Search
The Dilemma of Choice
… Ahab pursues a great white whale that years earlier bit off his leg. Ahab, says Sean Dorrance Kelly, is on a monomaniacal quest to answer an existential question: Did the “inscrutable” whale act unthinkingly, or with calculated … them) left in modern life occurs, he says, when a crowd rises spontaneously to cheer a great play in a sports arena. …
Issue: May-June 2011
Past the Peak
… Nearly 50 years after declaring their independence, Americans were electrified by the triumphant return of the Marquis de Lafayette, eager to revisit the scenes of … was itself enslaved. The story of the commonwealth’s rise, fall, and subsequent rise again offers a helpful …
Issue: March-April 2008
Off the Shelf
… Giuliano da Sangallo and the Ruins of Rome, by Cammy Brothers ’91, Ph.D. ’99 … the tumult accompanying the popular democratic revolutions, rise of industrial capitalism, and decline of institutional …
Issue: May-June 2022
The Extinction of the Press?
… When America’s Founders drafted the First Amendment, including its protection of a free press as key to self-governance, they could not … necessary for democracy.” “There’s only one private enterprise that is mentioned in the United States Constitution and …
Issue: July-August 2020
The Shrouds of Cambridge
… Perhaps the best business on campus this summer was the rental concession for scaffolding and the rolls of plastic mesh used to wrap building sites, protecting … just beyond Tercentenary Theatre, Harvard Hall was fenced off while the rotten brownstone of its main entry stairs was …
Issue: September-October 2005
The Work of Art
… Late into the last evening of a sprawling two-day conference on art … and race and culture and citizenship—and on the possibility of achieving justice—artist Hank Willis Thomas turned to the …
Plumbing the Deep Sea
… Biological Laboratories, biochemist Peter Girguis frowns at the pressure vessel in his hand. The machined titanium cylinder, about the size of a French press, gleams as he works to release the cap, … plumes. Working from a research ship at the East Pacific Rise, he brought the delicate creatures up. “He was one of …
Issue: May-June 2023
The Rebellion of E.E. Cummings
… Literary critics have found any number of ways to divide writers into opposing teams. Isaiah Berlin … to look at American literature as a combat between aesthetic "palefaces" like Henry James and vigorous "redskins" … The readers who delighted in such poems might have been surprised to learn that, in fact, Edward Estlin Cummings came …
Issue: March-April 2005
The Downsides of Prozac
… Like many others, Elizabeth Wurtzel '89 and Lauren Slater, Ed. M. '89--the authors, respectively, of Prozac Nation (1994) and Prozac Diary (1998)--suffered … "Prozac poop-out": the drug's mood-altering effects wore off and depression returned. In fact, according to a 1995 …
Coastal Banks Shed Risky Mortgages—Putting the Financial System at Risk
… Warming oceans—and the storms and rising sea levels they bring—will have their most severe impact on the southeastern shoreline of the United States, from the Texas Gulf Coast up to the … and Jesse Keenan on how lenders are preparing for sea level rise in coastal regions of the American South—a reaction …
In the Temper of the Times
… To those who have seen many of them, this year's Commencement day seemed a sober affair, … rejoicings and bittersweet farewells — the heart of the matter — happened as a matter of course, but the …
Issue: July-August 2004
The Beauty of Beans
… ’89, grew up in a close-knit, highly religious community in the south Texas border town of McAllen, when it was at least 80 percent Mexican … even on the playground, you were sent to the principal’s office.” She picked up the language by third grade, loved to …
Issue: January-February 2006
Events of the Week
… The many rituals of graduation peak on Commencement day, … year includes addresses by President Derek Bok and Microsoft cofounder and philanthropist Bill Gates ’77. Former U.S. president Bill Clinton speaks to the College seniors on Class Day. For further details and …
Issue: May-June 2007
The Challenge of Plagiarism
… Harvard College has only one course required of every student: “Expository Writing.” Better known simply as “Expos,” the class urges freshmen to “concentrate directly on the craft of composing and revising their ideas.” Among the skills to …
Issue: July-August 2006
“He Found Himself at a Loss”
… For the DeSanctis family, medicine had always been a way of … Moroccan rugs arriving at DeSanctis’s home one day as a surprise thank-you for the doctor’s care. A Harvard Medical …