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.

Three people pose together, one holding a small trophy, with playful attire and expressions.

Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Toasts, Roasts Michael Keaton

The Batman actor was “encouraged as hell” by the students around him during the 2026 Man of the Year festivities.

by Schuyler Velasco

Distinguished couple: Professor Louis Agassiz, ever the scientist, ever the creationist, despite the evidence for Darwinian evolution, and Elizabeth (Cary) Agassiz, who emerges impressively from the last chapter of this new biography

Christoph Irmscher biography of Louis Agassiz reviewed by James Hanken

The fruitful, flawed Louis Agassiz

by James Hanken

Alexander Wilson’s colorful craft: a fanciful collection of waterfowl, from Harvard’s archives

Recent books by E.O. Wilson, Ezekiel Emanuel, Elliott Abrams, and more

Recent books with Harvard connections

Filmmaker Julie Mallozzi intercut scenes of Lalita Bharvani at home, tending to her garden or doing yoga, with startling images of x-rays and medical tests, including an echocardiogram. One poignant scene shows Bharvani visiting her elderly mother in India.

Julie Mallozzi's film Indelible Lalita tells a medical and spiritual story

Indelible Lalita’s saga of pigmentation and personhood

by Laura Levis

Independence Day, 1942: the first field test of napalm, behind Harvard Business School

History of napalm origins at Harvard

A new book traces napalm's invention to Harvard—and its evolution from heroic discovery to pariah

The writer at work: Soman Chainani in his Brooklyn apartment

Soman Chainani's new fantasy-adventure novel is a fairy tale for today’s world

A fairy tale for today’s world

Compact apartments are proliferating in the United States. Here, artist’s renderings show how the MMNY micro-units, prefabricated in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and shipped to the East 27th Street building site, will be stacked atop each other like Lego bricks.

“My Micro NY” units were created by three Harvard GSD alumni

With micro-units, three GSD alumni hope to revolutionize apartment living in New York City.

by Laura Levis

This posthumous 2007 portrait, by Stephen Coit ’71, M.B.A. ’77, was commissioned by the Harvard Foundation four decades after Monro left Harvard for Miles College.

John U. Monro, activist educator, by Toni-Lee Capossela

Brief life of an uncommon educator: 1912-2002

by Toni-Lee Capossela

Nancy Sinsabaugh and Salmagundi proprietor Jessen Fitzpatrick display the “ladies top hat.”

New top hats for ladies at Harvard Commencement

New top hats for women appear at Commencement

by Nell Porter-Brown

PARK

Newest restaurants in Harvard Square include nods to the past

Something old, something new

by Nell Porter-Brown

Winter aerial views of the Harvard Art Museums project; the glass crown joins old and new sections.

Campus construction at Harvard focus on the Fogg Art Museum

A sidewalk-superintendent’s report