Events

    2024 Mar 26

    Lauret Savoy, “Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape”

    6:30pm to 8:00pm

    Location: 

    Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall Piper Auditorium

    Sand and stone are Earth’s fragmented memory. Each of us is also a landscape inscribed by memory and loss. Lauret Savoy’s Trace interweaves journeys and historical inquiry across a continent and time to explore how this country’s still unfolding history has marked the land, this society, and her. From twisted terrain within the San Andreas Fault zone to a South Carolina plantation, from national parks to burial grounds to names on the land, from “Indian Territory” and the U.S.-Mexico Border to the U.S. capital, Trace grapples with a searing national history to reveal the often-unvoiced...

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    2023 Dec 12

    On Narrative, Violence, and Migration

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Radcliffe Institute—Online

    Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi will present a lecture on the intersections of migration, narrative, and violence based on her seminal craft essay on the works of Yiyun Li, James Baldwin, and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.

    Learn more and RSVP.

    2023 Dec 08

    Water Stories with the Artist Alia Farid

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    Johnson-Kulukundis Family Gallery, Byerly Hall, 8 Garden St., Cambridge

    Join the artist Alia Farid for a tour of Water Stories: River Goddesses, Ancestral Rites, and Climate Crisis and a discussion of the artwork Chibayish, 2023. Chibayish is part of a larger group of works that Farid has developed since 2018, focused on the impact of extractive industries on southern Iraq and Kuwait's ecological and social fabric.

    ...

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    2023 Nov 30

    Gallery Talk: Activation of Moholy-Nagy’s Light Prop for an Electric Stage

    12:30pm to 1:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    Our galleries are full of stories—this series of talks gives visitors a chance to hear the best ones! The talks highlight new works on view, take a fresh look at old favorites, investigate artists’ materials and techniques, and reveal the latest discoveries by curators, conservators, fellows, visiting artists, technologists, and other contributors.

    Join staff as they discuss and activate this experimental device from 1930 by László Moholy-Nagy, a Bauhaus pioneer.

    ...

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    2023 Nov 29

    Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Radcliffe Institute—Online

    A presentation from 2023–2024 Evelyn Green Davis Fellow Francesca Wade

    At Radcliffe, Wade is completing her second book, "Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife," a new biography of Stein told through the story of her posthumous legacy. She will also begin work on a new project, exploring the intersecting lives and work of several women poets and activists in 1970s New York.

    ...

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    2023 Nov 18

    Objects of Addiction: Collecting Chinese Art—Past, Present, and Future

    2:00pm to 3:30pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    Why do the Harvard Art Museums have a collection of Chinese art? In conjunction with the exhibition Objects of Addiction: Opium, Empire, and the Chinese Art Trade, curators and specialists will explore early collecting of Chinese art in Massachusetts, historical interpretations of cultural heritage, and how contemporary museum collecting practices have changed and will continue to change in the future.

    ...

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    2023 Nov 16

    Gallery Talk—Objects of Addiction: Opium, Empire, and the Chinese Art Trade

    12:30pm to 1:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    Join curator Sarah Laursen for a closer look at artworks in the exhibition Objects of Addiction: Opium, Empire, and the Chinese Art Trade (September 15, 2023–January 14, 2024). The exhibition explores the entwined histories of the opium trade and the Chinese art market between the late 18th and early 20th centuries. Laursen will share how these two commodities—acquired through both legal and illicit means—have had a lasting impact on the global economy, public health, immigration law, education, and the arts.

    ...

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    2023 Nov 15

    Gallery Talk: A Tale of Two Vessels

    12:30pm to 1:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    Join curatorial assistant Casey Monahan to explore how two 19th-century ceramic vessels tell different stories of the United States. One vessel is made by enslaved potter David Drake and shows us both the artist’s agency and the lack of it. The other vessel is a presentation vase created for the U.S. centennial; it includes narrative imagery intended to evoke a shared American identity after the Civil War.

    ...

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    2023 Nov 09

    Pier Vittorio Aureli, "The Longhouse"

    6:30pm to 8:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium (48 Quincy St., Cambridge)

    The lecture presents Dogma's research of the longhouse, the linear, long, and narrow habitation typology that existed and still exists in many parts of the world, including South-East Asia, Europe, and North America. While there are numerous scholarly investigations of specific cases of longhouses, a comparative study of this ubiquitous type of habitation is missing. This lacuna is both surprising and understandable. It is surprising because the longhouse is among the most ubiquitous forms of pre-modern dwellings. Alternatively, it is comprehensible because the longhouse represents a...

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    2023 Nov 08

    PON Live! Book Talk: Resolving the Parthenon Marbles Dispute

    12:00pm to 1:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Law School, Program on Negotiation—Online

    The dispute between Greece and the British Museum over the Parthenon Marbles has been ongoing for years. It relates to the ancient sculptures taken from the Parthenon and other buildings on the Acropolis by men working for British Ambassador Lord Elgin in the early 19th century. Greece wants them back, and has made restitution a central part of the country’s international cultural policy since the 1980s, but the British Museum and the UK government have continually rebuffed Greek demands.

    The Parthenon Marbles Dispute: Heritage, Law, Politics, by Alexander Herman,...

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    2023 Nov 03

    Responsibility and Repair: Legacies of Indigenous Enslavement, Indenture, and Colonization at Harvard and Beyond

    9:00am to 5:00pm

    Location: 

    Online or at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Knafel Center, 10 Garden St., Cambridge

    This conference, “Responsibility and Repair”—led by Harvard University’s Native American Program in collaboration with Harvard Radcliffe Institute—will bring together Native and university leaders to advance a national dialogue, expand research, and establish and deepen partnerships with Indigenous communities. Using the landmark Report of the Presidential Committee on Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery (2022) as a starting point, the conference and its participants—activists, scholars, Native leaders, tribal historians, and others—will explore the responsibility of...

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    2023 Nov 02

    Responsibility and Repair: Legacies of Indigenous Enslavement, Indenture, and Colonization at Harvard and Beyond Evening Event

    7:30pm

    Location: 

    Online or at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Knafel Center, 10 Garden St., Cambridge

    This conference, “Responsibility and Repair”—led by Harvard University’s Native American Program in collaboration with Harvard Radcliffe Institute—will bring together Native and university leaders to advance a national dialogue, expand research, and establish and deepen partnerships with Indigenous communities. Using the landmark Report of the Presidential Committee on Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery (2022) as a starting point, the conference and its participants—activists, scholars, Native leaders, tribal historians, and others—will explore the responsibility of...

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    2023 Oct 26

    Fall 2023 Hofer Lecture | Writing the History of Bookbinding: The Suave Mechanicals Essay Series

    5:30pm to 7:00pm

    Location: 

    Houghton Library, Harvard Yard, Cambridge

    Houghton Library welcomes conservator Julia Miller, editor of the Suave Mechanicals history of bookbinding series, who will give this fall's Philip and Frances Hofer Lecture on the Art of the Book.

    The lecture covers the inception of Suave Mechanicals, its goals and challenges, with a brief description of how the series is managed—the nuts and bolts of editing and publishing nine volumes of essays over twelve years (2013–2025). Miller describes the series' impact on research and writing on the history of bookbinding and the history of the book, as viewed through its broad...

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    2023 Oct 25

    Gender Underground: A Trans History of Do-It-Yourself

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Radcliffe Institute—Online

    Jules Gill-Peterson is an associate professor of history at Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of Histories of the Transgender Child, winner of a Lambda Literary Award and the Children’s Literature Association Book Award; the editor of The Conversation on Gender Diversity; and a general coeditor of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly.

    In this lecture, Gill-Peterson will speak about her next book project, "Gender Underground: A Trans History of DIY," which reimagines post-WWII American trans history through the lens of do-it-yourself (DIY)...

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    2023 Oct 19

    Astronomy is for All of Us: Celebrating Women Astrophysicists and the History of Cosmic Discovery

    5:00pm to 8:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard College Observatory Plate Stacks, 47 Concord Ave., Cambridge

    During Massachusetts STEM Week, join us for an evening celebrating remarkable women in astronomy from across the galaxy. Enjoy a dynamic lecture on exciting applications of astronomy, explore a captivating exhibition in the Great Refractor, engage in family-friendly STEM activities, and cap off the night with fall refreshments and stargazing.

    • Remarks from Professor Lisa Kewley, Director, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
    • Welcome remarks from Lt. Governor Kim Driscoll, highlighting...
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    2023 Oct 18

    And Then They Vanished

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Radcliffe Institute—Online

    Oscar Lopez is a Mexican writer and freelance journalist living in Mexico, where he covers violence, politics, and human rights. Prior to joining the Times, Lopez was Americas correspondent for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, where he covered LGBT+ rights in the United States and Latin America. As a freelancer, he has reported in more than a dozen countries for the likes of the Guardian, Time, the Times of London, the Washington Post, and many more.

    In this lecture, Lopez will examine the phenomenon of forced disappearance in Mexico. Using the shocking abduction of 43 students...

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