Arts & Culture

Harvard Linguistics Professor Maria Polinsky and her lab team work to understand and preserve ancient Mayan tongues, with the help of native speakers.

In his latest book, prolific Professor Howard Gardner insists that the enduring values of truth, beauty, and goodness remain humanity’s bedrock.

Ernest Bernbaum Research Professor on Literature Leo Damrosch retraces the nine-month journey through America by historian Alexis de Tocqueville, author of “Democracy in America,” who cannily predicted the growing social unrest toward slavery in America.

In this important book, Douglas H. Powell, a clinical instructor in psychology, discusses lifestyle habits and attitudes linked to cognitive aging, and provides evidence-based strategies to minimize mental decline.

Professor of Law Annette Gordon-Reed tackles one of the worst presidents in American history, claiming that his own racism was to blame for his shoddy performance during the Reconstruction era.

Most literature professors focus on the interpretation of texts, but Professor Leah Price wants to explore other uses to which books can be put, in the evolving interplay between reading and handling.

Humankind, after millennia of reluctance and ambivalence, surrendered finally to growing fixed crops — a precondition of modern states.

Harvard President Drew Faust delivered the 2011 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, citing similarities between the Civil War and current conflicts.

If scholars were celebrities, life might look a little bit like it does on the day of the annual Jefferson Lecture (May 2), with interviews and toasts in anticipation not of a concert or play but a speech on the humanities.

On view through May 26, “Oh, Pioneers!” offers a moment in the sun to Harvard’s graduating painters, installation artists, and filmmakers.

Documentary photographer Susan Meiselas, Ed.M. ’71, receives the 2011 Harvard Arts Medal as part of the annual Arts First Festival.

Harvard sophomore Andrew Kennard discusses his love of jazz and his experience mentoring students at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, preparing with them for the arrival of Wynton Marsalis at Harvard.

As part of a two-year lecture and performance series, jazz great Wynton Marsalis performed with a seven-piece band at Sanders Theatre.

Poet and fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Anna Maria Hong takes the traditional sonnet form and breaks it wide open in her new volume of poetry.

At a photo exhibit on Chernobyl, 25 years after the disaster, viewers get glimpses of both hope and horror.

A new exhibition of works at the Rudenstine Gallery explores the work of artist Elizabeth Catlett.

Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade Elhanan Helpman discusses the revolutions in trade theory, showing how scholars shifted their trade flow analyses from sectoral levels to business-firm levels to clarify the growing roles of multinational corporations, offshoring, and outsourcing in the international division of labor.

Professor Marjorie Garber’s new book examines “why we read literature, why we study it, and why it doesn’t need to have an application someplace else in order to be definitive in its talking about human life and culture.”

Michael Canfield, a lecturer on organismic and evolutionary biology, visits an eclectic range of scientific disciplines, offering examples that professional naturalists can emulate to fine-tune their own field methods, along with practical advice that amateur naturalists and students can use to document their adventures.

Harvard students are studying and performing the modern, eclectic works of composer John Adams.

Curt Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Professor of Comparative Literature Svetlana Boym explores the cross-cultural history of the idea of freedom, discusses its limitations, and wonders how it can be newly imagined.

Harvard graduate and award-winning producer Carlton Cuse ’81 returned to campus to offer students a look behind the scenes at his TV show “Lost” and insight into his creative process.

Using personal narratives, several Harvard scholars recall experiences with their faiths with the help of objects in the Harvard Art Museums’ collections.

“The Divine Comedy,” a daring and grand exhibit in three parts, gives a modern spin to Dante’s three realms of the dead, and shows how art can break disciplinary boundaries.

Two Harvard ethnographers directed the prize-winning “Foreign Parts,” a documentary that captures the sights and sounds of Willets Point, a vibrant, vanishing corner of New York City.

Associate Professor of Comparative Literature Christopher Johnson defends the role of Baroque period hyperbole in Spanish and Mexican lyrics, English drama, and French philosophy.

This biography by Niall Ferguson, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History and Professor of Business Administration, chronicles the life of Siegmund Warburg, a financial wiz, prophet of globalization, and strategic businessman.

Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs Sugata Bose parses the life of Indian revolutionary Subhas Chandra Bose, who struggled to liberate his people from British rule and led the Indian National Army against Allied Forces during World War II.

Photographer Susan Meiselas, Ed.M. ’71, will receive the 2011 Harvard Arts Medal, as part of Harvard’s annual Arts First weekend, which runs April 28-May 1.

Far from icons of the past, Bettina Burch’s paintings of the HGSE and CGIS community — from janitors to students to deans — gently upend the concept of the “Harvard portrait.”