Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge
Please join the Harvard Graduate School of Design for the Sylvester Baxter Lecture featuring a discussion by landscape architects Ron Henderson, Julian Raxworthy, and Douglas Reed, and moderated by Danielle Choi.
In this lecture, David Altshuler, the chief science director of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, discusses the promise of precision medicine and gene-editing therapy to potentially cure serious genetic illnesses.
The Tasmanian devil is the world’s largest living carnivorous marsupial. This species was once abundant in Australia, but today is only found on the island of Tasmania, where it is at risk of extinction due to two rare, contagious cancers. Mark Margres will discuss how this species is adapting in response to these diseases, whether there is any hope for the Tasmanian devil to avoid extinction, and what can be learned about human cancers from studying the disease in other animal species.
Join the Radcliffe Institute for a poetry reading and discussion with Clint Smith.
Clint Smith is a doctoral candidate at Harvard University and an Emerson Fellow at New America. He has received fellowships from the Art For Justice Fund, Cave Canem, and the National Science Foundation, while his writing has been published in the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, Poetry Magazine, the Paris Review, and elsewhere. His first full-length collection of poetry, Counting Descent, was published in 2016. It won the 2017...
As part of the Harvard Art Museums' opening celebration for Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection, SOAS University of London art history professor Timon Screech will present "Into the Kaleidoscope: Painting in Edo Japan."
Tickets are required for the lecture and may be acquired in person, by phone, or online for a small fee through the Harvard Box Office. Limit of two tickets per person.
Egypt’s recorded history spans six thousand years and is therefore one of the longest and best known in the world. Today, Egyptians practice several religious, artistic, and social traditions that can be traced to ancient Egypt, demonstrating the power and longevity of cultural memory. Drawing on research in archaeology, Egyptian art, writing, and culture, Fayza Haikal will examine Egyptian society’s cultural expressions from antiquity to the present, focusing on language, spirituality, superstitions, funerary traditions, and folklore.
Be among the first to see over 120 works included in the Harvard Art Museums' latest show, which celebrates the rich visual culture of Japan's early modern era. The galleries are open late, and admission is free for...
Davis Center, Knafel Building, Room K262, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge
Moscow writer Lev Rubinstein will read from his work and engage in a wide-ranging conversation in a special Davis Center seminar.
Rubinstein exemplifies a striking aesthetic response to life in repressive times, one that emphasizes the artist’s freedom of expression and the power of humor in the face of lies. He has won multiple prizes at home and abroad and has a readiness to push at the boundaries of literary norms. Author of more than a dozen books in Russian, Rubinstein has been more active as an essayist since the start of the 2000s. He has also emerged as a public figure...
As a Radcliffe fellow, Anthony Romero (RI '20) is working on a multimedia research and visual art project that includes a collection of related but discrete works which attempt to articulate how indigenous populations, under European colonial rule in Australia, South Asia, and the United States, were controlled through the criminalization and legislating of native sound and music practices. Taken together, these histories reveal how carceral and criminalizing strategies sowed the seeds for the ongoing over-policing of black and brown communities.
The social and environmental values underlying artisanal chocolate production have become increasingly important in its marketing. Good taste is paramount, of course, but how does one measure "social goodness," and what additional value does it add for the consumer? Chocolate makers’ interests often diverge from those of cacao producers, and industry stakeholders have not clearly addressed these concerns. Carla Martin will examine the cacao-chocolate industry and highlight the often conflicting goals that can create gaps in social and environmental responsibility.
During her fellowship, Ayodele Casel (RI '20) is working on Diary of a Tap Dancer, a theatrical work positioning tap dance as the driving force of the narrative. This project aims to create a fuller and more accurate picture of the legacy of the art form by centering the voices of its unnamed women within a broader historical context. Diary explores shared themes of hoofers past and present with stories illuminating the struggle and joy of expression, communication, the evolution of jazz music, gender inequality, and the personal and culturally devastating implications for women...
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden St., Cambridge
From Botox to bionic limbs, the human body is more upgradable than ever. But how much can we alter and still be human? The award-winning documentary Fixed: The Science/Fiction of Human Enhancement explores the social impact of human biotechnologies. Fixed rethinks “disability” and “normalcy” by exploring technologies that promise to change our bodies and minds forever. Join us for a discussion about the ethics of gene editing and disability.
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium, 48 Quincy St., Cambridge
Please join us for the Frederick Law Olmsted Lecture delivered by landscape architect Günther Vogt. Vogt's lecture will also mark the opening of the exhibition Günther Vogt:First the Forests, which is on view in the Druker Design Gallery from January 21–March 8, 2020. A reception in the gallery will take place immediately following the lecture.
What is the relevant scale for operating with the landscape of the city?
Since the Industrial Revolution at the latest, humans have become the determining factor for global ecosystems. This fact becomes...
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium, 48 Quincy St., Cambridge
Throughout its history, Taiwan has been the laboratory for architectural experiments, or more precisely, the exclaves of all architectural movements and the -isms. It was the last frontier for southern style Chinese architecture, the experimental field for Japanese young architects' endeavors, the perpetual battle ground for “Contemporary Chinese” versus “Traditional Taiwanese”, the restless landscape for postmodernism and its two non-formal counterparts, critical regionalism (Tzonis, Alexander & Liane Lefaivre / Kenneth Frampton) and dirty realism (Lefaivre, L. / Jameson, F.), and...
Fellow Jen Thum explores the basics of ancient Egyptian representation, including why their bodies seem to "walk like an Egyptian."
Free with museum admission. Gallery talks are limited to 15 people and tickets are required. Ten minutes before each talk, tickets will become available at the admissions desk.
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
Xenotransplantation is a promising strategy to address the shortage of organs for human transplantation, though concerns about pig-to-human immunological compatibility and the risk of cross-species transmission of porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs) have impeded the clinical application of this approach. In this lecture, Luhan Yang, cofounder and chief scientific officer of eGenesis will explain how CRISPR is being used to create pigs with advanced immunological modifications to address immunological and functional compatibility issues.
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
Chanan Tigay is an award-winning journalist and nonfiction writer who has covered the Middle East, 9/11, and the United Nations for such outlets as AFP, the Atlantic, GQ, and the New Yorker. In this lecture, Tigay will talk about his first book, The Lost Book of Moses: The Hunt for the World’s Oldest Bible, which tells the story of the oldest Bible in the world, how its outing as a fraud led to a scandalous death, and why archaeologists now believe it was real—if only they could find it. In addition to the story of this controversial Bible, Tigay will speak about his own hunt for the...
Online webcast from The Forum at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Nearly 40,000 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S. in 2017 -- the most in 20 years. And while mass shootings grab headlines, they account for a small part of gun-related murders in the country. Urban gun violence remains a tremendous -- and too often overlooked -- burden on underserved communities. And suicides persist as accounting for the majority of U.S. gun deaths. As the seventh anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting approaches, this Forum event will examine contrasting facets of gun violence in America. Seeking to move the discussion past...
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge,
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a deeply interconnected ecosystem of billions of devices and systems that are transforming commerce, science, and society. IoT technologies can be used to disrupt, exploit, bias, bully, and intrude as well as to make our lives safer, more efficient, and more convenient. Join Francine Berman, Edward P. Hamilton Distinguished Professor in Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in an exploration of the larger social and environmental ecosystem needed to develop an IoT that maximizes benefits, minimizes risk, and promotes individual protections...
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
In this lecture, award-winning Nina McConigley, author of the short-story collection Cowboys and East Indians, will discuss her upcoming novel titled “The Call of Migratory Things.” With the landscape of the American West as the framework of this different kind of pioneer narrative, the novel considers how race, immigration, colonialism, post-frontier America, motherhood and fertility, and place intersect.