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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3 student playwrights, 3 deeply personal Asian American stories
Inspired by the success of an all-Asian production of “Legally Blonde,” students wrote three new works exploring themes of identity and representation.
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How to write funny
For Cora Frazier, it usually starts with deep sadness
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Combining Earth science, Native knowledge in climate change battle
Combining Earth science, Native knowledge in climate change battle, Margaret Redsteer will draw on her research on tribal lands to discuss barriers and solutions to adaptation, resilience.
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Finding the truth in fiction
Somali-British novelist Nadifa Mohamed is a guest spearker at the Writers Speak series at the Mahindra Humanities Center and the History Seminar.
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Legend of rap hears kinship with Dickinson
During Harvard visit, Public Enemy rapper visits poetry class and donates one of his iconic clocks.
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Gold, clay, and universal forms
The new installation is the first-ever presentation of art on the museums’ outdoor Broadway terrace.
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Tony Kushner on Jewishness, Spielberg, ‘unsafe’ art
Pulitzer-winning playwright reflects on roots, “unsafe” art, working with Spielberg.
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‘This is our block’
Award-winning actress, writer, and producer Issa Rae honored as Artist of Year, capping off annual celebration of cultural diversity on campus.
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Culture belongs to everyone (and no one)
Scholar goes way back in time to better understand arguments we’re having today.
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Blueprints for a live event
At Harvard, cultural historian Harvey Young and playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins shared their views on how the arts had changed and what the state of the arts are now.
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Why ‘The Exorcist’ is really more of zombie thing
English course offers kaleidoscopic, cross-disciplinary look at horror classic as film, potential play, cultural artifact with long shadow.
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Are drill musicians chronicling violence or exploiting it?
Rappers, activists, scholars debate controversy surrounding subgenre of hip-hop.
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What set them off were the bodies on wall
“The Handmaid’s Tale” author Margaret Atwood, M.A. ’62, whose speculative fiction about women and power has made her both a beloved feminist icon and a repeated object of censorship, returned to Harvard to speak at Sanders Theatre.
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Deep roots of multicultural American art
New Harvard Art Museums show explores interactions between European, Indigenous, and African civilizations in works from Spanish Empire.
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Time for homework. Where’s my Nintendo Switch?
Games have inspired dozens of movies and TV shows recently. A new English class studies growing critical scholarship on the subject.
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‘That’s not how the story went’
Novelist Joshua Cohen and professor James Wood discuss the creation of Cohen’s book, “The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family.”
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Old as Chaucer, new as #MeToo
Scholar Anna Wilson looks at the role #MeToo plays in Zadie Smith’s “The Wife of Willesden,” an adaption of Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Tale.”
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Rich history of DIY publishing
Creative people have bypassed gatekeepers for centuries to distribute “what they wanted to share so badly.”
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So who is included in King’s ‘beloved community’?
Black queer poet, scholar Cheryl Clarke discusses achieving Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision.
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If loving you is wrong – let’s explore the ethics
Assistant Professor Quinn White studies the ethics of love and relationships.
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First lesson in Japanese boatbuilding: Don’t speak.
Students make 22-foot skiff in “silent” workshop that puts emphasis on observation — and a good hammering rhythm.
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Finally, taking a bow
Many in jazz circles knew music of these four women, but Radcliffe fellow wants to make sure the rest of us do too.
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Plea from 1980s New York: ‘Please Stay Home’
Darrel Ellis exhibition at Carpenter Center looks back yet feels of the moment with its themes of family history, identity, loss.
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Free Thursday evenings? Like theater? Mixed media? Dance?
The ArtsThursdays initiative increases accessibility and availability of Harvard arts for University affiliates and the wider community.
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Life seeking answers at Giza, Nubia
Egyptologist George Reisner transformed the field, and a biography by Peter Der Manuelian explores not just his career, but his life during what some consider the golden age of Egyptian archaeology.
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Seeing ourselves in different light
Giuliana Bruno’s new book, “Atmospheres of Projection: Environmentality in Art and Screen Media,” reclaims concepts of “projection” as positive force connecting us to one another, affirming possibility of change.
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War-scarred land
Makeda Best on images she chose for award-winning “Devour the Land,” which depicts environmental toll of militarism in U.S.
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Taking fresh shot, once again, to debunk myth of Jewish conspiracy plot
Dasha Bough ’23 created an animated documentary challenging one of the world’s oldest and most dangerous and persistent conspiracy theories.
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New translation of Mishnah looks to make ‘unyielding’ text accessible
Hebrew literature and philosophy professor’s project aims to make ‘unyielding’ text of ancient Jewish accessible.
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Keeping up with the Joneses 2.0
Author and Harvard alum W. David Marx digs into how social aspirations underlie all our choices.