2020 Sep 22
50th Anniversary of Urban Design Lecture: Alex Krieger, “The American City Prior and (Possibly) Following the Pandemic”
7:30pm to 9:00pm
Location: 
Online Event, Graduate School of Design
 
American instincts oscillate between the allure of the city and that of life free of city stress; between the temptations of the metropolis, and bucolic retreat from those very centers of civic life. Such oscillation, occurring across American history, have on the one hand enabled the building of Manhattan, the ‘Capital of Capitalism’ (and culture, too) and the invention of the ‘garden suburb’ where family grace was to dwell, prior to metastasizing into sprawl.
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2020 Sep 17
Observatory Night: What Stars Are Made Of
7:00pm
Location: 
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian—Online
Join the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian for a virtual Public Observatory Night with guest lecturer Donavan Moore, author of "What Stars Are Made Of: The Life of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin."
It was not easy being a woman of ambition in early twentieth-century England, much less one who wished to be a scientist. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin overcame prodigious obstacles to become a woman of many firsts: the first to receive a PhD in astronomy from Radcliffe College, the first promoted to full professor at Harvard, the first to head a department there. And, in what...
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2020 Sep 16
Lecture: Apprenticeship in Ancient Egypt
6:00pm to 7:00pm
Location: 
Online—Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East
Presenter: Willeke Wendrich, Joan Silsbee Chair of African Cultural Archaeology; Professor of Egyptian Archaeology and Digital Humanities, University of California, Los Angeles
Archaeologists study stylistic and technological changes in excavated materials—especially pottery—to better understand developments in ancient Egyptian society. However, little attention has focused on using the archaeological record to understand the transfer of cultural knowledge. How did people learn the arts and crafts of potters, basket makers, metalworkers, and scribes?...
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2020 Sep 15
Mesopotamian Monuments Tour
7:30pm to 8:30pm
Location: 
Online—Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East
Mesopotamian Monuments is a 60-minute live-streamed museum visit to investigate monuments from Sumer, Babylonia and Assyria exhibited at Harvard University. Guided by a museum educator, visitors at home observe sculptures in the gallery to understand the characteristics of these ancient river civilizations. The tour introduces the Sumerian ruler Gudea, Hammurabi of Babylon and the Assyrian Kings Ashurnasirpal II and his son Shalmaneser III. The experience includes the monument of Hammurabis' code and some ancient music with time for questions and discussion.
Cost:...
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2020 Aug 07
Art Study Center Seminar at Home: Sketches in Clay
11:00am to 12:00pm
Location: 
Harvard Art Museums—Online
In this session, senior objects conservator Tony Sigel will take a closer look at architect and sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s terracotta models for the marble sculptures that would transform the visual landscape of 17th-century Rome. Sigel will reveal the intimate details of Bernini’s modeling process and his signature techniques.
Led by:
Tony Sigel, Senior Conservator of Objects and Sculpture, Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies
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2020 Jul 10
Art Study Center Seminar at Home: Practical Magic—Powerful Objects from Ancient Egypt
11:00am to 12:00pm
Location: 
Harvard Art Museums—Online
Since we are unable to welcome you into the museums at this time, we are bringing our experts and collections to you in an online series, Art Study Center Seminars at Home.
Heka, the ancient Egyptian word that we translate as “magic” today, was neither marginal nor deviant in the Egyptian world. It was an important part of life and death, healing and protection. In this seminar, curatorial fellow Jen Thum will explore objects that are the subject of new research and discuss how they put magic to work during life and the afterlife.
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2020 Jun 17
Virtual Tour for People with Vision Loss
7:30pm to 8:30pm
Location: 
Online—Harvard Museums of Science & Culture
Pour a libation of your choice–beer was popular in the Ancient Near East–and join this live virtual tour of the exhibition From Stone to Silicone: Recasting Mesopotamian Monuments. The museum showcases newly fabricated casts from the ancient scenes that once adorned palace walls in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). Meticulously created by museum curators and Harvard students, these relief sculptures show how the ancient kings commemorated their military triumphs and civic achievements. For ancient audiences, these scenes presented powerful royal propaganda. For modern audiences,...
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2020 Jun 01
U.S. Foreign Policy and China
6:00pm to 7:00pm
Location: 
Online Event
Join the Ash Center and John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum for a virtual event featuring:
• Lucy Hornby, a fellow at the Nieman Center for Journalism and former Beijing deputy bureau chief for the Financial Times
• Yasheng Huang, MIT professor of international management
• Anthony Saich, Daewoo Professor of International Affairs, HKS, Ash Center Director
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2020 Apr 24
What Is the Cost of Lies? A conversation with HBO Chernobyl writer and creator Craig Mazin
2:00pm to 3:30pm
Location: 
Online Event
Join Craig Mazin, Screenwriter and Film Director and Serhii Plokhii, Director, Ukrainian Research Institute, and Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University for What Is the Cost of Lies? A conversation with HBO Chernobyl writer and creator Craig Mazin. 
This event will be streamed live on YouTube. Please join us and contribute to the conversation via the chat function.
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2020 Mar 07
Uncovering Pacific Pasts: Harvard’s Early Endeavors in Oceanic Anthropology
Sat Mar 7 (All day) to Sun Mar 7 (All day)
Location: 
Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, 11 Divinity Ave., Cambridge
This exhibit explores how early Harvard scholars influenced the development of anthropology and archaeology in the Pacific region. Produced in collaboration with over thirty other museums around the world, Harvard’s contributing exhibit will feature historical images and objects from the Peabody collections, including intricately carved Fijian clubs, models of distinctive Pacific outriggers, and a striking example of Samoan bark cloth (siapo). Together they weave a compelling narrative about the ideas, people, and networks pivotal to both early understandings and ongoing studies...
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2020 Mar 05
The Khufu Boat
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge
In 1954, Egyptian archaeologist Kamal el-Mallakh discovered a 144-foot ship buried next to the Great Pyramid of Giza. The Khufu boat—one of the oldest-known planked vessels from antiquity—was interred in honor of Khufu, the pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid. Bob Brier will discuss what is known about the design, propulsion, and function of this 4,600-year- old ship, based on recent tank tests conducted on a model. He will also highlight plans to build a full-scale replica of the vessel and to place it on the Nile.
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2020 Feb 27
Film Screening: Dovlatov
7:00pm to 9:00pm
Location: 
CGIS South Building, Room S010 (Tsai Auditorium), 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge
Dovlatov follows a few days in the life of famed Soviet writer, Sergei Dovlatov, on the eve of his friend's, future Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky, emigration in 1971. Sergei is determined to stay and lead a normal life with his wife Elena and daughter Katya, however, his manuscripts are regularly rejected by the official media as his point of view is deemed undesirable.
Dovlatov premiered at the 2018 Berlin International Film Festival, where it was awarded a Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution for costume and production design. Directed by...
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2020 Feb 27
The Ancient Maya Response to Climate Change: A Cautionary Tale
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge
Ancient Maya civilization suffered a major demise between the tenth and eleventh centuries. The causes continue to be investigated and debated. Paleoenvironmental research over the past twenty years has revealed that the demise coincided with a prolonged, intensive drought that extended across the region, providing compelling evidence that climate change played a key role in the collapse of the Maya. Billie Turner will examine this evidence and the complex social and environmental conditions that affected Maya societies.
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2020 Feb 27
The New Geopolitical Order
4:15pm
Location: 
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden St., Cambridge
The new geopolitical environment taking shape in many parts of the world tends toward increasing authoritarianism and nationalistic competition. In this lecture, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, an international human rights advocate and the former United Nations high commissioner for human rights, will argue that the world’s people deserve better. Despite the demagoguery and isolationism that some leaders are pursuing, he believes it is possible to pursue thoughtful diplomacy and a system of connectivity, coalitions, and partnerships to reform institutions and change polices.
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2020 Feb 20
History Reconsidered: Poetry Reading and Discussion
4:15pm
Location: 
Knafel Center, 10 Garden St., Cambridge
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...
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2020 Feb 19
Where It Used to Be Home: Writing Russia and Ukraine under the Trump Administration
5:00pm to 6:30pm
Location: 
Woolley Room, Mary Lyon Hall, Wheaton College 26 E. Main Street, Norton, MA
Olga Livshin will discuss how culture, translation, history, current events and her own biography intermingle in her 2019 book of poems, A Life Replaced, which reflects on the experience of living as an immigrant under the Trump administration and with Putin's war on Ukraine looming. Raised in Odessa and Moscow, Livshin writes witness poetry about xenophobia, war, and strongmen at the helm on both sides of the world. The book braids original poetry in English with translations from Anna Akhmatova, the great poet of 20th-century Russia, and Vladimir Gandelsman, fellow immigrant...
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2020 Feb 17
Film: Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project with Director in Person
7:00pm
Location: 
Harvard Film Archive, 24 Quincy St., Cambridge
Matt Wolf’s engaging documentary tells two stories: one, the life story of a remarkably prescient and stubbornly individualistic radical librarian who refused to fit neatly into the role of wife or mother, and a second that traces the emergence and arguably disastrous effects of the twenty-four-hour American news cycle that she secretly recorded in her Philadelphia home from 1979-2012.
Cost: $12 special event tickets.
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2020 Feb 14
Exhibition: Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection
Fri Feb 14 (All day) to Sun Jul 26 (All day)
Location: 
Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge
Painting Edo—one of the largest exhibitions ever presented at the Harvard Art Museums—offers a window onto the supremely rich visual culture of Japan’s early modern era. Selected from the unparalleled collection of Robert S. and Betsy G. Feinberg, the more than 120 works in the exhibition connect visitors with a seminal moment in the history of Japan, as the country settled into an era of peace under the warrior government of the shoguns and opened its doors to greater engagement with the outside world. The dizzying array of artistic lineages and studios active during the Edo...
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2020 Feb 13
Ancient Egyptian Culture and Its Continuity in Modern Egypt
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge
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.
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2020 Feb 13
Opening Celebration: Painting Edo
5:00pm to 9:00pm
Location: 
Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge
Join the Harvard Art Museums to celebrate the opening of Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection, on view from February 14–July 26, 2020.
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...
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