Montage
Faith through Film
The “Accidental Talmudist” on making Jewish movies
by Max J. Krupnick
Venerable, Valuable Volumes
With its muted hues and pine floorboards, the store resembles a medieval library with a blinking Apple iMac on the counter. Inventory at James...
Chairman of the Bored
Improbable as it may seem, James D. Watson—the co-discoverer (with Francis Crick) of the structure of DNA—has written a Book of...
"Poems Are Not Position Papers"
Porter University Professor Helen Vendler grew up with her mother’s poetry books, which “stopped with the Victorians.” It was...
The Presidents We Pick
James MacGregor Burns, Ph.D. ’47, Woodrow Wilson professor of government emeritus at Williams College, a distinguished scholar, gifted...
Unnerved by the Urge to Win
Paul Hoffman ’78 was a child chess prodigy and now, after a 25-year break from tournament chess, he has started playing again. He has...
Chapter & Verse
Editor’s note: “If anything can go wrong, it will,” officially identified as “Murphy’s Law” in our copy of...
The Actor Explores
In Moscow there are 200 theaters, and the drama students from Cambridge who study there can see plays every night in the company of impassioned...
by Craig Lambert
Off the Shelf
I’ll Drink to That: Beaujolais and the French Peasant Who Made It the World’s Most Popular Wine, by Rudolph Chelminski ’56...
A Poet's Warning
In June 1946, Harvard celebrated its long-awaited Victory Commencement. For the first time since the end of the Second World War, alumni and...
by Adam Kirsch
Chords from Radius
“Playing chamber music for a white, affluent audience that is experienced in this kind of music doesn’t light my fire nearly as much...