Events

From the Hands of the Makers

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Harvard Museum of Natural History—Online

From 1886 to 1936, Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka applied their artistic talents and knowledge of natural history to create an exquisite collection of glass models of plants to support the botanical education of Harvard students and the public. This program will explore the history, conservation, and relevance of the Glass Flowers in the twenty-first century and introduce the publication Glass Flowers: Marvels of Art and Science at Harvard, a compendium of new photographs that captures the beauty and magnificent detail of the models.

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Lecture: Cannon Fodder: Debating the Racial Politics of Canonicity in Modern Architectural History

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Harvard Graduate School of Design—Online

This talk introduces audiences to the antiracist framework for architectural history that guided the formulation of the recent monograph Building Character: The Racial Politics of Modern Architectural Style (2020). This revisionist intellectual history recovers the ways that architectural organicism provided a rationalist model of design to consciously relate the perceived racial and architectural “characters” of a nation to the people they served.

From the ethnographic histories of style penned by Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc and Gottfried Semper, to Louis Sullivan...

Amazing Virtual Archaeology Fair at Harvard

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Online—Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East

Celebrate the glamour, labor, humor, and discoveries of archaeology at Harvard. Join student archaeologists as they share their experience with an Irish castle, a shaft tomb in western Mexico, monuments on the Giza plateau in Egypt and drones used to study El-Kurru in ancient Nubia, among other locations. Place a friendly wager on an atlatl (spear throwing) demonstration, observe chew marks on bones from the Zooarchaeology Lab and experience a virtual-reality view of the Great Sphinx.

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On Account of Sex (1920)

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Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard—Online

The passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 did not "give" women the vote. Rather, it established a negative: that the right to vote could not be abridged on account of sex alone. This session brings together diverse participants who will each illuminate one facet of women’s political history at this key transitional moment. Together, participants will emphasize the radical achievement of the amendment, exploring the full implications of what it meant to remove sex as a barrier to voting, which resulted in the largest-ever one-time expansion of the electorate and mobilized a...

50th Anniversary of Urban Design Lecture: Alex Krieger, “The American City Prior and (Possibly) Following the Pandemic”

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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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Observatory Night: What Stars Are Made Of

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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...

Lecture: Apprenticeship in Ancient Egypt

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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?...

Art Study Center Seminar at Home: Sketches in Clay

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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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Art Study Center Seminar at Home: Practical Magic—Powerful Objects from Ancient Egypt

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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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Virtual Tour for People with Vision Loss

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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,...

U.S. Foreign Policy and China

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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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What Is the Cost of Lies? A conversation with HBO Chernobyl writer and creator Craig Mazin

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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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Uncovering Pacific Pasts: Harvard’s Early Endeavors in Oceanic Anthropology

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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...

The Khufu Boat

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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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Film Screening: Dovlatov

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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...

The Ancient Maya Response to Climate Change: A Cautionary Tale

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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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The New Geopolitical Order

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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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History Reconsidered: Poetry Reading and Discussion

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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...

Where It Used to Be Home: Writing Russia and Ukraine under the Trump Administration

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...

Exhibition: Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection

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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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114 Mount Auburn Street
6th Floor
Cambridge, MA 02138
T (617) 495-1585 | F (617) 495-0754