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153 stories tagged ‘Lecture’
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Division of Science recently relaunched its “Science Research Lecture Series,” aimed at introducing the broader local community to research conducted by Harvard faculty members. The talks will be held once a month in the Science Center, and will be open to the public.
Cultural historian Horowitz to deliver Elson Lecture: “Rethinking Orchestras”
Reknown scholar and author Joseph Horowitz will give the 2012 Louis C. Elson lecture on Tuesday, Oct. 9, at 5:15 p.m. in John Knowles Paine Concert Hall. Horowitz, a cultural historian and concert producer, will present “Rethinking What Orchestras Do: A Humanities Mandate.” The talk is free and open to the public. John Knowles Paine [...]
Gates receives honor, gives lecture
Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, was honored with the 2011 Media Bridge-Builder Award from the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding.
Emily Dickinson and the sublime: A talk by Professor Helen Vendler
The conventional definition of the sublime – that which is too large and overwhelming to be accommodated within our restricted consciousness – is one that Emily Dickinson fiercely defied. In Dickinson’s view, the mental sublime, rather than being intimidated by the natural sublime, surpasses it, said Helen Vendler, A. Kingsley Porter University Professor, in a [...]
Faust named 40th Jefferson Lecturer
Drew Faust, eminent historian and president of Harvard University, will deliver the 2011 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities on May 2.
A celebration of the life and mission of Martin Luther King Jr. will be held on Feb. 7, from 7 to 8 p.m., in the Memorial Church in Harvard Yard.
Sheena Iyengar: Choosy about choosing
Sheena Iyengar is here to tell you that, when it comes to choice, more is not better. Iyengar, the S. T. Lee Professor of Business at Columbia Business School, is a leading researcher on choice. On Oct. 21, in a lecture titled “The Art of Choosing”—the first in the Dean’s Lecture Series at the Radcliffe [...]
Paul Tillich Lecture speaker announced
Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall of the Supreme Judicial Court, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, will deliver the fall 2010 Paul Tillich Lecture on Nov. 16 at 5:30 p.m. in the Memorial Church. The title of the lecture is to be announced.
Turkle talks technology, intimacy
“Technology proposes itself an architect of our intimacies,” explained Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Sherry Turkle to an engrossed audience May 14 at the Harvard University Extension School.
What makes a life significant?
A diverse Harvard panel marks the 1910 death of William James, celebrates his life, and revisits his famous question.
Steven Pinker wins George A. Miller Prize in Cognitive Neuroscience
Steven Pinker, the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology, was named this year’s winner of the George A. Miller Prize in Cognitive Neuroscience, presented by the James S. McDonnell Foundation.
Robert C. Merton receives Kolmogorov Medal
Robert C. Merton, John and Natty McArthur University Professor at Harvard Business School and the 1997 co-winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in the Economic Sciences, recently received the Kolmogorov Medal from the University of London.
Distinguished Harvard Professor Celebrates Historic Intellectual Relationship
A Harvard University professor and one of the US’s most distinguished orators yesterday delivered a far-ranging lecture about the historic relationship between Cambridge and Harvard to commemorate Cambridge’s 800th anniversary.
Around the Schools: Harvard Kennedy School
Political operative Terry McAuliffe, a visiting fellow this year at the Kennedy School, spoke last week at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum and regaled the audience with some of last year's election bloopers.
Glazer to give Lipset lecture, Nov. 4
Nathan Glazer will give the Seymour Martin Lipset Memorial Lecture at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 4. Glazer’s talk is titled, “Democracy and Diversity: Dealing with Deep Divides.”
O’Connor marks women’s progress in legal profession
Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, turns 80 years old next year. O’Connor — chipper, funny, and precise — spoke at a luncheon sponsored annually by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, which awarded the former justice its Radcliffe Medal.
Two views of disparate cultures
Art historian Kellie Jones, the child of two writers, grew up in the 1960s and 1970s on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. It was a place of cultural ferment, creation, and comparative racial freedom. Jones is exploring new visual and literary ways to convey her personal history. Legal scholar Stacy Leeds, an expert in tribal law, once served on the Cherokee Supreme Court — the youngest ever to do so, and the only woman.
Sarah Messer’s surreal poetics
With long, sun-streaked tresses, Sarah Messer doesn’t strike one as a poetess whose work conjures American histories in bewitching, surrealist twists. But Messer’s poems navigate farther and farther from the familiar mainland into a world wholly her own.
Looking at ‘spoiled’ Americans through an energy lens
In 1968, the United States was exporting oil. A decade later, given massive increases in domestic demand, it was importing half of this coveted fuel.
Diana Eck, Fredric Wertham Professor of Law and Psychiatry in Society and member of the faculty of divinity, recently traveled to Scotland to deliver a series of Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh (April 27-May 7). The lecture series, which was established in 1888 through the endowment of Lord Gifford to four Scottish Universities (Edinburgh, St. Andrews, Aberdeen, and Glasgow), is the oldest lecture series in Scotland and has been described as “the highest honor in a philosopher’s career” as lectures focus on the intersections of religion, philosophy, and science.
Still ‘two cultures’ but who’s on top?
Fifty years ago a simple lecture sparked a global debate with lasting implications. On May 7, 1959, British physicist and novelist C.P. Snow declared that the gap between “two cultures,” that of the sciences and the humanities, was a destructive divide hampering the effort to find solutions to the problems of the world.
Religion key to foreign policy, says HKS speaker
As President Obama and his new administration seek to redirect U.S. foreign policy back toward more emphasis on diplomacy and less on the use of force, they should not overlook Orthodox Christianity as a resource.
Sandel to Deliver BBC’s prestigious Reith Lectures
Michael Sandel, the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government, has been chosen by the BBC to deliver its Reith Lectures for 2009. Sandel’s lectures, titled “A New Citizenship,” will address the prospect for a new politics of the common good.
‘Paging God: Religion in the Halls of Medicine’
What happens when a Buddhist monk visiting the United States is hospitalized, terminally ill with liver cancer? Does religion interfere with his medical care? What about his Buddhist brethren, unable to join him bedside? Who will provide the appropriate services and ceremonies? Well, says Wendy Cadge, that’s where hospital chaplains come in.
Geneticist ‘who doesn’t believe in God’ offers new conception of divine
The Paul Tillich Lecture, offered annually at Harvard since 1990, commemorates the memory of a public intellectual who was once “the largest theological figure in our orbit,” said The Rev. Peter J. Gomes.
Obama and the art of the possible
With the passing of Barack Obama’s 100th day in office, journalists and pundits are posing a simple but all-important question: How is the president doing? Robert Kuttner, author and political commentator, gave his own evaluation of the Obama presidency for the 2009 Lowell Lecture on April 30 in Emerson Hall.
Locke: More enlightened than we thought
English political philosopher John Locke died nearly a century before the American Revolution, and in his time parliamentary democracy was in its infancy. But his Enlightenment ideas — including the right to life, liberty, and property — went on to inspire American revolutionaries.
Scholars take a look at decision making
Decisions, decisions. We all make them, starting with which side of the bed to get up on in the morning. But on a personal and public scale, many decisions have grave consequences for health, financial well-being, and — true enough — the fate of the planet.
Chance favored expedition leader in ‘missing link’ discovery
A graphic in an undergraduate geology textbook serendipitously led to the 2004 discovery of the missing link between fish and land animals far in the Canadian Arctic, one of the creature’s discoverers said during an April 16 lecture at Harvard.
Experts talk about reducing crime through a holistic approach
Los Angeles is a city that many equate with violent gangs and an ineffectual and troubled police force. Yet recent years have seen a decline in gang homicides and violent crime due to a new approach in policing.
GPM tells you more than MPG, say management professors
“Miles per gallon” (mpg) is the most common measure of a car’s fuel efficiency. The typical U.S. consumer, in shopping for a car, uses mpg as a way of calculating gas consumption and carbon emissions.
Israelite bread-making discussion at the Semitic Museum
On Thursday (April 23), the Semitic Museum will host half-hour discussions at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. (appropriate for grades three through six) on how ancient Israelites made bread — from planting to eating — and explore everyday life of the average villager 2,700 years ago. Students will also have the opportunity to handle original ceramic fragments and try to match them with whole vessels on display. Registration is required and limited to 15 children per session, $2 per child. For more information, call (617) 495-4631 or e-mail Dena Davis at davis4@fas.harvard.edu.
Alexander McCall Smith to give Safra lecture today
Popular author and professor of medical law Alexander McCall Smith will give a lecture under the auspices of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics today (April 16).
Energy policies: ‘Forty-year failure’
In 1973, four weeks after the Arab oil embargo, President Richard Nixon went on national television to talk about an energy crisis that had been mounting for two years. He asked Americans to turn off their Christmas lights.
The pogrom that transformed 20th century Jewry
On April 8, 1903 — Easter Sunday — a mild disturbance against local Jews rattled Kishinev, a sleepy city on the southwestern border of imperial Russia.
Frank calls for (re) regulation
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, came to the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Monday (April 6) to lay out a four-point program for re-regulating the nation’s financial system.
Climate change an ‘opportunity’ as well as a threat
Conservation pioneer Russell A. Mittermeier started this year’s Roger Tory Peterson Memorial Lecture (April 5) with a quiz. In front of several hundred listeners at Harvard’s Science Center he turned on a small recorder.
Planning to save a changing world
Climate change is not only altering Alaska’s natural world, it’s also affecting how humans interact with it, particularly those whose culture and traditions have pointed the way for generations to survive in the sometimes inhospitable far north. Terry Chapin, a professor of ecology at the University of Alaska’s Institute of Arctic Biology, said that climate change is already affecting Alaska in many ways.
Poet/critics and the state of the art
A triumvirate of prominent poet-critics – each with strong Harvard ties – took on the meaning of contemporary poetry last week. And despite a lively discussion, none of them provided a comprehensive definition.
After removing her soaked red sneakers, Radcliffe Fellow Gail Mazur read aloud from new poems Monday (April 6) in dry black socks. The poet was undeterred by the onslaught of gray rain that thrashed Radcliffe Gymnasium’s windows — a fitting backdrop for Mazur’s charged, emotional poems.
Former prime minister of Spain explores ‘Role of Europe’
Jose Maria Aznar, the prime minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004, will deliver a lecture titled “The Role of Europe in the Geopolitical Context” at 5 p.m. Wednesday (April 15) in the Belfer Center’s Starr Auditorium at Harvard Kennedy School.
Creativity through cerebration
Contemporary composer Kay Rhie hasn’t had many watershed musical moments. The romantic ideal of a composer “deeply entrenched in creative epiphanies,” she admitted on a recent damp spring afternoon, is “not my story.”
Skin biology illuminates how stem cells operate
As a girl, Elaine Fuchs borrowed her mother’s old strainers and mixing bowls to collect polliwogs, an activity she credits for her present-day career as a biologist.
Losick among Canada Gairdner International Award recipients
Richard Losick, the Maria Moors Cabot Professor of Biology, was recently named one of seven Canada Gairdner International Award winners by the Gairdner Foundation, and will receive a CA$100,000 as one of the world’s leading medical research scientists. The Gairdner award is among the most prestigious awards in biomedical science.
Playwright plumbs texts, ancient and modern
You know Noh, no? Chiori Miyagawa does. The Bard College playwright-in-residence, a Radcliffe Fellow this year, has steeped herself in Noh theater, a measured style of Japanese drama that dates back to the 14th century. It’s one of the many literary echoes — some old, some ancient — that she brings to her work. “I often time travel,” Miyagawa told a lecture audience March 16 at the Radcliffe Gymnasium. “It’s my favorite thing to do as a playwright.”
Yu Hua reads work, participates in star-studded panel at Fairbank event
It’s strange to imagine your dentist as one of the most interesting and controversial novelists of the 21st century. But that’s just what Yu Hua is. Or was — the former dentist who admitted, more frighteningly, that he possessed little formal dental training, recently derided his former profession to a New York Times reporter, saying, “The inside of a mouth is one of the ugliest spectacles in the world.”
Fijian girls succumb to Western dysmorphia
In 1982, Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Anne E. Becker was still an undergraduate at Radcliffe when she traveled to Fiji for a summer of anthropology fieldwork. What struck her about this South Pacific island nation — and has in many research trips since — was “the absolute preoccupation with food and eating,” she said. “Family and social life really revolve around food. … It’s all about food, all the time.”
Afghan ambassador welcomes more U.S. ‘boots on the ground’
“I want to make one point very clear,” Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United States Said T. Jawad told a crowd in Harvard’s John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum Wednesday (March 11). “To build a pluralistic, a prosperous, peaceful society in Afghanistan is not a luxury for the Afghanistan people or for the Afghan government; it’s a necessity. It’s a necessity for peace in Afghanistan, stability in the region, and for security in the world.”
Walter Cardinal Kasper visits Harvard Catholic Chaplaincy
His Eminence Walter Cardinal Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity at the Vatican, will speak on March 25 at St. Paul Parish, home to the Harvard Catholic Chaplaincy.
Wildlife biologist named Roger Tory Peterson Medal recipient, speaker
Russell Mittermeier, renowned wildlife biologist and president of Conservation International, has been selected to receive the 12th annual Roger Tory Peterson Medal presented by the Harvard Museum of Natural History (HMNH). Mittermeier will deliver the Roger Tory Peterson Memorial Lecture on April 5.
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