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Are Animals “Things”?
Jeremy and Kathryn Medlen have two children, but with eight-year-old Avery around, it often felt like three. A beloved mixed-breed mutt with flopped-forward Labrador ears, Avery was a member of the family, welcome on the couch, included on vacations, a …
Issue: March-April 2016
Joining the “Long Crimson Line”
A round dozen of Harvard students—the largest contingent since 2010—took their oaths of office, respectively, as second lieutenants in the U.S. Air Force, Army, and Marines or ensigns in the U.S. Navy on Wednesday morning during Commencement week’s annual …
What Is Critical Race Theory?
Racial-justice activists at Harvard Law School (HLS) won one of the largest public battles over the school’s legacy this month, when the administration agreed to abandon the existing HLS shield. The shield was modeled after the crest of the slaveholding …
Law School Committee Recommends Abandoning Shield Linked to Slavery
AFTER THREE MONTHS of deliberation, a committee of Harvard Law School (HLS) professors, students, and alumni recommended abandoning a controversial shield linked to slavery as the school’s official symbol Friday. HLS’s shield displays the crest of the …
Land of the Living
In April and May , birders flock to Mount Auburn Cemetery. Dressed in fleece and caps, binoculars slung around their necks, they enter by the Egyptian Revival gateway at 7 a.m. , and spread stealthily across the sculpted 175-acre landscape. Winding …
Issue: May-June 2017
Measuring Impact in the “Missing Middle”
In an idealized business transaction (ignoring restraints on competition and marketing blandishments), willing shoppers choose the products and services they want, and companies measure their sales, cash flow, profits, and return on capital—financial …
Issue: September-October 2015
Empathy and Imagination
Only the Animals , by Ceridwen Dovey ’03, is a beautifully wrought, disconcerting collection of stories told by the souls of dead animals. A cat is picked off by a sniper on the Western Front; a blue mussel drowns in Pearl Harbor; a courageous tortoise is …
Issue: September-October 2015
Amartya Sen, a Memoir
Home in the World , Amartya Sen’s memoir of his years in the U.K, was published there July 8. Below, Gardiner professor of oceanic history and affairs Sugata Bose previews for North American readers a few highlights of the book, which covers the first 30 …
Affording a Harvard Graduation
Graduation is a rite of passage when families are united, tears are shed, and memories are shared. But for some students, it is also a time when belts are tightened. “I can go to this event that costs $40, or I can eat for the day,” Lenica …
Untangling the Brain
Modern neuroscience rests on the assumption that our thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and behaviors emerge from electrical and chemical communication between brain cells: that whenever we recognize a face, read the newspaper, throw a ball, engage in a …
Issue: May-June 2009
Among the Brokenhearted
Matthew Ichihashi Potts looks forward to brewing his signature pour-over coffee every morning. It’s a meditative moment—beans become grounds, still water boils, and the two steep together for precisely three minutes. It’s his morning routine, but now, as …
Issue: May-June 2023
Off the Shelf: Recent Books with Harvard Connections
Glass Half-Broken: Shattering the Barriers That Still Hold Women Back at Work, by Colleen Ammerman and Boris Groysberg (Harvard Business Review Press, $30). The director of the Business School’s Gender Initiative and the Chapman professor of business …
Issue: July-August 2021
Dumbarton Oaks Fêtes New Programs and Spaces
The music of Roomful of Teeth , the Grammy-winning vocal ensemble who performed at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection on Sunday, serves as perhaps an apt metaphor for how discrete disciplines come together at the University’s Washington, D.C.- …
The Humanities Village People
Rachel Gibian ’15 will spend a considerable part of her summer in the stacks of the Schlesinger and Houghton libraries, digging up primary documents about women who were active abolitionists during the American Civil War. Her archival work will help …
Hansjörg Wyss Boosts Bioengineering Innovation
The University announced today a gift of $131 million from Hansjörg Wyss, M.B.A. ’65, to support the operations of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. This is the third such gift that the Swiss-born entrepreneur has made to the …