Featured series 
Tag: Arts
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Nation & World
Art and science: Healing in harmony
What do Julie Andrews and Mozart have in common? And what links Hillary Clinton, Che Guevara, and Cameron Diaz? The former have absolute or perfect pitch; the latter are tone-deaf. How our brains differ to create these disparities was one of the subjects of “Crossing the Corpus Callosum,” a first-of-its-kind symposium held Jan. 10 at…
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Nation & World
Isolating creativity in the brain
How — exactly — does improvisation happen? What’s involved when a musician sits down at the piano and plays flurries of notes in a free fall, without a score, without knowing much about what will happen moment to moment? Is it possible to find the sources of a creative process?
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Nation & World
Religion in the vernacular
In 1215, Pope Innocent III convened the Fourth Council of the Lateran, a religious convocation that laid out to hundreds of bishops, abbots, priors, and Christian patriarchs 70 new decrees. One enjoined the clergy to stop frequenting taverns, engaging in trials by combat, hunting, and practicing what might be called noncelibate habits.
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Nation & World
George Whitelaw Mackey
At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on November 18, 2008, the Minute honoring the life and service of the late George Whitelaw Mackey, Landon T. Clay Professor of Mathematics and Theoretical Science, Emeritus, was placed upon the records. Mackey’s publications profoundly influenced the next generation of mathematicians and mathematical physicists.
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Nation & World
College’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter welcomes 48 new members
Forty-eight seniors were recently elected to the Harvard College chapter of Phi Beta Kappa (PBK), Alpha Iota of Massachusetts.
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Nation & World
Seidel honored with Crystal Quill Award
Steve Seidel, the Patricia Bauman Arts in Education professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), received the Crystal Quill Award from the Shakespeare Festival/LA Nov. 20 in Los Angeles. The Shakespeare Festival/LA is an arts organization that uses professional theater traditions to “enchant, enrich, and build community.”
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Nation & World
Zeph Stewart
At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on November 18, 2008, the Minute honoring the life and service of the late Zeph Stewart, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, Emeritus, was placed upon the records. Stewart was an effective and beloved teacher.
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Nation & World
Task Force Releases Report on the Arts
A concerted effort should be made to put the arts at Harvard University on par with the study of the humanities and sciences, according to a report released today (Dec. 10) by a University-wide task force that examined the role the arts play in campus life.
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Nation & World
‘The health of poetry’
As a graduate student at Oxford, Gwyneth Lewis wrote her dissertation on 18th century literary forgery. But as a working poet for three decades — and this year as a Radcliffe Fellow — she is as far from that fraud as conceivable.
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Nation & World
Patricia Cornwell endows conservationist at Straus Center
Harvard Art Museum announced the establishment of the Patricia Cornwell Conservation Scientist position at the museum’s Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies. Funded by a $1 million commitment from best-selling author Patricia Cornwell, the Cornwell Conservation Scientist will play a key role in the analytical laboratory and beyond.
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Nation & World
Making connections: A special evening for Harvard faculty
“The arts are something we all care deeply about, whether we are artists ourselves, whether we are social scientists, or whether we are scientists,” Senior Vice Provost Judith Singer told an audience of about 120 Harvard faculty of all stripes and ranks gathered at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum.
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Nation & World
‘Godot’ in the bayou: Artist Chan speaks at Carpenter Center
Paul Chan is soft-spoken, but his words are heavy. Carefully chosen, they offer an insight into his reflective process and the weighty implications of his work.
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Nation & World
Marla Frederick talks about faith, God, and money
Not long ago, Harvard cultural anthropologist Marla Frederick sat on a wooden bench in a slum of Kingston, Jamaica. She was interviewing local churchgoers about the Christian “prosperity gospel” often promoted by American televangelists. It offers up a simple (and controversial) idea: The more you give, the more you receive.
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Nation & World
Chaya Czernowin appointed professor of music at Harvard
Chaya Czernowin, a composer who has received wide acclaim for her sophisticated, emotional operas, has been appointed professor of music in Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), effective July 1, 2009.
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Nation & World
Poetry, music, death take the stage at New College Theatre
John Adams ’69, A.M. ’72 returned to Harvard on Nov. 17, where he attended a performance of his piece by Harvard’s Bach Society Orchestra (a group he led in the 1960s) at the New College Theatre.
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Nation & World
‘Ed Portal’ builds bridge of learning for area children
When she grows up, 7-year-old Carley Daly wants to be “an animal doctor” who takes care of dolphins. As she explained her coming profession: “They’re partly scientists.”
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Nation & World
Probing an unlikely friendship
Theirs was an unlikely friendship. One man was a black abolitionist, orator, and journalist who had been a slave from Maryland, the other a white politician from the backwoods of Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois.
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Nation & World
Falling in love with South Asian music
As a young boy, Richard Wolf, professor of music, liked to sit at the piano in his grandparents’ home and invent short musical ditties. “My grandfather would listen and shout, ‘Oh! It’s Bach! Oh, just like Mozart!’” Wolf recalled recently, with a laugh. “He was wonderfully encouraging.”
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Nation & World
Puzzling through Yeats with Helen Vendler
Helen Vendler knows a thing or two about William Butler Yeats. She has authored three books on the Irish poet’s work, including her most recent volume, “Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form,” published in 2007.
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Nation & World
How the ‘talking machine’ allowed music and dance to cross oceans
In the late 1920s, with the advent of new technology, gramophone and “talking machine” companies were able to capture the sounds and rhythms of life in cities across the globe. From New York to Havana, Paris to Honolulu, labels like Victor, Gramophone Company, and Okeh competed to record vernacular music.
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Nation & World
Houghton joins with libraries nationwide to celebrate artists’ retreat
HCL Communications It’s been said great art often grows out of tragedy — in the case of Yaddo, an artists’ retreat in upstate New York founded in 1900, tragedy spurred the creation of hundreds of great works of art.
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Nation & World
The Nobel for literature: An insider’s view
One of Per Wästberg’s best times as a college student in the 1950s was the night he got locked in Widener Library. “I got so enthralled [in the stacks], the library closed and I couldn’t get out,” Wästberg said with a laugh, noting that the floor of the library was nicer than his room at…
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Nation & World
Call for Holyoke Center artists
Harvard University employees who work at Holyoke Center are invited to participate in the ninth annual Holyoke Center Group Art Exhibition, displayed in the Holyoke Center exhibition space from Dec. 5 through Jan. 7. The goal of the exhibition is to showcase the artistic talents and creativity of the staff of the Holyoke Center and…
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Nation & World
Dunster House calls for soloists
Dunster House seeks vocal soprano, alto, tenor, and bass soloists for its 36th annual Messiah Sing, scheduled for the evening of Dec. 11. One soloist for each voice part will be selected to perform. Auditions are scheduled Nov. 8 from 10 a.m. to noon in Dunster House. To sign up for an audition or for…
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Nation & World
GSD lecture and panel address ‘Designing for Sustainability’
Interest in green building is high at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), judging by the attendance at a lecture Tuesday (Oct. 21) in the Stubbins Room at Gund Hall. “Designing for Sustainability” was part of the popular and event-packed sustainability celebration instituted this year by Harvard President Drew Faust.
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Nation & World
Harvard Art Museum receives major gift from Emily Rauh Pulitzer
Harvard University today (Oct. 17) announced that the Harvard Art Museum has received a gift of 31 major works of modern and contemporary art and $45 million from Harvard alumna Emily Rauh Pulitzer, a former Harvard Art Museum curator, longtime supporter and friend of the museum and of Harvard, and wife of the late Joseph…
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Nation & World
John U. Monro portrait is unveiled at PBH
The Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations has unveiled a ninth portrait in its Minority Portraiture Project. The latest honoree on canvas is John U. Monro, former dean of Harvard College. Monro’s portrait, painted by Stephen Coit ’71, was unveiled last week (Oct. 16) in Phillips Brooks House.
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Nation & World
Judaica Division concert includes world premiere of sax concerto
As part of its celebration of the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel, the Harvard College Library’s Judaica Division will host the world premiere of a saxophone concerto composed by an award-winning Israeli composer Nov. 2, at 3 p.m. at Sanders Theatre.