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With Seamus Heaney in Elysium
… In the fall of 2002, in those war-darkened days when Seamus Heaney was still among us at Harvard (then as Emerson Poet in Residence), he generously agreed to come to a session of my freshman seminar on poetic translation. For two hours …
Issue: July-August 2016
A Painting with "Legs"
… L ike the poems Emily Dickinson stored in her attic, or John Steinbeck’s repeatedly rejected early manuscripts, one of America’s best-known paintings was almost lost. American Gothic, Grant Wood’s ubiquitous vision of Midwestern farmers posing before their home, wedged its …
Issue: May-June 2005
Citizen Soldier
… Seth W. Moulton ’01, M.B.A.-M.P.P. ’11, must be the first person to have joined the U.S. Marines because he … Gomes. “Reverend Gomes talked a lot about the importance of service, and how it wasn’t enough just to believe in … Moulton remembers. “It was through spending a lot of time at Memorial Church and listening to him that I …
Issue: March-April 2014
Downloading Deafness
… Most of us by now have had problems communicating with an … headphone user who ignores our impatient repetitions of “Excuse me” at ever-increasing volume. Don’t expect that … get worse, as headphone listeners go from being deaf to the world to being simply deaf. The bright white iPod …
Issue: March-April 2006
Karin Öberg
… Growing up in Lutheran Sweden, Karin Öberg had no inkling that she would one … to observe a complex organic molecule in the freezing cloud of gas and dust surrounding a young star—or that she would … about “who we are, where we come from” and the origins of the universe that made her think, as she neared college …
Issue: January-February 2023
Harvard Football’s Star Punter Makes History
… Before the Harvard football team opened its 2021 season—its 147th— … a position not generally in the spotlight during this era of high-flying offenses: punter. First-team All-Ivy in 2018 and ’19 (the …
Issue: November-December 2021
Harry Elkins Widener
… Of the more than 3,000 books that Harry Elkins Widener, A.B. … is missing from his Memorial Library: a rare 1598 edition of Francis Bacon’s Essays. Too special to ship home separately with the other items he had acquired during a London book-buying …
Issue: May-June 2019
How We Eat Out Now
… Earlier this year, the Cajun-French bistro Café du Pays in Kendall Square began … at the site, channeling the enduring spirit now required of any Greater Boston independent restaurant during the … all the stops, just to make it,” says chef Tony Maws, owner of Craigie on Main (now serving family-style meals in its …
Issue: November-December 2020
Locking Down Crime?
… If a nation's crime rate is any measure of its gentility, the United States is getting downright civilized. From 1990 … crime--which for the FBI's statistical purposes includes offenses such as murder, rape, robbery, and arson--dropped …
Reforming International Finance
… Addressing global crises —pandemics, financial collapses, climate … to support geopolitical and economic stability, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, may not be the best models for future forms of governance. Understanding the origins of these …
Issue: November-December 2023
Prescription for Error?
… In recent years, safety recalls of widely prescribed drugs like the pain-killer Vioxx have sent an unsettling message to … critics believe the expanding financial influence of “big pharma” has compromised federal oversight of new …
Issue: September-October 2008
Lost Art
… The Harvard Dictionary of Music defined "improvisation" in 1969 as "[t]he art of performing music spontaneously, without the aid of manuscript, sketches, or memory...a phenomenon so …
Harvard's "Lady Di"
… know Diane Jellis, you may have seen her. It's hard to miss the tall blonde with the commanding air ever-present on the sidelines of "Senior Week," reunions, and Commencement: striding in … so successful, well before retirement age? Despite the surprise to everyone else, she says, her decision was three …
Time for Tapas
… dining at Dali Restaurant and Tapas Bar would be an out-of-the-ordinary experience came when we called to make … $18; large pitcher, seven to eight glasses, $34.) The menu offers more than 40 different varieties of these treats …
Issue: November-December 2004
Societal Doctor
… Can doctors teach the rest of us to follow a piece of advice from Hippocrates—"Help, or at least, do no harm" —when dealing with the environment? Eric Chivian '64, M.D. '68, hopes so. A …
Issue: March-April 2003