In Texas’ freedom colonies — African American settlements founded 1866-1930 — descendants of community founders engage in heritage conservation by keeping folklife, sacred rituals, and other cultural expressions that sustain communities’ Black sense of place. However, rural, vernacular African American placekeeping strategies are rarely framed in planning and architectural history as transgressive or expressions of Black liberation.
Presenting an excerpt from her forthcoming book, Never Sell the Land, Dr. Roberts shares case studies in which descendants of Deep East...
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly permeating many facets of our lives, raising both hope and concern about possibilities for our future. AI is transforming domains as disparate as science, medicine, commerce, government, law, the military, and the arts, and in doing so, it is forcing us to grapple with practical, political, and philosophical questions about humans and the nature of human interaction. The Harvard Radcliffe Institute Science Symposium, featuring speakers from disparate disciplines and industries, will examine AI, its impact, and its ethics by exploring current and...
It begins with two strolls: one by the 19th-century naturalist Henry Thoreau, who finds himself inscribed by vegetal forms and powers; and one by Paul Klee's graphic line as it enlists the energies of a human hand to become a doodle. These two walks expose the radical entanglement of human and nonhuman activities, and they call for a lexicon able to acknowledge such a trans-specied kind of agency.
How to bespeak such joint efforts in ways that give the nonhuman its due? What grammar, syntax, and verbal forms best acknowledge the contributions of human, animal, vegetal, mineral...
Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a Mexican tradition that seeks to commemorate and celebrate the lives of loved ones who have passed away. The creation of an altar is a key component of this celebration, which is both bittersweet and joyful. In this program, Los Angeles-based artist, educator, and altarista Ofelia Esparza will share her philosophy and approach to making altars and to keeping Día de los Muertos alive in the U.S. She will be joined by her daughter,...
This event will be held in Portuguese with simultaneous English translation.
One of the most exciting developments in Brazilian art and art history today is the emergence of Indigenous self-representation. The growing presence of Indigenous artists and art curators in exhibitions and museums in the country challenges traditional narratives and modes of display as it generates new spaces for the silenced voices of the over three-hundred Indigenous ethnic groups that inhabit the territories of Brazil. In 2017, the Rio de Janeiro Museum (MAR) organized the exhibition...
Amelia M. Glaser is an associate professor of literature at UC San Diego and the author of Songs in Dark Times: Yiddish Poetry of Struggle from Scottsboro to Palestine, about leftist Yiddish poets who wrote about the struggles of non-Jewish ethnic minorities in the 1930s. Focusing on performative genres such as music, comedy, film, theater, and highly visible poetic performance, Glaser is working on a new book that will examine how artists have re-envisioned the history and future of Ukraine since the 2014 “Maidan” revolution. Join her to learn more about her book and her...
Join the Harvard Graduate School of Design for an interview by Jeannette Kuo (Assistant Professor in Practice at Harvard GSD and founding partner of KARAMUK KUO) with Swiss architects Emanuel Christ and Christoph Gantenbein, and OFFICE founders Kersten Geers and David Van Severen.
Jade Kake (Ngāpuhi, Te Arawa, Te Whakatōhea) leads a small team at Matakohe Architecture + Urbanism, a kaupapa Māori design studio based in Whangārei in the Te Tai Tokerau region of Aotearoa New Zealand. The architectural department of the studio is focused on working primarily with Māori community clients on their papakāinga, marae, commercial and community projects, whilst the pūrākau (culture narrative) integration strand focuses on working to facilitate meaningful hapū participation in the design of major civic, commercial and education projects within their rohe. Matakohe are also...
Jamaica Kincaid is a widely acclaimed and fiercely original writer known for her novels, short stories, and essays, including writings on her life as a gardener. She was also staff writer for the New Yorker from 1973 to 1996 and has been a contributor for the Village Voice.
She is beloved by generations of readers who discovered her fiction, including Annie John and “Girl,” in high school and is admired by critics for her daring and unorthodox body of work. Answering claims that her fiction and essays are characterized by anger, Kincaid says, “The...
The artist Zoe Leonard will present a work in progress titled Al Rio/To the River and will engage in conversation about the project with curator José Esparza Chong Cuy.
Al Rio/To the River is a large-scale photographic project centered on the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo, in particular the 1,200-mile section of the river that is used to demarcate the international boundary between Mexico and the United States. Begun in 2016 and currently still a work in progress, the work engages in a sustained observation of the water, surrounding landscape, and built environment,...
Paine Hall (Harvard Music Building), 3 Oxford St., Cambridge
The Bach Society Orchestra, Harvard's premiere undergraduate chamber orchestra, kicks off its 2021-2022 Season with our first concert of the fall on Friday, October 8th, 2021. Reserve your free tickets now for this wonderful musical celebration!
Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 8 in F major
Manuel de Falla's El Sombrero de Tres Picos, Suite 1
Jennifer Rubin, the author of Resistance: How Women Saved Democracy from Donald Trump (William Morrow, 2021) and a Washington Post opinion writer, will join Michel Martin, weekend host of NPR’s All Things Considered, in a conversation about the persistent threat to American democracy and the central role women from across the political spectrum played in opposing and ultimately defeating Trump. Rubin will discuss how American women redefined US politics and, looking ahead, will examine women’s importance to defending the rule of law and multiracial democracy.
A presentation from 2021–2022 Walter Jackson Bate Fellow Uri McMillan.
Uri McMillan, an associate professor in the Department of African American Studies and Department of English at UCLA, is a cultural historian who researches and writes in the interstices between black cultural studies, performance studies, queer theory, and contemporary art. He is writing a book about the effervescent artistic practices and networks of affiliation of three artists living and working in 1970s New York City: the Jamaican American visual artist Grace Jones, the Nuyorican illustrator Antonio...
"Felon: An America Washi Tale is about re-imagining paper. A solo performance that begins with the pages of a book being slid into a cell, traverses stoves made of toilet paper, kites from a father, handwritten affidavits, legal complaints, handmade paper, certificates of pardon, and a 1,000 squares fashioned from the clothing of men serving life sentences, the variety of papers that reveals what is possible and burdened by prison. Here, I weave traditional theater, poetry, fine art, and Japanese paper making aesthetic...
In this virtual panel discussion, curator Makeda Best will be in conversation with photographers Terry Evans, Ashley Gilbertson, and Will Wilson, each of whom has works in our latest special exhibition, Devour the Land: War and American Landscape Photography since 1970.
In this intricate drawing, 17th-century Dutch artist Balthasar van der Ast captured the natural beauty of a “feathered cone”—the discarded shell of a sea snail indigenous to the Indo-Pacific. Join curatorial fellow Joanna Seidenstein as she explores the histories of global trade and colonization behind this work and the curatorial questions that have come up in preparation for its display.
The upcoming national investment in infrastructure is most welcomed; it will add jobs and stimulate the economy. However, it is imperative for the infrastructure to be sustainable, resilient, and mitigate climate change. How can that be ensured?
Since its founding in 2008, the research at the Zofnass Program has focused on providing tools for designers and planners to measure the sustainability and resilience of infrastructure. Recently, the focus is on expanding the tools for mitigating climate change. Today, the outcome of the Zofnass Program empowers both sides: the design...
Sinead Danagher ’22 will explore the representation of motherhood as seen in three works of art: the wood sculpture Virgin and Child in Majesty [Seat of Divine Wisdom] made in 12th-century France; the erotic Madonna lithograph made by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch in Berlin in 1895; and the woodcut Widow I (1922–23) that Käthe Kollwitz—artist and mother of two sons—made in Berlin...