Humanities

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

A speaker gestures while presenting at a podium with Harvard Radcliffe Institute branding.

Ken Burns on America’s Unfinished Revolution

At Radcliffe, the filmmaker joined Harvard historians to discuss what the nation’s founding means today.

by Lydialyle Gibson

Fernando Zóbel-Montojo

Brief life of an abstract painter: 1924-1984

by Felipe Pereda

Illustration of book like a sinking ship, emblematic of problems in the humanities

Humanists All

What is lost in the precipitous decline of the arts and humanities

by James Engell

liriodendron tulipifera of Eastern North America and liriodendron chinense of Eastern Asia

The Power of Plants

Exploring the “plant humanities” at Harvard’s Dumbarton Oaks

by Jonathan Shaw

George Reisner, 1924

George Reisner

Brief life of a pioneering Egyptologist: 1867-1942

by Peter Der Manuelian

Photograph of Milman Parry in Paris, circa 1925-1928

Milman Parry

Brief life of a Homeric scholar with a big idea: 1902-1935

by Robert Kanigel

The seven 2022 Harvard Horzions scholars

Harvard Horizons Spotlights Seven Scholars

Ph.D. students discuss subjects from aliens to infrastructural aesthetics.

by Jacob Sweet

Being Alive Together

Stephen Sondheim, Omicron, and the Power of Theater

by Robin Bernstein

Portrait of Adamantios Korais on a 100 drachmas banknote, 1978

Adamantios Korais

Brief life of a leader of the Greek Enlightenment: 1748-1833

by Panagiotis Roilos

Portrait of Donald Hall 2014

The Poet of Old Age

Donald Hall, chronicler of life

by Adam Kirsch

Composite illustration of African American poets Phillis Wheatley, Melvin B. Tolson, Dudley Randall, Gwendolyn Brooks, Yusef Komunyakaa, Paul Laurence Dunbar

Critique and Joy

Kevin Young’s anthology of African American poetry, from Phillis Wheatley to hip hop

by Elisa New