February 26, 2010

Harvard Headlines: Derek Bok, Ellen Langer, Lawrence Lessig

A review of Bok's new book, The Politics of Happiness; a profile of positive-psychology pioneer Langer; Lessig's suggestions for reforming Congress

This week's Sunday papers contained several Harvard-linked items. Here's the roundup:

The New York Times Book Review had a review of Derek Bok's new book, The Politics of Happiness: What Government Can Learn from the New Research on Well-Being. (Click here to listen to the 2007 Baccalaureate address, in which President Emeritus Bok reminded graduating seniors that pursuing material rewards would not bring happiness; one needs ethical content in one's work.)
The Boston Globe's Ideas section profiled Ellen Langer, pioneer of the positive psychology movement, the first female tenured professor in Harvard's psychology department, the author of the bestselling book Mindfulness (1989), and the subject of an upcoming feature film starring Jennifer Aniston. (Langer's work was featured in the 2007 Harvard Magazine article "The Science of Happiness."
And the Ideas blog (excerpted in the Sunday Globe) featured professor of law Lawrence Lessig's suggestions for reforming Congress, first articulated in an essay in The Nation, "How to Get Our Democracy Back." (In 2000, Lessig wrote for Harvard Magazine about values and civil liberties in cyberspace.)

After a final round of layoffs, University leaders say 165 staff jobs were eliminated across the division.

Before a data center is built, Francesca Dominici and Le Xie aim to predict costs to the grid, the air, and the neighbors next door.

Sheila Jasanoff has spent her career studying how societies produce knowledge, evaluate expertise, and make decisions about technology.

The stakes are high for this husband and wife: one of them will die if they don’t find a cure.

All That’s Unseen charts the Harvard graduate’s uneasy journey from Appalachia to Cambridge and back.

In 2004, a frenzy spread across Harvard Yard in days. Four billion users later, we are only just catching up.

The Gretel and the Great War author on how the Lampoon derailed his science career—and set him on a literary path.

From competing in youth gymnastics to studying tetrapods, the Harvard curator has always chased her curiosity.

Harvard Art Museums restores a rare glimpse of an American master.