Mélanie Lamotte is an assistant professor of French at Tulane University. After completing her first book, under contract with Harvard University Press, she is undertaking a research project that examines the material life of the enslaved across the early modern French empire, thereby reconstructing the cultural, social, economic, and political experiences of slave communities. Join her to learn more about her work.
Cochineal, a tiny insect found on certain species of Oaxacan cacti, was harvested for millennia by Indigenous peoples to dye fabrics a vibrant red color. But following the European invasion of the Americas in the sixteenth century, it became a widely coveted, globally traded commodity that transformed textiles and art, and made Mexico a center for technological innovation. Cochineal: How Mexico Made the World See Red explores how this Indigenous technology changed the world, becoming an international symbol of power, while simultaneously disenfranchising its discoverers.
The Harvard University Native American Program (HUNAP) and the Harvard Art Museums present a lecture by author David Treuer.
David Treuer, an Ojibwe Indian, will offer a fresh and in-depth perspective on the current state of affairs for Native and Indigenous peoples in the Americas. Drawing from his experience growing up on the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota and as an accomplished academic, Treuer’s work includes both nonfiction and fiction.
Houghton Library, Quincy St. & Harvard St., Cambridge
The Spring 2022 George Parker Winship Lecture at Houghton Library will be given by Scholars at Risk and Harvard Library Fellow Binalakshmi Nepram. In 1949, Manipur—a southeast Asian nation state with a 2,000-year history—was forcibly “merged” with India. Still under martial law today, the history and culture of its Indigenous inhabitants have been suppressed through decades of state-sanctioned violence. In her lecture, "Documenting Indigenous Nations, War, and Peace: Discovering and Preserving the Stories, Struggles, and History of Manipur, Northeast India," Nepram will discuss efforts...
Join us for a discussion featuring leading activists and scholars working toward menstrual justice. The program will open the exhibition Out for Blood: Feminine Hygiene to Menstrual Equity.
Drawing from experience accumulated over 40 years of academic and professional trajectory on the question of landscape, as a university professor, director of the Landscape Observatory of Catalonia and ‘militant’ for landscape, Joan Nogué will reflect on the theory and practice of landscape today and into the future.
Professor Nogué defends an integral conception of landscape that considers both the tangible and intangible elements. Such conception highlights the geohistorical singularity of landscape –every landscape belongs to a specific space and time– while acknowledging...
Join Ben Sibson, a graduate student at Harvard in human evolutionary biology, for a conversation about how art can enhance our understanding of the evolution of human health. Looking at works of art installed in the University Study Gallery this semester for the undergraduate course Human Evolution and Human Health, Sibson will show how the objects provide useful information about the physical activities performed by people across time and space, as well as the foods they ate, the clothes they wore, and the spaces where they lived.
Manifest: Thirteen Colonies is a photographic project and journey through the repositories of African American material culture found in libraries, museums, and archives of the original thirteen English colonies. Conceived by photographer Wendel White, this project is a personal, selective reliquary of the remarkable evidence of Black agency and racial oppression stored in public and private collections.
In this program, White will discuss his approach to finding, selecting, and photographing artifacts—from rare singular objects, to more quotidian materials—and highlight their...
Join us for the second of two one-hour webinars exploring the legacy of Eileen Southern, author of “The Music of Black Americans: A History” and founder and editor of “The Black Perspective in Music.” In 1976, Eileen Southern (1920–2002) became the first African American woman tenured in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS). She was central in developing the Department of Afro-American Studies (now African and African American Studies), serving as an early chair, and was on the faculty of the Department of Music, where she taught courses on Black music and Renaissance musical...
Online or at Harvard Kennedy School, 79 John F. Kennedy St., Cambridge,
Join us for a two-day convening to celebrate the bold life and continuing legacy of William Monroe Trotter- a Harvard University alumnus who advanced the cause of civil rights and social justice. The convening will to introduce attendees to Trotter’s legacy and provide an opportunity for academics, activists and artists to consider how Trotter’s radical activism can address critical issues facing us today, and offer opportunities to hear from distinguished professors and practitioners.
Human evolutionary scholars have long assumed that the earliest stone tools were made by members of the genus Homo, approximately 2.4–2.3 million years ago, and that this technological development was directly linked to climate change and the spread of savannah grasslands. In the last decade, fieldwork in West Turkana, Kenya, has revealed evidence of much earlier technological behavior.
Sonia Harmand will discuss the discovery of stone tools in a 3.3-million-year-old archaeological site in Kenya known as Lomekwi 3. She will show how this discovery is reshaping our...
Join Egyptologist Jen Thum for an engaging look at the results of new research on the tomb relief of Ptahshepses Impy, an Egyptian official. Thum will explore the implications of this research, including possible changes to the display of the relief to indicate missing portions.
The jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has been profoundly influential in the region since its inception in 1979. Since 2017, the Court has built up case law on the right to health, addressing an array of issues including: access to emergency care, HIV treatment, and health services for prison inmates; informed consent in physical and mental health care; and State duties to regulate private health providers and insurance companies.
This event will be a moderated panel discussion among scholars who have been directly involved as experts in one or more of...
The prevalence of “fake news” in the media and across social networks has received widespread scrutiny, while the implications of fake news on equity for the U.S. Latino communities has received less attention. U.S. Latino communities have been targeted by misinformation campaigns and are particularly vulnerable to its harms.
This conversation, moderated by C. Yulin Cruz Soto, will explore the intersections between fake news, freedom of speech, and equitable access to information. Speakers include Jorge Ramos, a Mexican-American journalist, author, and Univision news anchor...
One of ancient Egypt's high points of cultural, intellectual, and social life was the period referred to as the Middle Kingdom (2030–1650 BCE). The ancient city of Thebes (modern Luxor) was the Egyptian capital during the early stage of this period and the site of multiple funerary temples and tombs. In this lecture, Egyptologist Antonio Morales will discuss an international and multidisciplinary project that is conducting archaeological, historical, and cultural research, as well as conservation work, in Deir el-Bahari and Asasif—two funerary areas at Thebes—to better understand the...
Livestreamed or at Weld Hill Research Building, 1300 Centre St., Boston
The Arnold Arboretum was founded on Friday, March 29, 1872. Exactly 150 years later, we invite you to join Lisa Pearson, Head of the Arboretum Library and Archives, for a special sesquicentennial lecture! Pearson will discuss the earliest benefactors of the Arboretum, the events surrounding the founding of the institution, and the busy first two decades during which the infrastructure and living collections were installed on the grounds.
This event will also be livestreamed to YouTube. To sign up for the virtual livestream instead,...
Experience an epic day of archaeological events with the family! Activities are scattered across two museums so explore Native North American, Central American, Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Mediterranean archaeology. Throw a spear with a spear thrower. Talk to student archaeologists who excavate in locations around the world.
Erica Chenoweth is a Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute and the Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard Kennedy School. In this lecture, Chenoweth will present their ongoing research for their next book, written with Zoe Marks. Titled, “Rebel XX: Women on the Frontlines of Revolution,” the book is about the impact of women’s participation on revolutionary outcomes.
Erica Chenoweth is a Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute and the Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard Kennedy School. In this lecture, Chenoweth will present their ongoing research for their next book, written with Zoe Marks. Titled, “Rebel XX: Women on the Frontlines of Revolution,” the book is about the impact of women’s participation on revolutionary outcomes.
Online or at Weld Hill Research Building, 1300 Centre St., Boston
Just in time for the Arboretum's sesquicentennial and the bicentennial of the birth of pioneering landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, authors Rolf Diamant and Ethan Carr will speak on their recent book, "Olmsted and Yosemite: Civil War, Abolition, and the National Park Idea." They'll offer a new interpretation of how the American park—urban and national—came to figure so prominently in our cultural identity, and why this more complex and inclusive story deserves to be told.