Arts & Culture

All Arts & Culture

  • Around the world in many ways

    Historian Joyce Chaplin is completing her latest book, on the history and influence of circumnavigation. For her, globalization is an old story.

  • The artistic side of science

    The new Transit Gallery in Gordon Hall at Harvard Medical School lets students and staffers appreciate the fine arts while getting from place to place.

  • A.R.T. nabs six Elliot Norton Awards

    The 2011 Elliot Norton Awards, awarded on May 23 at the Paramount Theatre in Boston, honored the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) with six awards in the Large Theater category.

  • The one, indispensable book

    A handful of authors featured in Harvard Bound over the past year answer the question: What is an essential book for today’s graduates — and why? Here are their suggestions as the newest Harvard degree-holders head out into the world.

  • The spirituality of the stage

    Actress and playwright Amy Brenneman and longtime collaborator Sabrina Peck, both Harvard graduates, reunite at the American Repertory Theater to present their play about spirituality, fame, and a debilitating illness.

  • Rescuing ancient languages

    Harvard Linguistics Professor Maria Polinsky and her lab team work to understand and preserve ancient Mayan tongues, with the help of native speakers.

  • Truth, beauty, goodness

    In his latest book, prolific Professor Howard Gardner insists that the enduring values of truth, beauty, and goodness remain humanity’s bedrock.

  • Tocqueville’s Discovery of America

    Ernest Bernbaum Research Professor on Literature Leo Damrosch retraces the nine-month journey through America by historian Alexis de Tocqueville, author of “Democracy in America,” who cannily predicted the growing social unrest toward slavery in America.

  • The Aging Intellect

    In this important book, Douglas H. Powell, a clinical instructor in psychology, discusses lifestyle habits and attitudes linked to cognitive aging, and provides evidence-based strategies to minimize mental decline.

  • Andrew Johnson

    Professor of Law Annette Gordon-Reed tackles one of the worst presidents in American history, claiming that his own racism was to blame for his shoddy performance during the Reconstruction era.

  • What books mean as objects

    Most literature professors focus on the interpretation of texts, but Professor Leah Price wants to explore other uses to which books can be put, in the evolving interplay between reading and handling.

  • Taming nature, then man

    Humankind, after millennia of reluctance and ambivalence, surrendered finally to growing fixed crops — a precondition of modern states.

  • The humanities and war

    Harvard President Drew Faust delivered the 2011 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, citing similarities between the Civil War and current conflicts.

  • Celebrating the humanities

    If scholars were celebrities, life might look a little bit like it does on the day of the annual Jefferson Lecture (May 2), with interviews and toasts in anticipation not of a concert or play but a speech on the humanities.

  • Thesis by creation

    On view through May 26, “Oh, Pioneers!” offers a moment in the sun to Harvard’s graduating painters, installation artists, and filmmakers.

  • Reflecting other worlds

    Documentary photographer Susan Meiselas, Ed.M. ’71, receives the 2011 Harvard Arts Medal as part of the annual Arts First Festival.

  • Jazz at Harvard

    Harvard sophomore Andrew Kennard discusses his love of jazz and his experience mentoring students at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, preparing with them for the arrival of Wynton Marsalis at Harvard.

  • In praise of America’s music

    As part of a two-year lecture and performance series, jazz great Wynton Marsalis performed with a seven-piece band at Sanders Theatre.

  • Breaking the sonnet barrier

    Poet and fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Anna Maria Hong takes the traditional sonnet form and breaks it wide open in her new volume of poetry.

  • Art and catastrophe

    At a photo exhibit on Chernobyl, 25 years after the disaster, viewers get glimpses of both hope and horror.

  • Principled expression

    A new exhibition of works at the Rudenstine Gallery explores the work of artist Elizabeth Catlett.

  • Understanding Global Trade

    Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade Elhanan Helpman discusses the revolutions in trade theory, showing how scholars shifted their trade flow analyses from sectoral levels to business-firm levels to clarify the growing roles of multinational corporations, offshoring, and outsourcing in the international division of labor.

  • Why and how

    Professor Marjorie Garber’s new book examines “why we read literature, why we study it, and why it doesn’t need to have an application someplace else in order to be definitive in its talking about human life and culture.”

  • Field Notes on Science & Nature

    Michael Canfield, a lecturer on organismic and evolutionary biology, visits an eclectic range of scientific disciplines, offering examples that professional naturalists can emulate to fine-tune their own field methods, along with practical advice that amateur naturalists and students can use to document their adventures.

  • A musical education

    Harvard students are studying and performing the modern, eclectic works of composer John Adams.

  • Another Freedom: The Alternative History of an Idea

    Curt Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Professor of Comparative Literature Svetlana Boym explores the cross-cultural history of the idea of freedom, discusses its limitations, and wonders how it can be newly imagined.

  • ‘Lost’ with Carlton Cuse

    Harvard graduate and award-winning producer Carlton Cuse ’81 returned to campus to offer students a look behind the scenes at his TV show “Lost” and insight into his creative process.

  • Lasting power

    Using personal narratives, several Harvard scholars recall experiences with their faiths with the help of objects in the Harvard Art Museums’ collections.

  • Art of the ‘Divine’

    “The Divine Comedy,” a daring and grand exhibit in three parts, gives a modern spin to Dante’s three realms of the dead, and shows how art can break disciplinary boundaries.

  • A vanishing neighborhood

    Two Harvard ethnographers directed the prize-winning “Foreign Parts,” a documentary that captures the sights and sounds of Willets Point, a vibrant, vanishing corner of New York City.