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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Winslow Homer’s Civil War
Two Harvard experts moderate a gallery talk about Winslow Homer’s beginnings as a Civil War artist.
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The Widener Memorial Room
The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Room houses about 3,300 volumes from the book collection of its namesake, a 1907 Harvard graduate who died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic…
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Tremendous Pipes
A C.B. Fisk organ, Opus 139, was unveiled Easter Sunday in Harvard’s Memorial Church.
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Widener Library rises from Titanic tragedy
The ship disaster a century ago led to the drowning of three men affiliated with Harvard. It also prompted a memorial gift that quickly led to construction of the University’s flagship book repository.
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Filling a gap between teachers, troubled children
Child psychiatrist Nancy Rappaport follows up her 2009 memoir that explored her mother’s suicide with a user-friendly guide for teachers dealing with behaviorally challenged students.
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Piping up, to good effect
After years of planning, an effort once spearheaded by the late Rev. Peter J. Gomes to install a new organ in the Memorial Church will fill its halls with music.
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Street artist eL Seed paints at Harvard
Street artist eL Seed stopped by Harvard to create a “calligraffiti” painting.
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Where art blends with activism
Tunisian artist eL Seed took his spray paints out into the cold last week to create an example of “calligraffiti” in the Science Center’s plaza.
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Film, fact, and fantasy
Indian-born director Deepa Mehta often shines light on her homeland with films that explore complex and controversial themes. She discussed her creative and collaborative process during a talk at the Radcliffe Gymnasium.
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Filmmaker who bore witness to Holocaust
A cinema legend’s advice on making films about unspeakable war crimes: “Go to see the killers.”
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Artist touts ‘primacy’ of images
The beauty of art, says William Kentridge in his Norton Lectures, is that it makes “a safe place for uncertainty.”
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The making of Memorial Hall
Harvard alumni started discussions about a memorial in May 1865, as the Civil War ended. By December they had chosen a design. Memorial Hall was to be an ornate Gothic Revival structure, with 5,000 square feet of stained glass, a 210-foot tower, intricate slate roofing, and gargoyles sheathed with copper.
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Portrait of the Tea Party
New book documents a rising movement of likable people with offbeat ideas, who constitute a major influence on the Republican Party in this presidential election.
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In tune, without limits
Violinist Adrian Anantawan was born without a right hand, but has become a renowned professional violinist. He now is enrolled in the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Arts in Education Program, with the goal of helping other disabled students in their artistic and creative development.
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Blue, gray, and Crimson
Before the Civil War, Harvard was a microcosm of the complex loyalties and opinions that marked the United States. During the war, it lost more than 200 of its sons.
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One-handed violinist makes beautiful music
Adrian Anantawan was born without a right hand, but with an adaptive device became a renowned professional violinist.
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Prince as ‘knowing big brother’
The musician Prince’s painful past as a child of divorce is the key to understanding what makes him tick — and what makes him an icon to Generation X, according to Touré, the cultural critic and author. Touré is presenting the Alain LeRoy Locke Lecture Series.
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Blue
Scientists tell us blue light will reset body rhythms for sounder sleep and higher alertness. Blue is sky and water; eyes and stones; slumber and spring — with summer right behind.
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GSAS student joins worldwide discussion
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences student Matthew Mugmon will be one of seven panelists convened by the New York Philharmonic for a worldwide, online discussion on Harvard alumni Leonard Bernstein’s groundbreaking tours to the former Soviet Union, Japan, Europe, and South America.
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On the nature of modern thought
The story of 15th-century book hunter Poggio Bracciolini and his rediscovery of Lucretius’ “On the Nature of Things” was captured by Cogan University Professor Stephen Greenblatt in his National Book Award-winning account, “The Swerve: How the World Became Modern.”
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Personal stories of transformation
A new multimedia collaboration inspired by the A.R.T. production “Wild Swans” aims to capture and spread personal stories from members of the Greater Boston community with ties to China.
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The return of the murals
Adolphus Busch Hall, once home to the Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, is amid a major renovation. Recently completed work includes restoration of two once-controversial artworks critical of fascism.
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Whither Guantánamo
In his new book, “Guantánamo: An American History,” lecturer Jonathan Hansen uncovers the rich and controversial history of an American empire on the tip of Cuba.
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Critical preoccupations
Rem Koolhaas, a professor in practice of architecture and urban design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), shared his thoughts on those and other subjects before an overflow crowd at Piper Auditorium with a presentation titled “Current Preoccupations.”
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Cast in bronze
On a chilly afternoon in January, nine students watched in excited amazement as three leather-clad metalsmiths lifted a glowing crucible filled with molten bronze and poured fiery metal into sculpture molds.
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‘Body of Work’
Through her art and articulate explanations of her own struggle with an eating disorder, visiting artist Judith Shaw explained the internal experience of victims of anorexia to her audience at the opening reception of “Body of Work” at the Student Organization Center at Hilles.
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Casting an impression
Through studio sessions at the New England Sculpture Service, the course “Cast in Bronze: A Workshop in Exploring and Creating Bronze Sculpture” provided the opportunity not only to create bronze sculptures, but also to better understand the practice and craft of making art.
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Lady Gaga visits Harvard
Harvard students braved the snow to welcome Lady Gaga to campus.
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A work supreme
During a lecture that is part of a series of master classes sponsored by Harvard’s Mahindra Humanities Center, Harvard Professor Ingrid Monson explored the genius behind John Coltrane’s 1965 jazz album “A Love Supreme.”
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Rousseau occupies Houghton
On the tricentennial celebration of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s birth, the author and philosopher is being honored with an exhibition of his works at the Houghton Library. “Rousseau and Human Rights” continues through March 23.