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"The Infinitude of the Private Man"
… himself from respectable mediocrity. He graduated in the exact middle of the 59-member Harvard class of 1821, his greatest distinction the dubious honor of being …
Issue: May-June 2003
At Home with Harvard: The Art of the Profile
… Profiles are one of Harvard Magazine ’s most often written … profiles of Harvard faculty and alumni, covering how they became who they are, their interests, what makes them … the admission of women, the Harvard-Radcliffe merger, the rise of women in the faculty ranks, Harvard’s first woman …
Art of the Hunt
… A Persian prince of antiquity possessed hunting equipment of often inescapable effectiveness—a trained cheetah. See the manuscript painting below. Because a cheetah is …
Issue: May-June 2005
"The Grandfather of Black Basketball"
… The matchup this Sunday between the Harvard and Howard men’s … century Harvard student and Howard alumnus named Edwin Bancroft Henderson. Known as “the Grandfather of Black Basketball,” Henderson learned the sport at a …
The Progress of the Disciplines
… For Harvard’s 375th anniversary, leading professors predict the future of their fields: Biology in This Century, by Pamela A. …
Issue: September-October 2011
Icon of the Life of the Mind
… sometimes, and call C.E.N. publicly and without apology the infernal old sinner and sham that he is," wrote William … A.B. 1846, LL.D. '87, "was the most influential progenitor of the humanities in American education and scholarship," writes James Turner '68, Ph.D. '75, professor of history at the University of Notre Dame, in his …
“The Genius of the Balafon”
… West Africa, Neba Solo, born Souleymane Traoré in 1969, is often called “the genius of the balafon,” says Ingrid T. Monson. So skilled a player, …
Issue: January-February 2006
In the Eye of the Storm
… Regularly the dismal news streams in from Japan. The "lost … seemingly invincible economy began to derail--shows no sign of ending. The high public-approval ratings for wavy-haired … number of full-time, entry-level positions has given rise to the so-called furiitaa ("freeter," an odd label …
Issue: November-December 2001
Nabob of the No-huddle
… The National Football League (NFL) has had only one head … matched by no other coach--was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. At the ceremony, ESPN's Chris … yet slain. I'll just lie down and bleed awhile, And I'll rise and fight again. "Eight or ten players came up and …
Issue: November-December 2001
The Plastic Earth
… Jerry Mitrovica is a solid-earth geophysicist, but the description is inapt. He spends much of his time demonstrating that the earth is not firm at … the sea level has fallen where the ice sheet melted, it rises everywhere else beyond that 2,000-kilometer boundary, …
Issue: September-October 2016
Conquest of the Air
… Wright's historic first flight lasted just 12 seconds. The Wright Flyer traveled 120 feet, a skip across the sand … on December 17, 1903, eventually improving to a distance of 852 feet and a time of 59 seconds. Yet on the last flight, with Wilbur at the …
Issue: May-June 2003
The Power of Patience
… Editor’s note: The Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching (HILT) … to ponder the following framing question: “In this time of disruption and innovation for universities, what are the … as well as the questions and speculations that arise from those observations. The time span is explicitly …
Issue: November-December 2013
The Poet of Old Age
… When poets die young, youthfulness comes to seem like the essence of their work, the thing they were born to write about. If … after Eliot’s masterpiece “The Waste Land.” Hall is surprised to realize that Eliot “was not being ignorant; he was …
Issue: January-February 2022
The Physics of the Familiar
… is familiar doesn’t mean you understand it. That is the common fallacy that all adults make—and no child ever … says Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan, England de Valpine professor of applied mathematics. Mahadevan enjoys explaining … ideas. Newly formed hot crust is buoyant, which is why it rises. As it surfaces, it begins to cool and becomes …
Issue: March-April 2008
Hertzberg of the New Yorker
… On a January evening in 1977, at the old New Yorker offices on West 43rd Street, a going-away … topics in his office, where stacks of books on the floor rise to desktop height. "He lives undergraduate hours," says …
Issue: January-February 2003