Arts & Culture

Conan O’Brien spoke with President Drew Faust about how his humanities education made him one of TV’s most successful comedians.

Visiting Professor Verena Andermatt Conley talks about her first venture into romance writing, “Cree.”

An interview with novelist Claire Messud launches a new series in which Harvard writers discuss how their stories take shape.

A selection of Mount Auburn Cemetery’s evocative funerary sculptures and monuments is the subject of a new book by Meg Winslow and Harvard’s Melissa Banta.

A new exhibit at Houghton Library marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.

The Irish novelist Colm Tóibín will sit down with Claire Messud, a lecturer and fellow novelist, as part of the Mahindra Humanities Center’s Writers Speak series.

Sculptures and drawings are part of “Pneuma(tic) Bodies,” which opens today at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts with a 6 p.m. dance performance featuring Jill Johnson.

“Everywhen: The Eternal Present in Indigenous Art from Australia,” a special exhibit at the Harvard Art Museums, makes room for different perspectives.

Actors Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal returned to Harvard to revisit the scene of their iconic movie “Love Story.”

Harvard Divinity School Professor Matthew Potts probes religious themes in novels of Cormac McCarthy

The documentary “Waking in Oak Creek” was the final installment of the Religion Refocused series, sponsored by the Pluralism Project at Harvard. The screening was aimed at bringing the conversation around the incident to Cambridge, as was a panel discussion afterward.

Amy Brenneman and Sabrina Peck, who connected over their love of theater while undergrads at Harvard, are longtime collaborators. Last week they came back to Harvard to teach a workshop on how to create original theater from personal experience.

Radcliffe fellow, composer, and sound artist Reiko Yamada’s interactive sound installation “Reflective” invites visitors to interact with piano music composed by Harvard Professor Vijay Iyer. The music changes depending on the direction of the visitor’s steps.

Harvard faculty members reflect on the artistic and cultural legacies of trailblazing musician David Bowie, who died this week at age 69.

A new initiative is underway to use gaming and crowdsourcing to speed the massive task of transcribing documents, at Harvard and around the world.

Learning how to connect with your audience, young or old, is a key tenet at the A.R.T. Institute, where careers in acting, dramaturgy, and voice training take shape.

A look at notable work by Harvard authors in 2015 wouldn’t be complete without their own best reads of the year.

For the English Department’s Gwen Urdang-Brown, crossword puzzles have always been a family affair. The first crossword puzzle appeared in the New York World newspaper on Dec. 21, 1913. (Dec. 21 is now recognized as Crossword Puzzle Day.)

Charles Follen (1796-1840), 10-year Harvard professor, is remembered for bringing holiday tradition from Germany

Vince Guaraldi’s quintessential holiday soundtrack, “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” made an indelible mark on many, including Harvard Law School faculty assistant Brad Conner.

Cass Sunstein, Robert Walmsley University Professor, is writing a book about lessons that can be drawn from the box-office phenomenon “Star Wars.”

Scholars gathered at Harvard’s Observatory of the Spanish Language to ponder how Spanish can continue thriving as the second-most-common language in the United States.

In the yearly cycle of a Harvard student, before the comfort of the festive year-end season, comes the stress of finals season. This weekend, as the community braces to clear that last hurdle, the Kuumba Singers of Harvard College offer the perfect antidote: their annual Christmas Concerts.

Peter Galison and Robb Moss’ documentary “Containment” is an unflinching look at the challenges of nuclear waste disposal.

While the daily news conveys a world beset by horrific acts of terrorism, brutal civil war, and frequent mass shootings, Professor Steven Pinker brought a hopeful message to a talk at Emerson Hall, saying global violence is actually in decline.

With her first solo Boston show on view at the Carpenter Center, Lorraine O’Grady, 81, explains her art and influences during an address at the Harvard Art Museums.

A mayoral proclamation, a Harvard Art Museums exhibit, and a StoryCorps project all salute Corita Kent, Boston’s pop art icon.

Harvard’s Cabaret, a collaboration between graduate students at the A.R.T. Institute and Harvard undergrads, mixes song, dance, mischief, and monologue.

On view at Loeb Music Library through Dec. 18, “One Hundred Years of Chinese Piano Music” sheds light on a robust tradition of song influenced by native folklore, poems, and philosophy, as well as Western compositional techniques.

Delivering the second Provostial Lecture of the Mahindra Humanities Center at Menschel Hall on Tuesday, University Provost Alan Garber ’76 made a compelling case for the continuation of this tradition, in academia, careers, and beyond.