Have you ever wished that you could talk with other animals? Doctor Dolittle is an imaginary man who could do just that!  Almost 100 years ago, English author Hugh Lofting began to write books about the adventures of Dr. Dolittle – a man who traveled, learned animal languages, and made animal friends all over the world. Read about six of his animal friends and use clues to find a similar animal somewhere in the museum.  Learn a secret about how that animal really communicates.  Then, like Dr. Dolittle, tell us what you think that animal is saying on the sheet provided...

Chanan Tigay is an award-winning journalist and nonfiction writer who has covered the Middle East, 9/11, and the United Nations for such outlets as AFP, the Atlantic, GQ, and the New Yorker. In this lecture, Tigay will talk about his first book, The Lost Book of Moses: The Hunt for the World’s Oldest Bible, which tells the story of the oldest Bible in the world, how its outing as a fraud led to a scandalous death, and why archaeologists now believe it was real—if only they could find it. In addition to the story of this controversial Bible, Tigay will speak about his own hunt for the...

Between the paws of the great Sphinx is the Dream Stela, a monument which describes how a young prince fell asleep in the shadow of the Sphinx by the Giza Pyramids. Visitors to the Harvard Semitic Museum galleries will be able to experience the iconic Sphinx and its Dream Stela in 3D augmented reality.

A gallery facilitator will use a tablet to allow the Sphinx to loom above and around a real life-size cast of the monumental stela. With a tap, the ancient hieroglyphs will be highlighted and translated into English. Another tap to adjust the timeline later, and a pyramid will...

This lecture, in memorium of James Sloss Ackerman, Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Fine Art Emeritus, is sponsored by the Department of History of Art and Architecture and the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

James Sloss Ackerman was born in 1919 in San Francisco. At Yale University his professor, Henri Focillon, wrote to him “Remain faithful to our studies for which you are so well suited.” Ackerman's graduate work focusing on Renaissance architecture was guided by Richard Krautheimer and Erwin Panofsky at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. His...

Facilities director Peter Atkinson will take visitors on a 60-minute architectural tour of the museums, highlighting the strategies and stories behind the evolution of the recently renovated building, with a special focus on its environmentally conscious, certified LEED Gold design.

Free with museums’ admission (Note: Cambridge residents, all students, youth under age 18, and Massachusetts K-12 teachers get in free to the Harvard Art Museums). This tour is limited to 15 people and tickets are required. Ten minutes before the tour, tickets...

This panel discussion with two leading Jewish cultural historians examines the remarkable contributions and tragic death of the great actor, theater director, playwright, visionary of Yiddish culture, and Jewish activist Solomon (Shloyme) Mikhoels (1890–1948).

Born Shloyme Vovsi in Dvinsk (now Daugavpils, Latvia), the genius actor Mikhoels became the chief director of the State Jewish Theater in Moscow. During World War II, he served as chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. Mikhoels’ assassination by Stalin’s secret police, although officially billed as an accident,...

Going Vertical is based on real events that occurred in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, focusing on a legendary final battle between the Soviet and US basketball teams. Directed by Anton Megerdichev (2017). Running time 2 hours 13 minutes. Russian language film with English subtitles.

Learn more about and register for Film Screening: Going Vertical.

Please join the Davis Center for a talk with author Serhii Plokhii about his new book, Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front: American Airmen Behind Soviet Lines and the Collapse of the Grand Alliance, which tells the story of the U.S. Air Force establishing bases in Soviet Ukraine in order to "shuttle bomb" the Germans from the Eastern Front. In conversation with historian Nina Tumarkin and with Thomas Holzman, whose father, Franklyn Holzman, figures in the book. Franklyn Holzman served on the Eastern Front in World War II, completed graduate work in Soviet economics at...

Join the Harvard Semitic Museum for a public lecture with Elizabeth Minor, Visiting Assistant Professor in Anthropology at Wellesley College. 

The Kerma Kingdom was an ancient Nubian civilization located in present-day Sudan. Its capital, the city of Kerma, had monumental architecture and religious art depicting deities in the form of lions, scorpions, and hybrid figures such as winged giraffes and hippopotamus goddesses. During the Classic Kerma Period (1700–1550 BCE), funerary monuments of Kerman kings could be up to one hundred meters long and included hundreds of...

Resetting the Table: Food and Our Changing Tastes explores food choices and eating habits in the United States, including the sometimes hidden, but always important, ways in which our tables are shaped by cultural, historical, political, and technological influences.

One dinner served in 1910 will form the centerpiece—literally—of Resetting the Table. The historical and cultural roots of the foods on the menu, and the privileged context of their presentation, will be explored. Selections from ten University collections will reveal the long history...

As the first botanical history of World War II, Plants Go to War examines military history from the perspective of plant science. From victory gardens to drugs, timber, rubber, and fibers, plants supplied materials with key roles in victory. Author and botanist Judith Sumner will speak of the many plants that were incorporated into wartime safety materials, diet and rations, and even bombers.

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This event is to celebrate the launch of a collaborative project, the Judy Chicago Research Portal, and to discuss the role of portals in providing access to feminist art archives.

The Judy Chicago Portal will be presented, challenges in the technology of portal development will be discussed, and Christina Schlesinger and Judy Chicago will discuss the importance of preserving feminist art archives.

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Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Imani Perry, and Robert Reid-Pharr will join in conversation to discuss how their work as biographers speaks to key contemporary discussions about black politics, community, identity, and life.

Perry will consider her recent book, Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry (Beacon Press, 2018), while Reid-Pharr and Brown-Nagin will share perspectives from their own research, writing, and forthcoming books on, respectively, James Baldwin and Constance Baker Motley.

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In 1938–1939, Harvard University funded an expedition to Australia aimed at understanding how colonization had affected Indigenous peoples and their physiology, and at informing government policy as it shifted from segregation to assimilation. Led by anthropologists Norman B. Tindale and Joseph Birdsell, the expedition gathered more than 6,000 individual records from Indigenous people on missions and settlements—records that have since inspired community-based research projects and land claims.

Lecturer Philip Jones will set the expedition within the context of anthropological...

"Travel" in fifteen minutes to an archaeological site in Ashkelon, Israel to explore the first-ever excavation of a Philistine burial ground. For years archaeologists have searched for evidence of these Biblical people. Transport yourself to the center of 360° scenes of an archaeological expedition while your gallery facilitator explains what you are seeing. Borrow a device from the museum or download the virtual reality app on your smart phone and bring it to place in a 3D viewer at the museum for an immersive experience.

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