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How the Enlightenment Led to Colonialism
It’s not immediately clear , as William Kentridge starts to play an excerpt from his 2005 animated film rendition of The Magic Flute , how the 1791 Mozart opera connects to the topic of his second Norton Lecture, “A Brief History of Colonial Revolts.” On …
John Lithgow on the Arts, and Life
Actor and author John Lithgow ’67, Ar.D. ’05, made some extended remarks on the arts, including personal reflections on his own childhood experiences with visual arts, at the first meeting of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences' Commission on …
Hybrid Work’s Sweet Spot
Does hybrid work harm the bottom line? As organizations across the United States wrestle with post-COVID office policies, researchers at Harvard Business School (HBS) present evidence for an optimally productive blended office-and-home schedule. Their …
Issue: January-February 2023
Frank Gehry to Receive Arts Medal
Architect Frank Gehry , Ds ’57, Ar.D. ’00, creator of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and MIT’s Stata Center, will receive the Harvard Arts Medal at the opening event of the annual Arts First festival on April 28. The event’s host, actor John Lithgow ’67, …
Liquidity and Leverage
In one sense , the projected 30 percent decline in the value of the endowment is Harvard’s financial problem. If the invested assets earn the expected return over time, distributing funds from a $36.9-billion endowment at a typical rate (about 5 percent) …
Issue: July-August 2009
Three Alumni Named as National Book Award Finalists
Three Harvard alumni were among the nominees announced on Tuesday as finalists for the 2022 National Book Awards. In the nonfiction category, Princeton historian Imani Perry, J.D.-Ph.D.’00, was nominated for South to America: A Journey Below the …
Destroying Childhood
A child has been killed in war every three minutes during the last decade. Many were not civilians. Irregular armies from Sudan to the Philippines, from Turkey to Colombia, from Kosovo to Iraq use child soldiers. They are the shock troops, the cannon …
Issue: September-October 2005
Arsenic and Old Lead
The Arnold Arboretum anticipated closing a deal last December to sell the Case Estates, its 62.5-acre property (complete with barn and two other structures) in Weston, Massachusetts, to the town of Weston for $22.5 million. But first the town “decided …
Issue: September-October 2007
Curiosities: Animating a New Species at the Peabody Essex Museum
PVC tubing and zip ties form the essential “bones” of Dutch artist Theo Jansen’s otherworldy yet mobile strandbeests (“beach animals”), eight of which are on display at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) starting September 19. Included is his latest and …
Issue: September-October 2015
Building a Better World
Buried beneath the ground at the highest point in Poughkeepsie, New York, sits a 36,000-square-foot concrete cistern built in 1923 to hold the city’s water supply. Replaced in 2017 after it sprang a leak, drained and fenced off from passersby, the cistern …
Issue: May-June 2023
Harvard Reiterates Campus Rules
In another indication that University officials are anticipating campus tension and protest this fall and hoping to avoid a repeat of last spring’s pro-Palestine encampment in the Yard, executive vice president Meredith Weenick emailed a message to the …
Fairfield Porter
In 1975, Fairfield Porter, A.B. 1928, accepted a commission for the Harvard Club of New York to paint former club president Alfred (Al) Gordon, A.B. 1923, M.B.A. ’25, whose portrait would join those of previous presidents lining the walls. Eschewing the …
Issue: September-October 2024
Harvard Announces Dean of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging
On Monday afternoon, Harvard announced the appointment of Sheree Ohen as the inaugural associate dean of diversity, inclusion, and belonging for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS). She comes to the post from Clark University, where she is chief …
As Supreme Court Takes Up Gun Ban, Greenhouse Is Watching
Did the framers of the Bill of Rights intend the "right to bear arms" to apply only for the purpose of forming a militia, or more widely, for purposes such as self-defense? Is the possibility that American citizens will need to rise up against a …
Brevia
The Corporation Replenished Kenneth I. Chenault, J.D. ’76, and Karen Gordon Mills ’75, M.B.A. ’77, have been elected members of the Harvard Corporation, the senior governing board, effective July 1. They succeed retiring members Robert D. Reischauer ’63, …
Issue: May-June 2014