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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Weaving refugee’s life into histories of U.S., Vietnam
Pulitzer-winning novelist, academic Viet Thanh Nguyen to discuss colonization, otherness in Norton Lectures.
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Big impact of Little Amal
A.R.T., ArtsThursdays event centers on the 12-foot puppet of a Syrian refugee child, kicking off monthlong arts programming on migration and immigration.
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Lost in fictional maps
Fantasy worlds from Middle Earth to Westeros come to life in Harvard Library exhibit.
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How to judge a painting
Do: Ask questions and keep an open mind. Don’t: Say your child could’ve made that.
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Murder, misguided creativity, and other tales in salt prints
The early photo technique — and stories of people in front of, behind camera — get new exposure as Harvard digitizes vast collection.
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Visions of power in ‘Barbie,’ Beyoncé, Taylor Swift
Women entertainers are dominating the summer. Lecturer in women, gender, and sexuality discusses the forces at play.
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Hot season for travel, rejuvenation, transformation — even if you don’t go anywhere
Fourteen suggestions for books to take you places you’ve never been, full of new people, unaccustomed sights, smells, tastes.
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If it wasn’t created by a human artist, is it still art?
Writer, animator, architect, musician, and mixed-media artist detail potential value, limit of works produced by AI
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So what exactly makes Taylor Swift so great?
Experts weigh in on pop superstar’s cultural and financial impact as her tours and albums continue to break records.
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How do humanities prepare students for the real world? Here are four examples.
From planning a film festival to researching arts-based sex education, students find “real-world” applications for their chosen passions.
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Everyone calls it a classic. But who’s everyone, and why am I so bored?
Scholarly wisdom for readers beating their heads against a great work of literature: Stop doing that
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‘Funny … frivolous … serious’
Music and comedy meet queer and Jewish radicalism in Morgan Bassichis exhibit at the Carpenter Center.
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A people’s history of Cambridge
In “The Streets of Newtowne: A Story of Cambridge, MA.” professor tells the story of city from Indigenous origins to present in children’s book illustrated by alum.
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Reinspired by true events
Tiya Miles’ research on Cherokee slaveholding sparked her first novel. A recent tribal reckoning led her to revisit it.
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Reflections as hip-hop turns 50
Emmett G. Price III examines genre’s history, staying power — and “intentionality” of recognition in recent years from elite cultural institutions.
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Beyond the ballgown
Sammi Cannold discusses her vision for the iconic musical as she introduces “Evita” to a new generation of artists and audiences at the American Repertory Theater.
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Staging the ‘unstageable’
YouTube star, student, and a ghost called Swan collide in junior’s award-winning play exploring queerness, self-discovery.
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American stories in watercolor
Exhibit goes beyond idyllic landscapes to cramped apartment, 19th-century wardrobe malfunction, cancer-defying self-portraits.
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‘As though somebody had taken a piece of your soul, created it into an object …’
Poetry critic reflects on “thrilling” career, writers who inspire, declining support for humanities.
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Frederick Douglass as 19th-century influencer
A Wadsworth Atheneum show, curated by Sarah Elizabeth Lewis and Skip Gates, explores Douglass’ embrace of the emerging art of photography.
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Susan Suleiman reflects on resilience, girlhood, and identity in memoir
Emerita professor recalls childhood as Holocaust refugee in memoir “Daughter of History.”
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Jorie Graham confronts past, present, and future
“Mortality got my attention. And it was — as we are told to believe but rarely do — a gift,” says the acclaimed poet, whose latest collection, “To 2040,” looks at the many crises shadowing what she calls “the human project.”
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Arts First sets the stage for spring
Arts First took over stages, museums, and other venues across Harvard’s campus during the four-day festival.
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Changing face of Shehuo festival
Photographer Zhang Xiao documented the Shehuo festival over a decade of modernization, creating a portrait of how traditional practices sustain themselves amid rapid change. The new bilingual photographic exhibition “Shehuo: Community Fire” is at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology.
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Turning debris into haute couture
“Marine Debris Fashion Show,” a student design competition featuring outfits made from items humans dumped in oceans, was a highlight of the Arts First Festival.
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City of poets
Eight student poets pick a corner of the city with historical, personal meaning and read an original work.
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What happens when computers take on one of ‘most human’ art forms?
New play to debut at Arts First Festival examines relationship between technology, humanity, and theater.
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Merging sculpture, technology
Sculpture, technology merge in Ceramics Program as tool offers students another way to work with clay.
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Turning climate crisis stories into narrative of the future, changed but still beautiful
Rebecca Solnit offers new view of remaking the world, turning climate crisis stories into narrative of the future, changed but still beautiful.
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Playwright Michael R. Jackson urges students to heed ‘tickle’ of muse
Students talk lyrics, character conflict, listening to the muse with Pulitzer, Tony-winning playwright Michael R. Jackson at CompFest.