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.

Don’t Call Stephanie Pierce A Paleontologist

From competing in youth gymnastics to studying tetrapods, the Harvard curator has always chased her curiosity.

by Laurel M. Shugart

Profile of Broadway set designer Derek McLane

Set designer Derek McLane (Harvard ’80) has designed stages for "Grease," "Guys and Dolls," "The Pajama Game," and Pulitzer Prize-winning "I Am My Own Wife," and many other plays.

Chapter & Verse

Suzanne Ekman hopes someone can identify a source for the following line, possibly from a Mark Van Doren poem: “…but where were...

Gift Ideas from a Valentine's-Day Doubter

The book selections include titles from fiction, memoir, self-help/advice, cookbooks, travel guides, and poetry...

Vanished Acts

"Your wooden arm you hold outstretched to shake with passers-by." Three worthy books full of Harvard references have arrived...

"Flim-Flam Finance"

The stock market plummets. Credit is tight. Bankers quake. Then J.P. Morgan organizes a consortium of financial saviors to provide cash to banks...

Stirred, Shaken, and Sung

At the end of Pink Martini’s Carnegie Hall debut this past June, a conga line broke out in the audience and bounced its way up and down...

Off the Shelf

The Complete Fables of Jean de La Fontaine, translated by Norman R. Shapiro ’51, Ph.D. ’58 (University of Illinois, $80 cloth, $25...

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...