Arts & Culture

Explore Harvard’s vibrant arts scene—from campus exhibitions and theater to cultural analysis and literary reviews. Discover how creativity shapes the Harvard experience.

An open book with a film strip emerging, trailing popcorn and a dancer silhouette.

Readers Respond to Our Adaptations Survey

We asked people to share their favorite art adaptations. Here’s what they said.

<em>The City Square,</em> 1937, a scene design by Natalia Goncharova for <em>Le Coq d’Or</em>

Diaghilev and His Geniuses

The Harvard Theatre Collection opens an exhibition and hosts a symposium on Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.

by Craig Lambert

In Yup’ik lore, the crane—depicted in the mask above—connotes stealth, power, and insight. The human face on the bird’s belly represents its <em>yua,</em> or spirit—the part of the animal that understands, and can relate to, humans. The porcelain “teeth” that border the face are a reminder to use one’s innate gifts to good effect, or risk being consumed by them. The porcelain “bones” hanging from the wings ward off evil spirits; wooden rings represent this world and the spirit world.

Mnemonic Masks

Inspired by his Yup’ik heritage, Phillip Charette educates through his art.

by Elizabeth Gudrais

Chapter & Verse

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words

Agee as an aspiring writer at Harvard, cigarette and Dostoevsky's <em>The Posses

Vistas of Perfection

A profile of writer James Agee, at Harvard and beyond

by Adam Kirsch

Pardis Sabeti

Pardis Sabeti

For this systems biologist, the interaction of science and music is multiplicative.

Chasing Bogeys

A novel book on golf

Ancestral Influences

View images of Phillip Charette's masks alongside masks from the Smithsonian Institution holdings that inspired him.

Arts Administration in Challenging Times

Michael M. Kaiser, known for steering the Kennedy Center and other troubled arts organizations back to health, shares his secrets with a Harvard audience.

Year-round fresh air and sunlight were seen as curative in the early 1900s. Children at tuberculosis sanatoriums, including Wallum Lake (shown here), were sent outside barely clothed, even in winter.

A Scourge Remembered

A new film by G. Wayne Miller looks back to a time when tuberculosis gripped America.

by Elizabeth Gudrais

Chapter & Verse

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words