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What You Can Say, Singing
Here is everything that happened before the audience at the Bavarian State Opera heard soprano Liv Redpath ’14 sing the final note of Der Rosenkavalier on opening night in May 2022. After she was cast, Redpath first studied the German libretto to …
Issue: November-December 2024
Cruel and Unjust
For a nation “conceived in Liberty,” as Abraham Lincoln emphasized with a capital L in hand-writing his Gettysburg Address, it should be shocking that the United States has locked up almost a quarter of the prisoners in the world despite having less than …
Issue: March-April 2025
Exact Changes
In 2002—the year the Argentine peso collapsed, eliminating half the scheduled shows in their South American tour—husband-and-wife bandmates Damon Krukowski ’85 and Naomi Yang ’86 flew to neighboring Brazil to play the rest of the dates. The trip was a …
Issue: March-April 2016
Capital Punishment’s Persistence
Among the reasons why the United States might be considered exceptional, there’s one that puts it in unexpected company: along with China, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, it ranks as one of the world’s top executioners. Because most countries have abolished …
Issue: January-February 2016
In Beijing, President Bacow Affirms Academic Freedom
President Lawrence S. Bacow —on an Asian itinerary including stops in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, and Tokyo—delivered an address last night at Peking University titled “The Pursuit of Truth and the Mission of the University.” His visit comes at a time …
Six Harvard Students Win Rhodes Scholarships
The Rhodes Trust has announced that five Harvard seniors have been awarded American Rhodes Scholarships this fall. Among them, one is vice president of the Harvard Islamic Society and co-founder of the Ivy League Muslim Council, a second is pursuing …
Dinner Without the Din
After spending the evening at an unnamed establishment, hollering at fellow dinner guests just to be heard, we were inspired to find a few reliably conversation-friendly haunts. A call to the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, seeking guidance and …
Issue: November-December 2015
Are Mushrooms the New Meat?
On the western side of Martha’s Vineyard, a dirt road winds past secluded summer homes with ocean views and then dead-ends at an eerie sight: 45,000 oak logs stacked in crosshatch formations under a canopy of trees. In the nearby lot, young men with …
Issue: July-August 2019
Putting Social Progress on Par with Prosperity
What are the ingredients of a healthy, inclusive society—one that offers its citizens opportunity, happiness, and a positive quality of life? According to Lawrence University Professor Michael E. Porter, models of human development based on economic …
Issue: November-December 2015
Tackling Football Trauma
A crushed nose , a snapped collarbone, a finger jabbed in an eye that drew blood: these were the minor injuries sustained at 1894’s brutal rendition of the Harvard-Yale football game. One tackle took a blow to the head so hard, his teammates had to point …
Issue: July-August 2015
Giants
B oston brahmin. The towering Adams University Professor emeritus Bernard Bailyn, Ph.D. ’53, LL.D. ’99, concludes his new collection of essays (see Open Book ) with an appendix containing his Memorial Minutes for two fellow towering Harvard historians. …
Issue: March-April 2020
Darker Days
In his initial public message as interim president, on January 8, Alan M. Garber wrote, “Since I first arrived here as an undergraduate in 1973, I cannot recall a period of comparable tension on our campus and across our community” (see …
Issue: March-April 2024
Cambridge 02138
Ethics Education As a frequent speaker on business ethics, I was eager to read “Making Organizations Moral,” along with its subtitle “Ethics Elevated” (November-December 2014). But I was quickly disappointed as I read Professor Max Bazerman’s comment that …
Issue: January-February 2015
The “Little Object That Speaks Loudly”
Broken wine bottles, clay tobacco pipes, and fancy baubles—including, most recently, a pair of silver-alloy cufflinks: these are the small pieces of life at early Harvard that archaeologists have dug up during the last decade. Though archival accounts …
On Your Honor
When the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) voted last May to adopt an undergraduate honor code , in the wake of the largest recent case of student misconduct on an examination , debate swirled around implementation: how, exactly, students would affirm …