Arts & Culture
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How maps (and cyclists) paved way for roads
Curator takes alternative route through cartographic history and finds a few surprises
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Voice of a generation? Dylan’s is much more than that.
Classics professor who wrote ‘Why Bob Dylan Matters’ on the challenge of capturing a master of creative evasion
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Holiday treats from the kitchen of Julia Child
Recipes from celebrity chef’s archive at Radcliffe
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How a ‘guest’ in English language channels ‘outsider’ perspective into fiction
Laila Lalami talks about multilingualism, inspirations of everyday life, and why she starts a story in the middle
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Potter gets fired up about helping students find their own gifts
Roberto Lugo says his art creates conversations and ‘that’s where the magic happens’
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The 20th-century novel, from its corset to bomber jacket phase
In ‘Stranger Than Fiction,’ Edwin Frank chose 32 books to represent the period. He has some regrets.
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Persian inspiration
Farrin Abbas Zadeh, a visiting fellow in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, has mounted an art show called “A Window to Heaven: Motifs of Nature in Life and Dream.”
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‘Feminine Mystique’ at 50
A revealing exhibit at the Schlesinger Library charts the evolution of Betty Friedan’s seminal work “The Feminine Mystique.” What began as a college reunion survey morphed into a treatise that looked deeply into gender, power, and sexuality.
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Harvard in blue and gray
At the Battle of Gettysburg, Harvard men faced Harvard men, as 11 Union soldiers and three Confederates were killed.
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A literary treasure, unveiled
On the eve of a glamorous auction of a 1640 “Bay Psalm Book,” Harvard puts its own rare copy on view at Houghton Library.
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‘Wonderful things,’ indeed
Bob Brier of Long Island University traced the history of “Egyptomania” in a Harvard talk.
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Gettysburg, addressed
In the shadow of an old battlefield, three panelists recounted the July 1863 charnel house of Gettysburg, the November address that gave the death toll there a national purpose, and the need for “new birth of freedom” today.
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A Paris errand
At a UNESCO ceremony in Paris, Harvard literary scholar Homi K. Bhabha underscored the global need for a “new humanism” that peacefully connects a culturally diverse world.
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Nefertiti as sensual goddess
A visiting lecturer suggests that ancient Egypt’s Queen Nefertiti wasn’t just the powerful independent woman people imagine she was, but something of a sex goddess, too.
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Words to remember
With the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address near, five Harvard scholars offered their views on the history, language, and legacy of Abraham Lincoln’s short but searing speech.
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Haunted by the siege
A Davis Center photo exhibit — wrenching and frank — brings back the 872-day Siege of Leningrad through the eyes of women who survived it.
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Change is on the runway
A Harvard conference will emphasize the rising influence of landscape architects in airport design and decommissioning.
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Getting to the dark heart of ‘Conspiracy’
Caleb Thompson collaborated with Emmy-winning screenwriter Loring Mandel to bring the 2001 TV film “Conspiracy” to Harvard.
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A Colonial goldmine
Harvard is part of planning for a long-term project to digitize documents related to Colonial North America, and has partners from a growing coalition of libraries in the United States and Canada.
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Poets, meet translators
Noted Spanish-language poets are visiting Harvard this week in a first-of-its-kind event that pairs the poets and their works with top translators in the field.
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Oh, the horror!
What’s behind the fascination with horror? A number of Harvard experts recently offered their insight into the genre’s powerful lure.
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National digital library gains traction
The Digital Public Library of America, with Harvard in its heritage, celebrates its first six months with an idea conference in Boston.
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An ancient tribe, and change
It is the 50th anniversary of “Dead Birds,” the groundbreaking documentary of a Stone Age tribe that survived into the 20th century. Its creator was Robert Gardner, longtime director of the Film Study Center.
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Life of Lee
Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee took part in a wide-ranging Harvard discussion about his work, his collaborations, and his future plans.
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Black like we
A panel discussion introduced an exhibit of photos from the Paris World’s Fair of 1900 that shows African-Americans as they wished to be depicted, not as a discriminatory American society would have had them be.
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The digital Dickinson
Houghton Library and Harvard University Press are two of the leading partners in the new Emily Dickinson Archive, a joint venture with other institutions that brings together most of her poem manuscripts.
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The queen and the sculptor
French Egyptologist Alain Zivie, a visiting scholar at the Semitic Museum, told a Harvard audience of his discovery of the tomb of Thutmose, who he believes is the artist who created the iconic bust of Queen Nefertiti.
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When all turn right, go left
Avant-garde visual artist Robert Wilson delivered a talk at the Graduate School of Design, and jarred his audience into new imaginative spaces.
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Poetry spreads its web
At month’s end, Professor Elisa New will begin teaching “Poetry in America,” her first digital course on HarvardX.
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Moving dirt, and history
A Harvard student who is interested in a career in archaeology spent her summer on a Peruvian dig, with lots of mundane work and a bright discovery to show for it.
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The things they carried
We get close to long-dead great writers by reading the works they left behind. But there is another way, which can be just as electric and emotional: to see or touch or just be near artifacts from their writing lives.
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Colonial Korea, revealed
The Graduate School of Design hosted a conference on the history of Korean architecture, which still lingers in the shadow of Japanese modernism.
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At Du Bois awards, the stars aligned
The six medalists at the W.E.B. Du Bois awards included a White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, playwright Tony Kushner, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Sonia Sotomayor, the commissioner of the NBA David Stern, and Hollywood director Steven Spielberg.
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The jazz orchestra, brick by brick
Jazz trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis and his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra treated a Sanders Theatre audience to a master class Thursday evening that re-created a pivotal quarter century of jazz innovation.
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The shape of things to come
The Office for the Arts’ Ceramics Program, one of Harvard’s longest and most celebrated, moved this month from its home of 26 years at 219 Western Ave. in Allston just a few blocks down to 224.
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Social justice at the A.R.T.
From a world premiere musical about U.S. aid work in Africa to a girl struggling to cope with her dysfunctional family, the American Repertory Theater’s lineup for this season revolves around the theme of justice.