2020 Oct 01
What Studying Putin’s Russia Can Teach Us about the United States: Masculinity, Misogyny, and U.S. Elections in the Trump Era
12:30pm to 1:45pm
Location: 
Davis Center for Russian & Eurasian Studies—Online
Vladimir Putin has long been known for his macho displays, and Donald Trump for his misogynist pronouncements. In both the U.S. and Russia, machismo and misogyny play fundamental roles in politics; the former is used to legitimize particular politicians as strong leaders, and the latter to undermine opponents as weak. In their lecture, while drawing parallels to Russia, Professors Robert Boatright and Valerie Sperling will focus on their new book about masculinity and misogyny in the U.S. political context, exploring how Donald Trump’s misogyny in the 2016 presidential race changed the...
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2020 Sep 30
The Geography of Lethal Force
12:00pm
Location: 
Online—Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard
The use of deadly force by US law enforcement is extremely high by international standards and involves significant racial disparities. Rajiv Sethi RI ’21, professor of economics at Barnard College, Columbia University, will discuss his project to understand why geographic variations in scale and racial disparities exist and potential policy remedies.
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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 21
Understanding the Role of Race in Health
12:00pm
Location: 
Online—Harvard Law School, The Petrie-Flom Center
Structural racism pervades all facets of society, from education, to housing, to law enforcement. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the health disparities that result from this systemic and structural racism.
The Petrie-Flom Center has asked leading scholars in law, public health, history, sociology, and other fields to explore these issues for a digital symposium on the Bill of Health blog. The focus of the symposium is to unpack how critical race theories and other strands of racial justice scholarship can inform health care, public health, and other areas of law to...
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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
Perfecters of This Democracy: A Conversation with Nikole Hannah-Jones
4:00pm
Location: 
Online—Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard
Nikole Hannah-Jones, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter and creator of the 1619 Project, will engage in conversation with Tomiko Brown-Nagin, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, about pressing issues of race, civil rights, injustice, desegregation, and resegregation.
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2020 Sep 15
Imagining the Next Global Economy
2:00pm to 3:00pm
Location: 
Online—Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard
There is no going back to the beginning. The emerging global economy will not resemble the system that came before. That pre-pandemic system was already fragile. Now we have an opportunity to imagine a new global economy.
Join Rawi Abdelal, (Herbert F. Johnson Professor of International Business, Harvard Business School; Director, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University) for a virtual lecture on this topic.
...
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2020 Sep 10
Getting Out the BIPOC Vote: Digital Strategies to Build Power
12:00pm to 1:00pm
Location: 
Online—Harvard Kennedy School, Ash Center
Activists and practitioners were already preparing for a tumultuous election year before the COVID-19 pandemic hit our shores. Now, the months ahead present immense challenges—and opportunities—for redefining how civic engagement is practiced for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities.
Join the Harvard Kennedy School for a timely discussion with leading practitioners who are effectively integrating digital strategies with authentic power-building while navigating a never-before-seen civic environment. All share a mission of giving real agency to vulnerable...
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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
The Bridge: Natural Gas in a Redivided Europe
12:30pm to 1:30pm
Location: 
Online Event
Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet empire, the West faces a new era of East-West tensions. Any vision of a modern Russia integrated into the world economy and aligned in peaceful partnership with a reunited Europe has abruptly vanished. Two opposing narratives vie to explain the strategic future of Europe, one geopolitical and one economic, and both center on the same resource: natural gas. In The Bridge, Thane Gustafson, an expert on Russian oil and gas, argues that the political rivalries that capture the lions share of media attention...
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2020 Jun 12
Webinar: The Labor of Fashion, the Global COVID-19 Crisis, and the Politics of Resistance in Bangladesh
9:00am to 10:30am
Location: 
Online Event
The global apparel industry is currently facing an unprecedented crisis resulting from the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Major fashion retailers in the Global North are closing their stores and laying off workers. The same brands that demonstrated strong public commitment for protecting the safety and security of Bangladeshi garment workers after the Rana Plaza collapse in 2013 are not hesitating to cancel or suspend orders or delay payments. Thousands of workers are currently out of work and facing a unique livelihood, as well as a health threat. 
Bangladeshi local labor...
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2020 Jun 04
Democracy, Pandemic, and How We Move Forward
7:00pm
Location: 
Online Event
Join the Ash Center for a International Festival of Arts and Ideas event. Former Connecticut Secretary of State Miles Rapoport will moderate a conversation with political commentator and author Heather McGhee, political activist and CEO of Voto Latino María Teresa Kumar, and political scholar Archon Fung, all of whom have spent their lives working to strengthen our democracy. Together they will explore the question: Where do we go from here?
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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 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
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 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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