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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Time for a movie
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.
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Our signature 1776 revolutionary
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.
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Journalism, cinema-style
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.
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Sandel in Central Park
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.
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Gaiman as a guide
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.
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Diane Paulus, on her big night
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.
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A ‘Pippin’ of a night
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.”
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Mapping the future
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.
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Shining a light on an era
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.
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Creative bursts from all corners
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.
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Challenging ‘eureka’ with rigor
Renowned British biographer Richard Holmes, speaking at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, reflected on what biography can tell us about science.
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Catching flux
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.
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‘Gangnam Style’ by the Yard
The singer Psy spoke at Memorial Church about his life, his time in the United States, and the runaway success of “Gangnam Style.”
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Boldly going to Houghton
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.
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Pages out of time
“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.
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‘Forever free,’ with caveats
Scholars gathered at Harvard to discuss the Emancipation Proclamation and African-American service during the Civil War.
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Citizens United and beyond
In this year’s Tanner Lectures, Yale Law School Dean Robert C. Post suggested common constitutional ground in the campaign finance reform debate.
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Oh, the humanities!
Humanities programs are in trouble in universities across the world — but hope prevails.
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Digitizing a movement
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.
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‘Pippin’ meets Tony
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.
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Making poetry sing
Radcliffe fellow and classically trained pianist Tsitsi Jaji uses her musical expertise and knowledge of comparative literature to explore how composers of African descent set poetry to music for solo voice and piano.
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Music as fine medicine
For the first time, students at Harvard Medical School in the Longwood area are participating in the annual Arts First festival, the University’s four-day celebration of the visual, literary, and performing arts.
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Mapping blackness in creativity
Art historian Steven Nelson inaugurated the Richard Cohen Lecture Series at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute with a look at how black American artists draw from centuries of the African diaspora.
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Matt Damon, on his craft
Actors Matt Damon and John Lithgow met at Sanders Theatre on Thursday for a spirited conversation that kicked off Harvard’s annual Arts First celebration.
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‘Beowulf,’ as it was told
Steven Rozensk and Matthew Sergi have collaborated with the American Repertory Theater for a public reading of the epic poem “Beowulf” in its original Old English. There is a free reading from noon to 5 p.m. at the A.R.T. on April 25.
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Confronting evil, embracing life
Two Harvard conferences, each trimmed from two days to one by the Boston Marathon bombing and resulting manhunt, provided surprisingly appropriate lessons of comfort and perspective.
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Listen up, says Marsalis
Students in a Boston high school sacrificed some of their precious spring break to spend time with master trumpeter and jazz legend Wynton Marsalis.
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Jazz as conversation
Artist and composer Wynton Marsalis returned to Sanders Theatre for his fourth lecture-performance at Harvard, an exploration of the strange alchemy of instinct, expertise, and empathy that jazz musicians need to “play and stay together.”
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The ‘mirror with a memory’
“Mirror With a Memory” is a new Pusey Library exhibit of photographs and other artifacts from the years when Harvard and the nation were anticipating the Civil War, then fighting it, and, finally, remembering it.
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Writing as discovery
Professor Jill Lepore delivered the third and final presentation in Harvard College Dean Evelynn M. Hammonds’ book talks in the Widener Library rotunda. The series was designed to bring students and faculty together outside of the classroom.