Tag: Arts

  • Nation & World

    Cohen named new chair of Department of Architecture

    Mohsen Mostafavi, dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD), recently announced the appointment of Preston Scott Cohen as chair of the Department of Architecture, effective July 1.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Photographs reveal tiny leaf details

    The sense of loss Amanda Means felt is exposed in a new exhibit of her unusual photographs of leaves at the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Called “Looking at Leaves,” the exhibit is the third in a series of photographic exhibitions at the museum that explore the intersection of art and science by inviting visitors…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Yearlong search for the ‘human’ concludes with Bhabha address

    The series “Rethinking the Human,” a yearlong exploration of the very nature of what it means to be human, sponsored by the Harvard Divinity School’s Center for the Study of World Religions, concluded last week (May 12-13) with a two-day symposium.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Bhabha named senior adviser

    Homi K. Bhabha has just been named senior adviser on the humanities to the president and provost. The position, a first for the University, takes effect July 1.

    8 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Reminiscences of Maxim Gorky

    In 1895, Russian journalist Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, a onetime shoemaker’s apprentice who had quit school at 10, adopted a new name: Maxim Gorky. After that, literary fame came fast and furious for this self-taught, fresh-voiced grandson of a Volga boatman. Gorky — the name means “bitter” — could tell a story, remember everything he read…

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The fleeting nature of performance

    Christine Whitney Dakin, a New York City contemporary dancer and protégé of Martha Graham, is a Radcliffe Fellow this year — the first dancer ever in the program. She’s busy writing a book, making a film, and preparing a Harvard class for next spring.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Ghostly Shakespearean fragment comes to life on stage

    Monday evening (May 5) at Zero Arrow Theatre, an audience of 120 listened in on a discussion of “Cardenio,” a play premiering Saturday (May 10) at the American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T.).

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Rain doesn’t dampen spirit of Arts First

    It was a rainy (not to say explosive) weekend, yet despite the daunting weather, the arts not only endured but prevailed at the University as dance, song, theater, and conceptual art brightened up the Yard and its environs.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Distinguished poet visits alma mater

    Adrienne Rich, one of America’s most lauded poets and a major literary voice of the 20th century, returned to the place where it all began on a recent dreary Monday…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    OfA awards students for excellence in the arts

    The Office for the Arts at Harvard (OfA) and the Council on the Arts at Harvard, a standing committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, recently announced the winners of the annual undergraduate arts prizes presented in recognition of outstanding accomplishment in the arts for the 2007-08 academic year.

    9 minutes
  • Nation & World

    ‘Instability and Decomposition’

    Instability is the reign of things erratic and unpredictable. Decomposition is the state of being as it unravels, nicely captured by a common sentiment: Things fall apart. The two words — and the frictive, unstable worlds they imply — were at the heart of a convocation of young scholars last week (April 25-26).

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Lucky shot? Photography and chance

    Chance smiled on Joe Rosenthal in late February 1945. The young Associated Press photographer was atop Mount Suribachi to cover the Allied troops’ capture of Iwo Jima when he heard that soldiers were preparing to raise an American flag. It was the second attempt of the day, for authorities had decided the first flag —…

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    New name conveys museum’s mission

    The Harvard University Art Museums — a leading center for research and teaching in the visual arts comprising three museums and four research centers — has changed its name to the Harvard Art Museum.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Stephen Greenblatt to be honored

    Cogan University Professor Stephen Greenblatt will join seven other distinguished artists and writers to be inducted into the 250-member American Academy of Arts and Letters next month.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    From breaking to Brahms: Everything under the sun to shine at Arts First

    For the 16th year in a row, Arts First will color the Harvard campus next weekend (May 1-4) with more than 200 music, theater, dance, film, and visual arts events and performances.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Fourteen awarded fellowships to further artistic development

    The Office for the Arts (OfA) at Harvard and the Office of Career Services (OCS) recently announced the 2007-08 recipients of the Artist Development Fellowship.

    8 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Ghent Altarpiece is window into history of art

    To Hugo van der Velden, professor of history of art and architecture in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Ghent Altarpiece is more than a landmark — it’s also an excellent teaching tool. The painting is the focus of Van der Velden’s History of Art and Architecture course, “Jan van Eyck and the Rise…

    11 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Portrait of a master

    Rulan C. Pian (right) watches at Cabot House as S. Allen Counter, director of the Harvard Foundation, and foundation intern Marisol Pineda-Conde unveil Pian’s portrait.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Houghton exhibit features Islamic sciences

    If scholarship is the only reliable means of time travel, the Houghton Library offers up Harvard’s latest time machine: “Windows into Early Science,” an exhibit of scientific manuscripts, maps, and illustrated books on display through May 23.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    David Rockefeller gives $100 million for Harvard undergraduate programs

    David Rockefeller, a member of the Harvard College Class of 1936 and longtime University benefactor, has pledged $100 million to increase learning opportunities dramatically for Harvard undergraduates through international experiences and participation in the arts.

    8 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Cultural creativity in the Ethiopian diaspora

    A Radcliffe Fellow this year, Kaufman Shelemay was co-organizer of “Cultural Creativity in the Ethiopian American Diaspora,” a conference held at Harvard this week (April 13-14).

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Hamlisch offers vital audition advice

    The multigifted and much-admired musical composer Marvin Hamlisch taught a master class in the New College Theatre on “The Art of the Audition” recently (April 9) under the auspices of Learning From Performers.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Lens on politics: Life in Serbia, Kosovo

    Impulse, activism, and perhaps a bit of naiveté. That’s what led Jeff Silva, a teaching assistant in the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, to make his way to war-torn Belgrade just days after the NATO bombing campaign ended in June of 1999.

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Bollywood under a lens

    Richard Delacy, preceptor in Sanskrit and Indian studies, flicks off the lights in his classroom and cues the video projector. A few students shift in their seats as the opening credits for “Khalnayak,” a renowned Bollywood film, roll across the screen.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    South Africa’s ‘ace’

    There are a thousand new HIV infections a day in South Africa, Pieter-Dirk Uys told an audience at Zero Arrow Theatre this week (April 14), during a public conversation sponsored by the Humanities Center at Harvard.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The perils of historical fiction

    Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, author of the celebrated “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes,” delivered the Tanner Lectures at Harvard last week (April 9-11).

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Khan winners at Gund Hall

    An exhibition featuring the winning projects of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture will run through May 21 in the gallery at Gund Hall, Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD). The Aga Khan Program at the GSD and the Humanities Center at Harvard University organized the exhibition, in collaboration with the Aga Khan Award for…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Filmmaker literally deconstructs classic, avant-garde movies

    For filmmakers, the visual image is vital. But movie producer Rebecca Baron is more interested in what you can’t see.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Martorell conducts his own sort of life class at Fogg

    Shortly after unpacking his bags and setting up his easel, Antonio Martorell is ruminating on the philosophy of art. “The materials, as such, are as important as subject matter. They become subject matter themselves — they are matter and they matter.”

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    ‘Embracing our own being’

    Controversial pop artist Jeff Koons brought his unique perspective to the Carpenter Center Thursday night (April 3), speaking about his work and philosophy to an invited audience of just over 200.

    3 minutes