Arts & Culture

Summer Summits: Notes from further afield, a new initiative at the Carpenter Center, is bringing voices in contemporary art to Harvard for a live travelogue of stories, relics, musings, and photographs from escapades near and far.

Christina Leigh Geros’ creation for Radcliffe’s Wallach Garden is brilliantly responsive to its surroundings.

Schlesinger Library receives letters from African-American servicewomen grateful for hair products that eased their lives while on assignment.

An exhibition by an Iranian artist recalls the heavy human cost of the long and brutal Iran-Iraq War.

A Harvard Law School scholar reflects on the legacy of the 800-year-old Magna Carta.

Unfulfilled as a lawyer, Robin Kelsey took a leap and began a career in photography and teaching. Today he leads Harvard’s Department of History of Art and Architecture.

Former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson on coaching the next generation of journalism leaders.

More than 75 years after being expelled from his homeland by the Nazis, Austria-born Martin Karplus, a Harvard theoretical chemist and Nobel laureate, returned to Vienna in May in triumph — and as a film star. The mid-June American release of “Martin Karplus — The Invisible Made Visible” yet to be announced.

A group of students from China, Japan, and the United States — including four from Harvard — grappled with ethical concerns in a discussion led by Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government Michael Sandel.

The Gazette spoke with six faculty members about the formative books that shaped their lives and even their scholarship. From the quirky to the downright serious, their responses offer a varied and candid look at what resonates.

Nishin Nathwani ’15 spent a gap year backpacking in India; an advocate for outsiders, eventually he decided to give college a try.

Feature on jazz pianist Vijay Iyer as part of the Practice series.

“Such A Curious Dream! Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” is on view from May 20 through Sept. 5 at Houghton Library.

Three young Harvard alumni explain the genesis and the process of their making the hit film “Whiplash.”

A historian, digital library pioneer, and champion of books, Robert Darnton will depart Harvard early this summer, giving up his post as University Librarian to resume a life of full-time scholarship.

Author chronicles how a system in which Myanmar’s elephants were made half-captive likely has ensured their survival.

A clever exhibit at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, designed by Graduate School of Design Professor Rosetta Elkin, is bringing organic beauty out of the shadows. Her installation highlights the root system of a white poplar.

A Harvard panel assesses Walt Whitman’s vivid and pictorial ‘Drum-Taps,’ a collection of Civil War poems out in print for the first time in 150 years. Professor Elisa New will explore “Drum-Taps” (along with Melville’s war poems) in a new HarvardX online American poetry course, which launches May 8.

Professor Racha Kirakosian is using performance to help her students grasp gender issues in medieval German literature.

Gloria Hong ’15 won the Grand Jury Prize at the Girls Impact the World Film Festival for her short documentary, “Losing Sight, But Gaining a Vision” The film was made while Hong was enrolled in “African and African American Studies 109,” taught by Joanna Lipper.

An exhibit at Pusey Library demonstrates how the first Harvard class photograph albums evolved. In the antebellum 19th century, photography was young, image technologies were changing fast (often with Boston practitioners in the lead), and Harvard students began adding the visual to the repositories of memory that for centuries had been dominated by text.

Damian Woetzel was honored with the Harvard Arts Medal in a ceremony Thursday at Farkas Hall.

The life and art of Mark Rothko are examined in the new play “Red,” to be performed at Harvard Art Museums.

With help from a Harvard grant and a class on the ancient Near East, Harvard students are re-creating casts of Mesopotamian masterpieces.

Matthew Weiner, creator of “Mad Men,” talked about his development as a writer and the show’s beginnings in a conversation with Harvard’s Bret Anthony Johnston on Monday at Sever Hall.

American audiences quickly embraced the Austrian composer and conductor Gustav Mahler when he moved to the United States, and to a surprising degree, lecturer Federico Cortese told an Ed Portal audience.

To mark the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Martha Hodes’ new book offers firsthand accounts from the days following the murder.

Scholars from across Harvard will convene at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study on Friday for a symposium called “University as Collector” that will explore the importance of universities as collecting institutions.

On a commission from the Harvard Art Museums, Mexican artist Carlos Amorales created “Triangle Constellation” to hang above the Calderwood Courtyard.

A historian’s new book outlines the little-known role of black Americans in international campaigns to ban nuclear weapons.