Arts & Culture

All Arts & Culture

  • The Pursuit of Perfect: How to Stop Chasing Perfection and Start Living a Richer, Happier Life

    This alumnus and Continuing Ed professor says embracing the highs and lows of being human leads to happiness. So leave your android perfection behind and get real.

  • Government by Contract: Outsourcing and American Democracy

    This thoughtful tome assesses the growth of government and subsequent outsourcing of work to private organizations. Freeman and Minow dig deep and ask: What’s efficient and who’s accountable?

  • The story from beginning to end

    Norton Greenberger, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and clinical professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, has written a book about the hidden world of digestion — and no holds are barred.

  • What a set of pipes

    Over the next few years two new organs will take the place of the iconic C.B. Fisk organ in Appleton Chapel. The solution will help the church solve a long-standing musical dilemma.

  • HDS and the Civil War scholar

    Harvard President Drew Faust served as guest lecturer for a Harvard Divinity School class, where she discussed her most recent book.

  • Practice, education, activism

    The Graduate School of Design at Harvard celebrates one of its own, the late J. Max Bond Jr., a pioneering architect.

  • Made in America

    The Humanities Center at Harvard is staging a symposium this weekend on the publication of the 1,095-page “A New Literary History of America” (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2009). A centerpiece of the symposium was today’s (Sept. 25) “20 Questions” panel with the book’s editors, Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors.

  • ‘Second lives’

    In the first of six Norton Lectures, Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk investigates the act of novel reading and the fleeting “second lives” readers acquire.

  • A New Literary History of America

    This compilation of original essays features a myriad of voices from Harvard. Ingrid Monson, Peter Sacks, Cass Sunstein, Helen Vendler, and others take on Americana’s finest: porn, country music, and J.D. Salinger.

  • Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetry

    In 30 essays Burt serves up literary criticism like you’ve never seen it before — his charming, excited prose unknots the web or poetry and knits a tapestry.

  • The Adventures of an IT Leader

    Austin and Co. team up to create Jim, a fictional IT manager, who stumbles in his first-year duties only to (what else?) save the day. You’ll never look at your computer guy — or gal — the same way again.

  • On Rumors

    Rumors affect political outcomes, tarnish reputations, even ruin lives. Cass R. Sunstein delivers this treatise on how misinformation is easily accepted and rapidly spread, and how, in the Internet age, some stories can’t be undone.

  • The sound of summer music

    The musically inclined are drawn to Harvard from near and far each summer. They come together to create the sound of music through Harvard’s Summer School ensembles.

  • Sema Vakf Collection of Turkish Classical Music now available at Loeb Music Library

    Turkish-born businessman Altan Ender Güzey has ensured the traditional music from the Republic of Turkey is kept alive for future generations with a donation of the Sema Vakf Collection of Turkish Classical Music to the Loeb Music Library.

  • Visiting faculty bring their art along

    The “Visiting Faculty 2009-10” exhibit highlights the work of eight visiting faculty at Harvard’s Department of Visual and Environmental Studies.

  • Norton Lectures interrogate the novel

    Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize for literature, will deliver Harvard’s traditional Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, in a series of six talks on novels and novelists that begin Sept. 22.

  • The sound of music

    Students perform and perfect their talents as they tap into a Harvard tradition.

  • Justice for all

    Michael Sandel, the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government, has authored a new book unpacking today’s most prevailing political and ethical quandaries.

  • Longfellow online exhibition recognized by ACRL

    The ACRL Rare Books and Manuscripts Section has selected the online exhibition “Public Poet, Private Man: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow at 200” as a winner of the 2009 Katharine Kyes Leab and Daniel J. Leab “American Book Prices Current” Exhibition Award.

  • Harvard Film Archive acquires Just Film Stills

    Lothar and Eva Just have recently made their collection of film stills and other publicity materials available to the Harvard Film Archive (HFA).

  • Oldest-known fibers to be used by humans discovered

    A team of archaeologists and paleobiologists has discovered flax fibers that are more than 34,000 years old, making them the oldest fibers known to have been used by humans.

  • The Origins of Canadian and American Political Differences

    Guns, government, same-sex marriage — the U.S. and Canada couldn’t be more dissimilar. Kaufman explores the history and culture of the two lands and asks why Canada is so close, yet so far away.

  • How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment

    Lamont tells all in this behind-the-scenes work on the mysterious underpinnings of academia. Be in the room when the greatest thinkers meet behind closed doors and talk about how excellent excellence is.

  • Human Documents: Eight Photographers

    Media maestro Robert Gardner presents this stunning array of photographs, or, “human documents,” which explore geography, culture, and our shared humanity through a universal visual language.

  • Up Close, part 2

    In the fast pace of our daily lives we may overlook the details which, collectively, create a stunning backdrop for all that happens within the University. Hundreds of historic volumes stand as individual works of art inside the Houghton and Widener Libraries.

  • Johnson at 300

    Harvard’s Houghton Library, home to a comprehensive collection related to 18th century English literature, sponsored a three-day international literary celebration of lexicographer, poet, essayist, and moralist Samuel Johnson, born 300 years ago this year. His work has inspired centuries of scholarship and generations of fervent ‘Johnsonians.’

  • ‘The Donkey Show’ kicks off a first season for Diane Paulus

    Harvard’s new American Repertory Theater director Diane Paulus ’88 takes a classic Shakespeare comedy for a spin on the disco floor with “The Donkey Show.”

  • Child psychiatrist pens her past

    Psychiatrist Nancy Rappaport uncovers a relationship with the mother she scarcely knew in her powerful familial memoir. Infused with accounts of treating her own teenage patients, Rappaport plumbs the bond between parents and children while closing in on healing.

  • Helping others thrive

    As the new executive director of the Harvard University Native American Program, Shelly Lowe plans to help Native American students utilize the resources that are available to them through the University.

  • Making music and keeping the faith

    The father of two young children and an amateur musician, Matthew Myer Boulton, HDS associate professor of ministry studies, is investigating the spiritual dimension of human experience through the use of song with his newly formed band Butterflyfish.