Harvard with two days of lectures and discussions.

At the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Futurefarmers combines art with agriculture, work with whimsy.

Speaking at Duke University, Harvard President Drew Faust praised scholar John Hope Franklin, citing his dedication to helping create the field of African-American history, and to reminding the nation of its troubled past and present.

The website of the Colonial North American Project so far includes 150,000 images of diaries, journals, notebooks, and other rare documents from the 17th and 18th centuries.

Legendary fashion designer Calvin Klein spoke at the Harvard Graduate School of Design Monday evening about how the language of architecture has influenced his 40-year career and now, the rest of his life.

A Harvard Graduate School of Design salon on Tuesday will probe the cross-disciplinary approach to creativity and creative solutions to problems.

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.

Cambridge’s Old Burying Ground is the final resting place of Harvard presidents and paupers alike, and has centuries of tales to tell.

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.

A new installation at Radcliffe by a collaborative of engineers and artists transforms viewers into virtual artists.

New show explores the meeting of art and illness with help from the work of author Ayn Rand and composer Ludwig van Beethoven.

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.

An émigré physician at Harvard Medical School has written a book about the multitude of anatomy-based English expressions.

A photographer and a neurobiologist explored the science and art behind seeing during a HUBweek lecture at the Harvard Art Museums.

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.