Arts & Culture

Actor Matt Damon, former Harvard College student and winner of the 2013 Harvard Arts Medal, talks of his time on campus, his lifelong desire to be an actor, and how a College playwriting course assignment later turned into the Academy Award-winning screenplay for “Good Will Hunting.”

This summer, dance students are learning how to swing, tango, salsa, and waltz, thanks to classes offered by Harvard Ballroom, a nonprofit, student-run dance organization that offers social dance classes throughout the year.

Author Claire Messud discussed her latest novel during an appearance at Harvard as part of the Writers at Work series. “Midlife hits people at different times,” said Messud, a former Radcliffe Fellow. “That moment you realize life is finite, it has a horizon.”

A Houghton Library exhibit, the work of students, takes in Boston’s sweeping role in ending slavery in America.

Matt Aucoin has been busy since graduating from Harvard last year. The young conductor and composer splits his time among Europe, New York, and Chicago, and is working on a Civil War-themed opera for the American Repertory Theater.

Harvard’s true color might be crimson — but beauty can be found in the neutral palette of the campus.

To mark the 100th birthday of screen legend Burt Lancaster, the Harvard Film archive launches a retrospective that samples his decades of great movies.

Harvard’s Houghton Library recently uncovered documents from 1767 that foreshadow the American Revolution: eight sheets of signatures — more than 650 in all — protesting Colonial taxation.

High school students grapple with national issues by collaborating about Civil War themes to develop a new type of theater experience.

In a summer retrospective, the Harvard Film Archive is presenting all of Alfred Hitchcock’s feature films and nine of his silent movies. Starting July 11, the series runs through Sept. 28.

A Harvard summer film series explores the tick and tock of time, and time travel too. Upcoming films include “Run Lola Run” on July 16, “Memento” on July 30, and “Primer” on Aug. 13. All films are shown at 7 p.m., Science Center Lecture Hall C.

Founding Father and patriot John Hancock, he of the famous signature, was also famed in his day as the Harvard treasurer who left town while managing the College funds — and returned them two years later.

A new summer film series on journalism opens with a documentary that asks: Will print, and original news reporting, survive the digital avalanche? “Meet John Doe,” presented by James Geary, Nieman ’12, will be shown July 9.

During an evening in Central Park, germane readings from Shakespeare’s plays were followed by a forum led by Professor Michael Sandel, whose book “What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limit of Markets” examined the social repercussions of letting so many life choices come with a price tag.

Author Neil Gaiman and book designer Chip Kidd discussed their collaboration on “Make Good Art” and challenges and opportunities for artists today in an Oberon talk.

In a question-and-answer session on Monday, A.R.T. director Diane Paulus discussed her revival of the musical “Pippin,” which won four top honors at the Tony Awards.

Diane Paulus, artistic director at the American Repertory Theater (ART), took home the coveted Tony Award for best direction of a musical for her restaging of the musical “Pippin.”

To reverse a decades-long decline in arts and humanities concentrators at Harvard College, three reports from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences propose new courses, art spaces, a networked curriculum, and other steps to bolster the field on campus.

A new work at the American Repertory Theater, developed by members of the A.R.T. Institute and part of the four-year National Civil War Project, explores the story of escaped slave Anthony Burns and the work of the Boston abolitionists.

A daylong symposium at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study explored the notion of the creative “aha” moment across a range of fields and disciplines.

Renowned British biographer Richard Holmes, speaking at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, reflected on what biography can tell us about science.

Stephen Dupont, an award-winning photographer who traveled repeatedly to Papua New Guinea as a Robert Gardner Fellow, is displaying his works showing the intersection of traditional Papuan life and the industrialized world in a new exhibit at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

The singer Psy spoke at Memorial Church about his life, his time in the United States, and the runaway success of “Gangnam Style.”

A newly acquired writer’s guide for the science fiction fantasy TV show “Star Trek” at Harvard’s Houghton Library offers aspiring scriptwriters everything they would need to know before crafting a script for the ’60s cult classic.

“Time & Time Again,” a new exhibit centered on Harvard’s Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, uses artifacts to illustrate shifting conceptions of making and marking time, from the cyclic sun and stars to linear springs and gears.

Scholars gathered at Harvard to discuss the Emancipation Proclamation and African-American service during the Civil War.

In this year’s Tanner Lectures, Yale Law School Dean Robert C. Post suggested common constitutional ground in the campaign finance reform debate.

Humanities programs are in trouble in universities across the world — but hope prevails.

A team of Harvard scholars is cataloging, and transcribing, and digitizing thousands of 18th- and 19th-century anti-slavery petitions held in the Massachusetts State Archives.

When artistic director Diane Paulus gave the classic “Pippin” a facelift for 2013-13 lineup of the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.), people took notice. Now “Pippin” has been nominated for 10 Tony Awards, including best director of a musical for Paulus.