Arts & Culture
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When to quit a book
Some give up without guilt while others insist going cover to cover. Harvard readers share their criteria.
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Lace up gloves, enter ring, and write
Novelist and boxer Laura van den Berg says the two practices have a lot in common
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Unearthed papyrus contains lost scenes from Euripides’ plays
Alums help identify, decipher ‘one of the most significant new finds in Greek literature in this century’
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A photographer who makes historical subjects dance
Wendel White manifests the impetus behind his new monograph during Harvard talk
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LeVar Burton got his Du Bois Medal, and the crowd couldn’t resist
‘Reading Rainbow’ theme breaks out at ceremony honoring Black luminaries — including trailblazers in sports, arts, politics, and more
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When the act of writing itself is part of the art
Calligrapher Wang Dongling creates piece with ‘chaotic script’ before Harvard Art Museums audience
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Journeys through song
The Silk Road Ensemble was back at Harvard for a residency with faculty, students, and crafting new compositions using the Ganges River as inspiration.
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Signature signatures
Long, tall, short, and small, the signatures of the famous are housed in many Harvard albums and archives.
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Happily ever after, sometimes
A Scholars at Risk panel investigates the universal uses of narrative and the hard-wired human need for storytelling.
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The power of trans
“Trans Arts” was a two-hour panel Wednesday of poets, critics, and performers who in some cases identify with the gender opposite from the bodies into which they were born.
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How to speak American
Harvard University Press delivers the flavor and idiosyncrasies of our spoken language in a new online version of the acclaimed “Dictionary of American Regional English.”
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Classroom magic
A.R.T. Artistic Director Diane Paulus and Shakespeare scholar Marjorie Garber collaborated on a fall freshman seminar titled “Theater and Magic.”
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A character fit for a novel
For 13 months from 1940 to 1941, Harvard graduate Varian Fry forged papers and planned rescue routes from occupied France for a list of people that reads like a Who’s Who of Europe’s cultural and political elite. Author Julie Orringer is spending her year at Radcliffe working on a novel about Fry’s life.
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Persian inspiration
Farrin Abbas Zadeh, a visiting fellow in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, has mounted an art show called “A Window to Heaven: Motifs of Nature in Life and Dream.”
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‘Feminine Mystique’ at 50
A revealing exhibit at the Schlesinger Library charts the evolution of Betty Friedan’s seminal work “The Feminine Mystique.” What began as a college reunion survey morphed into a treatise that looked deeply into gender, power, and sexuality.
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Harvard in blue and gray
At the Battle of Gettysburg, Harvard men faced Harvard men, as 11 Union soldiers and three Confederates were killed.
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A literary treasure, unveiled
On the eve of a glamorous auction of a 1640 “Bay Psalm Book,” Harvard puts its own rare copy on view at Houghton Library.
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‘Wonderful things,’ indeed
Bob Brier of Long Island University traced the history of “Egyptomania” in a Harvard talk.
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Gettysburg, addressed
In the shadow of an old battlefield, three panelists recounted the July 1863 charnel house of Gettysburg, the November address that gave the death toll there a national purpose, and the need for “new birth of freedom” today.
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A Paris errand
At a UNESCO ceremony in Paris, Harvard literary scholar Homi K. Bhabha underscored the global need for a “new humanism” that peacefully connects a culturally diverse world.
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Nefertiti as sensual goddess
A visiting lecturer suggests that ancient Egypt’s Queen Nefertiti wasn’t just the powerful independent woman people imagine she was, but something of a sex goddess, too.
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Words to remember
With the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address near, five Harvard scholars offered their views on the history, language, and legacy of Abraham Lincoln’s short but searing speech.
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Haunted by the siege
A Davis Center photo exhibit — wrenching and frank — brings back the 872-day Siege of Leningrad through the eyes of women who survived it.
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Change is on the runway
A Harvard conference will emphasize the rising influence of landscape architects in airport design and decommissioning.
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Getting to the dark heart of ‘Conspiracy’
Caleb Thompson collaborated with Emmy-winning screenwriter Loring Mandel to bring the 2001 TV film “Conspiracy” to Harvard.
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A Colonial goldmine
Harvard is part of planning for a long-term project to digitize documents related to Colonial North America, and has partners from a growing coalition of libraries in the United States and Canada.
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Poets, meet translators
Noted Spanish-language poets are visiting Harvard this week in a first-of-its-kind event that pairs the poets and their works with top translators in the field.
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Oh, the horror!
What’s behind the fascination with horror? A number of Harvard experts recently offered their insight into the genre’s powerful lure.
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National digital library gains traction
The Digital Public Library of America, with Harvard in its heritage, celebrates its first six months with an idea conference in Boston.
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An ancient tribe, and change
It is the 50th anniversary of “Dead Birds,” the groundbreaking documentary of a Stone Age tribe that survived into the 20th century. Its creator was Robert Gardner, longtime director of the Film Study Center.
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Life of Lee
Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee took part in a wide-ranging Harvard discussion about his work, his collaborations, and his future plans.
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Black like we
A panel discussion introduced an exhibit of photos from the Paris World’s Fair of 1900 that shows African-Americans as they wished to be depicted, not as a discriminatory American society would have had them be.
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The digital Dickinson
Houghton Library and Harvard University Press are two of the leading partners in the new Emily Dickinson Archive, a joint venture with other institutions that brings together most of her poem manuscripts.
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The queen and the sculptor
French Egyptologist Alain Zivie, a visiting scholar at the Semitic Museum, told a Harvard audience of his discovery of the tomb of Thutmose, who he believes is the artist who created the iconic bust of Queen Nefertiti.
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When all turn right, go left
Avant-garde visual artist Robert Wilson delivered a talk at the Graduate School of Design, and jarred his audience into new imaginative spaces.
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Poetry spreads its web
At month’s end, Professor Elisa New will begin teaching “Poetry in America,” her first digital course on HarvardX.