David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard—Online
In the months prior to the 2021 presidential election, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega arrested or barred all his main rivals, establishing a level of autocracy not seen since the 1970s. How did Nicaragua plunge this far into dictatorship? What are the prospects for re-democratization?
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian—Online
In December 2019, the bright red supergiant in the shoulder of the Orion constellation became dimmer. By February 2020, Betelgeuse was historically dim – the faintest the star had ever been in more than a century! Not only did dimming distort the appearance of Orion, but it raised fears that the star was preparing to explode as a supernova. Astronomers using telescopes on the ground and in space followed the star’s behavior and are beginning to understand what caused this extraordinary event. Astronomer Andrea Dupree will delve into the most recent observations and reveal the events that...
French painter Jean Frédéric Bazille's Summer Scene is one of the most iconic—and most enigmatic—paintings in the Harvard Art Museums collections. Join curator A. Cassandra Albinson as she traces this work's history—from its making and its reception during Bazille's lifetime to the painting’s final journey from France to Cambridge, in the summer of 1937.
The final installment in the summer series of Virtual Radcliffe Book Talks will feature a discussion of Our Bodies, Ourselves, first published in 1971. This event is organized in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the book’s first edition and in connection with the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective Records housed in the Schlesinger Library. The event will also include audience Q&A.
In this talk, Ph.D. candidate Kéla Jackson discusses the role of music, color, and interiority in Louis Delsarte’s 1995 print Unity, made during the artist’s residency at the Brandywine Workshop and Archives. Founded in Philadelphia in 1972 by Allan L. Edmunds, the workshop has supported generations of artists by fostering a deep sense of collective education and art making, foregrounding the “fresh, human and personal” aspects of art and the power of improvisation.
The third installment of the Virtual Radcliffe Book Talks will feature Daniel Carpenter, author of Democracy by Petition: Popular Politics in Transformation, 1790–1870 (Harvard University Press, 2021). Carpenter is the faculty director of the social sciences at Harvard Radcliffe Institute and the Allie S. Freed Professor of Government in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Carpenter's reading will be followed by a discussion with Nikki M. Taylor, professor of history and chair of the Department of History at Howard University. The event will also include an...
The second installment of the Virtual Radcliffe Book Talks will feature Tiya Miles, author of All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake (Random House, 2021). Miles is a Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute and a professor of history in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Miles's reading will be followed by a discussion with Tomiko Brown-Nagin, dean of Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, professor of history in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and...
Curator Joachim Homann will discuss the themes, techniques, and function of Dutch drawings with preeminent collector George Abrams (Harvard College ’54, Harvard Law ’57), who is internationally regarded as the preeminent collector of historical Dutch drawings.
The first installment in the summer series of Virtual Radcliffe Book Talks will feature Clint Smith, author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America (Little, Brown and Company, 2021) and staff writer at The Atlantic. Smith's reading will be followed by a discussion with Kyera Singleton, executive director of the Royall House and Slave Quarters, in Medford, Massachusetts. The event will also include audience Q and A.
A close look at Edward Hopper’s watercolors depicting Cape Cod, including the masterpiece Highland Light (1930) and a new acquisition, reveals a landscape in transformation.
Led by: Joachim Homann, Maida and George Abrams Curator of Drawings, Division of European and American Art
Cecilia Zhou ’22 looks at the historically specific ways humor is deployed in a few serious works of art from across time that may make you laugh out loud (LOL). She’ll focus on the 1640s painting The Drunken Silenus, by Francesco Fracanzano; the 18th-century scroll painting Puppies with Hotei and Jittoku, by Nagasawa Rosetsu; and a...
Egyptian makers were skilled at using only a few materials to create a rich variety of textiles, but we rarely have detailed information about the people who made them or their artistic processes.
Join conservation fellow Julie Wertz to explore what close looking, microscopy, and micro-analytical techniques can teach us about the materials and methods these unknown makers used to create beautiful and functional art objects.
Join us for a special session in which Professor David Moss, author of the acclaimed book “Democracy: A Case Study,” makes history come alive with an audience-driven discussion of Martin Luther King Jr. and the struggle for voting rights. Professor Moss will bring his wildly popular approach to teaching the history of American democracy to a new stage in this public forum hosted by Harvard Business School.
So please bring your ideas, and leave your preconceptions at the door. It will be an afternoon that challenges the way you think about America’s history and civic life – and...
Across the United States, children under the age of 18 can be tried as adults in criminal court. Although the practice is condemned by international law, we are the only country in the world that sentences young people to life in prison without the possibility of parole. At the same time, recent developments in neuroscience research demonstrate that the human brain is not fully developed until after the age of 25.
This program will consider the ways we punish young people in the American criminal legal system and how our policies could be reformed. We will bring together a...
We’re bringing Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection to you! Join us for this final talk in our series of virtual conversations exploring themes highlighted in the exhibition.
How has Japonisme shaped the reception of Japanese art? In this online program, professors Elizabeth Emery and Chelsea Foxwell will consider the persistent influence of the western construct of Japonisme and the new aesthetic forms it inspired.
In 1872, French art critic Philippe Burty coined the term “Japonisme” to refer to the growing western admiration for “all things...
Explore a vibrant collection of watercolors featuring a flock of fantastic birds inspired by a king’s royal menagerie in Jean-Baptiste Oudry’s Avian Album.
Creature Feature, an online series from the Harvard Art Museums, offers a chance for families to explore magical creatures across the collections through close looking and curious exploration with museum staff. Creature Feature talks are free, open to explorers ages 6 and up, and offered once a...
In the United States, 8 percent of the adult population—and 33 percent of the Black adult male population—has a felony conviction. Even after people have served time in prison, they are systematically excluded from civic participation, including serving on juries. Offered in collaboration with the Institute to End Mass Incarceration at Harvard Law School, this program will explore questions of jury service, civic participation in the criminal legal system, and the importance of such participation by people with prior convictions.
In the third installment of the Future of Cultural Diplomacy Series, UNESCO’s Director-General Audrey Azoulay will offer her unique perspective on cultural diplomacy as the leader of one of the world’s largest multilateral agencies focused on education, scientific and cultural issues.
In a conversation co-moderated by Ambassador Nicholas Burns and Carla Dirlikov Canales, Director-General Azoulay will discuss UNESCO’s current priorities, including education, culture, gender equality, and freedom of expression, and discuss how UNESCO has provided multilateral approaches to...
German artist Käthe Kollwitz’s reception in the Global South has only recently begun to be considered. Known for its socialist and anti-war sentiments, her work was largely introduced to South Africa by exiles fleeing Nazism, and her prints became an important touchstone for many of the country’s politically minded artists in the years leading up to and during apartheid.
Looking to Kollwitz’s 1905 cycle, Peasant’s War, Jessica Williams will explore how these images circulated among South Africa’s Left and how her work came to influence an entirely new generation of lesser-...
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard—Online
On Radcliffe Day 2021—Friday, May 28—Harvard Radcliffe Institute will award the Radcliffe Medal to Melinda Gates.
Expert panelists will then discuss achieving gender equity in the United States, each offering her own perspective informed by deep expertise and unique experience. The discussion will be moderated by the distinguished American historian and Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor at Harvard University Drew Gilpin Faust, who was founding dean of the Radcliffe Institute and the first woman to serve as president of Harvard.