This is the third lecture in the Arnold Arboretum's 2021 Director's Lecture Series. Tiya Miles takes up the pecan tree as inspiration for exploring the meaning of trees in the lives of enslaved African Americans. Using a family heirloom, slave narratives, oral histories, and missionary records, her talk underscores the importance of trees in the Black experience of captivity and resistance, ultimately revealing the centrality of the natural world to Black, and indeed human, survival.

...

Design Impact Vol. 2: Straight-Up Talk: Homelessness – Ethics / Policy / Action, sponsored by the Harvard Graduate School of Design Alumni Council, will be a direct, real-talk dialogue on homelessness in the United States that explores the myriad causes of rising homelessness and innovative solutions to eradicate it. It will consist of 3 distinct panels followed by a summary dialogue. The panels will be prefaced by keynote remarks from Binyamin Appelbaum, lead writer on business and economics for the Editorial Board of The New York Times.

...

Celebrate the glamour, labor, humor, and discoveries of archaeology at Harvard. Join student archaeologists as they share their experience with an Irish castle, a shaft tomb in western Mexico, monuments on the Giza plateau in Egypt and drones used to study El-Kurru in ancient Nubia, among other locations. Place a friendly wager on an atlatl (spear throwing) demonstration, observe chew marks on bones from the Zooarchaeology Lab and experience a virtual-reality view of the Great Sphinx.

...

In this half-day virtual symposium, leading practitioners and scholars from three cities, Washington, DC, Detroit, and Boston, will explore efforts to bring equitable development to their communities and outline how they are responding to current challenges. The presentations and discussions will help students, scholars, community leaders, public officials, and others identify innovative strategies and successful approaches to advancing social justice in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.

Co-sponsored by the Joint Center for Housing...

The 2019 Black in Design conference, “Black Futurism: Creating a More Equitable Future” explores pathways to liberation through a design lens, considering the historical past and present structural oppression of black and brown communities locally and internationally. The conference will demonstrate how designers, creatives, organizers, educators, and policymakers are imagining more sustainable and equitable futures for black and brown bodies. The conference will lead discussions and exhibitions on the intersection of black futurism and design, contending with the role of the radical...

This conference will explore the ways in which contemporary notions of disability are linked to concepts of citizenship and belonging. Leaders in advocacy, education, medicine, and politics will consider how ideas of community at the local, national, and international levels affect the understanding of and policies related to disability—and how this has manifested itself, in particular, in higher education.

...

One hundred years after his birth, the prolific work of Roman architect Bruno Zevi continues to engage current problems in theory and criticism, and deserves to be revisited. From the publication of Towards an Organic Architecture, in 1945, to his monograph on Erik Gunnar Asplund published the very year of his death in 2000, many of his books have had an electrifying effect on architects and historians. Active as educator and as political activist, he was an engaged, charismatic...

This symposium considers discourse on contemporary issues of design practice in two parts: the external pressures of economic, environmental, and political systems, and internal forces of tools, techniques, and strategies for design. Addressing the multifaceted nature of the profession, we will explore themes for the design of practice, such as work and labor, tools and technology, and ethics and agency. The symposium highlights potential avenues for the growth and constitution of...

The Mahindra Humanities Center and the Office of the President at Harvard present the Tanner Lectures on Human Values: Bryan... Read more about Social Justice Action: How We Change the World

Join us for a screening of Deepa Mehta’s Earth (1998; 110 min.), the third and final film in her acclaimed Elemental trilogy.... Read more about Film: Earth

Jennifer Bornstein RI’15 is an internationally exhibited artist who works in diverse media, including video, 16-millimeter film, sculpture,... Read more about Feminist Archaeology: Exhibition Opening Talk with Jennifer Bornstein

Michael Ondaatje is the author of five novels, a memoir, a nonfiction book on film, and several books of poetry. His novel The... Read more about Writers Speak: Michael Ondaatje in conversation with Claire Messud

This symposium brings together international experts on 17th-century Dutch drawings in honor of George S. Abrams (Harvard... Read more about Dutch Drawings on the Horizon: A Day of Talks in Honor of George S. Abrams

... Read more about The Environment Forum at the Mahindra Center presents Prasenjit Duara (Duke University), “Spiritual Ecologies: Sustainability and Transcendence in Contemporary Asia”

The two-day symposium will include panel discussions and scholarly presentations that showcase new research on Pei’s manifold contributions to the built environment. Notable alumni from Pei’s office, including William Pedersen, will discuss the emergence of a new kind of architectural practice in the postwar era.... Read more about Rethinking Pei: A Centenary Symposium