Arts & Culture
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What do Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Kushner, and Yo-Yo Ma have in common?
They all visited Harvard as part of arts program kicking off 50th year with talk by Robert Carlock, Tina Fey
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Updike’s life in letters
From teen penning fan mail on family farm to Pulitzer Prize-winning author: ‘He needed to write the way most of us need to breathe or eat’
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What karaoke taught Elizabeth McCracken about fiction
In new guide to writing, novelist details value of being able to live with failure — and why she no longer sings in public
Part of the Excerpts series -
Dramatizing genius
Pop culture portrayals tend to favor the lone mastermind. These faculty faves are more realistic.
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When Cambridge was a ‘tiny Cuba’
125 years ago, a Harvard expedition drew 1,200 Cuban educators to class
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Seamus Heaney’s long migration
New collection traces life of courage, caution from Northern Ireland to Harvard
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What set them off were the bodies on wall
“The Handmaid’s Tale” author Margaret Atwood, M.A. ’62, whose speculative fiction about women and power has made her both a beloved feminist icon and a repeated object of censorship, returned to Harvard to speak at Sanders Theatre.
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Deep roots of multicultural American art
New Harvard Art Museums show explores interactions between European, Indigenous, and African civilizations in works from Spanish Empire.
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Time for homework. Where’s my Nintendo Switch?
Games have inspired dozens of movies and TV shows recently. A new English class studies growing critical scholarship on the subject.
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‘That’s not how the story went’
Novelist Joshua Cohen and professor James Wood discuss the creation of Cohen’s book, “The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family.”
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Old as Chaucer, new as #MeToo
Scholar Anna Wilson looks at the role #MeToo plays in Zadie Smith’s “The Wife of Willesden,” an adaption of Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Tale.”
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Rich history of DIY publishing
Creative people have bypassed gatekeepers for centuries to distribute “what they wanted to share so badly.”
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So who is included in King’s ‘beloved community’?
Black queer poet, scholar Cheryl Clarke discusses achieving Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision.
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If loving you is wrong – let’s explore the ethics
Assistant Professor Quinn White studies the ethics of love and relationships.
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First lesson in Japanese boatbuilding: Don’t speak.
Students make 22-foot skiff in “silent” workshop that puts emphasis on observation — and a good hammering rhythm.
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Finally, taking a bow
Many in jazz circles knew music of these four women, but Radcliffe fellow wants to make sure the rest of us do too.
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Plea from 1980s New York: ‘Please Stay Home’
Darrel Ellis exhibition at Carpenter Center looks back yet feels of the moment with its themes of family history, identity, loss.
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Free Thursday evenings? Like theater? Mixed media? Dance?
The ArtsThursdays initiative increases accessibility and availability of Harvard arts for University affiliates and the wider community.
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Life seeking answers at Giza, Nubia
Egyptologist George Reisner transformed the field, and a biography by Peter Der Manuelian explores not just his career, but his life during what some consider the golden age of Egyptian archaeology.
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Seeing ourselves in different light
Giuliana Bruno’s new book, “Atmospheres of Projection: Environmentality in Art and Screen Media,” reclaims concepts of “projection” as positive force connecting us to one another, affirming possibility of change.
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War-scarred land
Makeda Best on images she chose for award-winning “Devour the Land,” which depicts environmental toll of militarism in U.S.
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Taking fresh shot, once again, to debunk myth of Jewish conspiracy plot
Dasha Bough ’23 created an animated documentary challenging one of the world’s oldest and most dangerous and persistent conspiracy theories.
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New translation of Mishnah looks to make ‘unyielding’ text accessible
Hebrew literature and philosophy professor’s project aims to make ‘unyielding’ text of ancient Jewish accessible.
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Keeping up with the Joneses 2.0
Author and Harvard alum W. David Marx digs into how social aspirations underlie all our choices.
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Finding herself in chapter, verse
Far from her native Indianapolis, Alyssa Gaines steeps herself in life on Harvard’s campus.
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Scene-stealing puppets of ‘Pi’
Nick Barnes talks about animal puppets he co-designed for stage version of best-selling novel, now playing at Harvard’s A.R.T.
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Hollywood’s messaging problem: Sometimes people feel insulted
Experts took a virtual look at the role of satire in pushing climate change action, with reviews mixed on a recent film.
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A singular poet
Creative process and Jewish tradition were central to a lively conversation as Nobel Prize-winning poet Louise Glück delivered the Center for Jewish Studies’ annual Doft Lecture.
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What coin tells you about realm
New classics professor Irene Soto Marín mines answers to question about ancient Egyptian life, economy from everyday artifacts.
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Book as tree, inside and out
A Pittsburgh artist who seeks to honor authors has transcribed Richard Powers’ Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Overstory” onto a scroll reminiscent of a redwood tree’s 160-foot cross section. It’s on display through January at the Arnold Arboretum.
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The boy king’s throne
On the 100th anniversary of discovering Tutankhamun’s tomb, an Egyptian jewel comes to Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East.
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Laverne Cox, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar among Du Bois winners
Hutchins Center for African and African American Research returned after three years to award the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal to seven luminaries.
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Face to face with ancient Egyptians
Realistic mummy portraits, on view at Harvard Art Museums, shed light on life, death in multicultural Roman era 2,000 years ago
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Buffeted by unending tides of grief
Namwali Serpell’s novel explores reality, memory, and race, class of broken family after the death of a child.
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Rethinking Cuban art
The new exhibition hopes to revolutionize how Cuban art is considered through the inclusion of artists of African descent who were usually excluded from shows.
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African diaspora explored through performance art
Atlantic Connections, a jazz performance created by Alicia Hall Moran and Yosvany Terry, takes place on September 15 and 16.