Humanities

Explore the intellectual and creative pursuits within philosophy, history, literature, and the fine arts at Harvard.

A photograph of the inside of the From Iran exhibit at the Harvard Peabody Museum

At Harvard’s Peabody Museum, Photos Reimagine Iranian History

Artist Azadeh Akhlaghi reconstructs moments of Iranian political upheaval in a series of meticulously staged images.

by Olivia Farrar

The slave trade shipped Africans to the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia; where victims ended up depended in part on which trade route their captors used. In total, the four routes ferried nearly 20 million people out of Africa.

Slavery’s Sway

Interdisciplinary economist Nathan Nunn explores the problem of African underdevelopment by drawing on—and unearthing—historical data about slavery.

by Paul Gleason

Tools of Stasi spying: jars containing dust cloths used to capture the body scent of people the Stasi was trying to track; a deer statuette with a camera hidden inside; a Swiss-made Tessina 35-mm miniature camera.

The Seductions of Snooping

Historian of science Kristie Macrakis's book on spying techniques used by communist East Germany's secret police.

by Elizabeth Gudrais

Maxim Gorky

Brief life of a great enigma, the Russian author and political propagandist born Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov: 1868-1936...

by Donald Fanger

The main house at Dumbarton Oaks.

Home of the Humanities

At a serene Harvard outpost, scholars find fertile ground for Byzantine, pre-Columbian, and landscape studies...

by Elizabeth Gudrais

The Slave Rebellion in New York City

Historian Jill Lepore explores the lives of slaves during an alleged eighteenth century uprising

by Jonathan Shaw

Who Built the Pyramids?

Not slaves. Archaeologist Mark Lehner, digging deeper, discovers a city of privileged workers.

by Jonathan Shaw

Skulls of a Neanderthal from Amud (not pictured) and an early human from Skhul show morphological differences between the two groups.

Human origins driven by technological and cultural revolutions

Ofer Bar-Yosef argues that cultural and technological revolutions have been more important than biological ones during the past 100, 000 years.

by Jonathan Shaw

Thomas Forrest Kelly teaches about “First NIghts”—musical premieres

A look at Thomas Forrest Kelly’s Harvard Core course on five musical premieres