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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A lens for detail
Diana Zlatanovski photographed a collection of cicadas housed at the Museum of Comparative Zoology for her new book of images, “Typology: Collections at the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture.”
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A way in
Three students worked in collaboration with their instructors to develop an interactive theater experience focused on loss and sorrow.
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Wonderland reimagined
Virtually Oberon features Queer Bodies in Motion’s first artistic endeavor, “Alice in Rainbowland.”
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A.R.T. maintains global collaborations, with technology and remote coordination
American Repertory Theater has been focusing on international collaborations, taking lessons from its recent productions that were able to bring live theater back abroad.
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Let there be light
The art installation “Lucidity” was an immersive light and video display in Harvard Yard.
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Chronicling an American age of art, thought, and global engagement
Jorie Graham and Louis Menand discuss Menand’s new book, “The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War,” his influences, and writing style.
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Field and streaming
This semester, Harvard archaeology students are dropping in on nearly 90 virtual classrooms as special guest speakers, telling more than 2,500 public and private school students and teachers from elementary, middle, and high schools about subjects ranging from ancient tombs offerings in Mexico to trade practices in the Red Sea region.
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And the Pudding Pot goes to …
Viola Davis celebrated winning Hasty Pudding’s Woman of the Year award during the virtual ceremony.
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A 400-year community chronicle of African America
Keisha N. Blain, historian and fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, discusses working on her newest book, a compilation of essays, short stories, and poems by 90 Black historians, authors, academics, journalists, and activists that traces the history of African America from 1619 to 2019.
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Unearthing ‘The Man Who Lived Underground’
Author and activist Julia Wright, filmmaker Malcolm Wright, and author and Radcliffe Fellow Kiese Laymon discuss the uncut version of Richard Wright’s novel “The Man Who Lived Underground” during a talk supported in part by Harvard’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research.
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Arts First and all over
The 11-day Arts First festival kicks off April 19, with programming featuring some of Harvard’s best visual arts, music, dance, and performance.
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How to get away with a Pudding Pot
Hasty Pudding Theatricals announces Viola Davis as 2021 Woman of the Year.
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A poem for Venus
In her poem “The Story of Venus,” Suzannah Omonuk imagines what life may have been like for the young enslaved woman living on campus in the 18th century.
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Recovering the life stories of the Zealy daguerreotype subjects
Gregg Hecimovich, a Furman University English professor, is working to recover the stories of the Zealy daguerreotypes, which depict enslaved Africans in 19th-century America.
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A.R.T.’s Diane Borger to step down
American Repertory Theater’s executive producer Diane Borger to step down in June, returning to London where she spent the first 30 years of her career.
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Is an artist obliged to stand up for injustice and inequity?
The A.R.T. presents Company One’s production, “Hype Man: a break beat play,” which follows three hip-hop artists as they wrestle with these questions from their rehearsal space to the stage and the streets and back again, against a backdrop of racist violence and inequality. It streams at select times through May 6.
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Animal encounters on the battlefield
At Radcliffe, Navy veteran Mackin is at work on his next series, “Animals,” featuring a selection of stories left out of his first collection, many inspired by the animals he came across while on duty with a SEAL team in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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Black identities ‘In the City’
Black photographers highlight the past and present of the city of St. Louis.
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With a wave of the wand
With a shared love of magic, two students founded the Society of Harvard-Undergraduate Magicians, known by its clever acronym, SHAM.
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Foundation names Taraji P. Henson Artist of the Year
Taraji P. Henson was feted as the 2021 Harvard Foundation’s Artist of the Year.
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A feast for the eyes, sort of
A panel of experts explored the various ways in which the history of food in art tells a story of creativity and craftsmanship during a recent virtual talk sponsored by the Harvard Art Museums and presented in partnership with the Food Literacy Project at Harvard University Dining Services.
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Agassiz’s other photographs tell a global tale of scientific racism
In 1865, Harvard Professor Louis Agassiz traveled to Brazil to create a photographic catalog of people of different races as anatomic evidence in support of his beliefs. Scholars, artists, and curators from Brazil and the U.S. will reflect on these lesser-known images during a panel discussion called “Race, Representation, and Agassiz’s Brazilian Fantasy” hosted by the Peabody Museum.
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Round 2: ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’
William Tsutsui, who teaches a course that explores the rich history of Japanese monsters, says which one will win the new “Godzilla vs. Kong” is anybody’s guess.
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Who is this museum for?
During a Harvard panel, experts discuss how displays and artifacts reflect choices about whose story is told, and how and why.
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A digital piece of art worth $69 million
Harvard art expert Mary Schneider Enriquez reflects on the sale of a digital collage of 5,000 images by the artist known as Beeple. The digital work fetched an eye-popping $69 million in auction last week as a non-fungible token, a type of digital file that uses computer networks to prove a digital item’s authenticity, and is paid for in cryptocurrency.
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The sound of lockdown
Theater, Dance & Media students join Junot Díaz and other writers in an audio version of Radcliffe’s fall magazine.
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Let us listen then, you and I
The George Edward Woodberry Poetry Room will celebrate its 90th anniversary by making some of its first recordings — of the poet T.S. Eliot reading his own work — available to the general public on March 19.
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Houghton acquires 1st edition of 1st African American novel
Through the efforts of Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Houghton Library has acquired a first edition of the first novel published by an African American in the U.S.
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Harvard grad reflects on ‘Twilight Zone’ type of year
Harvard alum discusses his Grammy-nominated song “Stand Up” from the biopic “Harriet.”
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Magic, up close and personal
A small band of magicians present “The Conjurors’ Club” with the American Repertory Theater through April 4.