Arts & Culture
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American Dream turned deadly
He just needs to pass the bar now. But blue-collar Conor’s life spirals after a tangled affair at old-money seaside enclave in Teddy Wayne’s literary thriller
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Just one family’s history – and the world’s
Claire Messud’s autobiographically inspired new novel traces ordinary lives through WWII, new world orders, Big Oil, and rise and fall of ideals
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Digging into the Philippines Collections at the Peabody Museum
Filipino American archivist offers personal perspective to exhibit
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Better to be talented or lucky?
If you want fame, Cass Sunstein says, it typically requires some of both — and is no pure meritocracy
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‘Tell the cities about us … and tell our neighbors about what we do’
‘HUM SAB EK’ harvests stories of self-employed Indian women’s hardships — and victories
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A Chekhov play relatable to Americans today
At first, Heidi Schreck wasn’t sure the world needed another take on ‘Uncle Vanya’
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Not so elementary, my dear Watson
For more than a century, Sherlock Holmes, the most famous creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, has captivated mystery fans, literary scholars, and researchers of virtually every stripe. But, as dozens of Doyle scholars and Sherlockians showed during a recent three-day symposium at Harvard, the Holmes stories represent only a small part of Doyle’s contribution to literature.
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REISCHAUER INSTITUTE SEEKS PAPERS
The Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies is now accepting submissions for its 2009 Noma-Reischauer Prizes in Japanese Studies, given to the undergraduate and graduate students with the best essays on Japan-related topics. The submission deadline is June 30, and $3,000 will be awarded for the best graduate student essay and $2,000 for the best undergraduate student essay.
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FAS launches budget Web site
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) has created a new Web site to provide faculty, staff, and students with up-to-date information on cost-saving measures.
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Writers at risk talk about their lives
For some, words are both a way of life and a way of risking life. Last year, 877 writers and journalists around the world were killed, jailed, or attacked.
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Family of ‘Doc Burr’ donates ‘treasure trove of American cinema’ to HFA
It began as a childhood hobby, but for Howard Burr, collecting films became a lifelong passion. A dentist by trade, Burr amassed a collection that would make most cinephiles envious: nearly 3,000 films, including many rare prints, B films, and vintage Technicolor prints.
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The ‘art’ of retirement
“May I have your attention!” yells Bill Boone, director of the Frances Addelson Shakespeare Players at the Harvard Institute of Learning in Retirement (HILR). “Frances is in Harvard Square!”
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Arts Medalist Ashbery ’49 charms audience
Before John Ashbery ’49 was one of the most influential and celebrated poets of modern times, he moonlighted as an English translator of French detective novels under the pseudonym “Jonas Berry.” But the self-dubbed “hair-brained, homegrown, Surrealist” poet bestowed his fitting absurdist style to these books, including adding the sex scenes the publisher requested to please American readers.
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Art for sale!
Harvard gave Christie’s and Sotheby’s a run for their money at the first Harvard Student Art Show on Monday (May 4). The exhibit and sale, held in a bright yellow tent on the Science Center Lawn, featured 160 works of painting, sculpture, photography, and other media such as jewelry and clothing. Students from across the University submitted artwork ranging in price from $30 to $8,000.
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Rockefeller grants open up world for undergrads
Nearly 500 Harvard undergraduates will learn about other cultures by participating in high-quality international experiences this summer, thanks to the generosity of David Rockefeller, longtime University benefactor and member of the Harvard College Class of 1936.
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Talent takes to the street
Behind a large white tent in front of the Science Center, Harvard University Dining Services staff members worked over sizzling grills, cooking hot dogs and hamburgers to feed a large crowd of staff, students, and Greater Cambridge residents.
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Oldest living Holocaust survivor speaks at Harvard
Aided by a wheel chair, his slight frame bent in part by a curvature of the spine since birth, in part by the passage of time, a man who endured unspeakable cruelty 70 years ago told his story of survival to a Harvard audience.
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Up Close, part 1
In stone, bronze, iron and oils the artistic and architectural details on campus boast a dizzying array of fine craftsmanship – both ornamental and functional – ranging over the centuries.
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Adams Pool Theatre
From a baroque playground for the rich to a theater for the entertainment of all, here’s the curious chrinocle of the Adams House Pool Theatre.
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Harvard has new poetry Web site
On an abnormally sweltering spring day, one would expect to see patches of Harvard students sunbathing in the Yard, not reading poetry inside Lamont Library. But a throng of students, faculty, and staff gathered inside the modest-sized Woodberry Poetry Room on a sultry Tuesday (April 28) evening to celebrate the release of Poetry@Harvard, a new Web site dedicated to all things poetry.
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Harvard Review contributors receive literary honors
For the seventh year in its eight-year history, Harvard Review has had contributors selected for inclusion in the highly selective “Best American” series and have been nominated for a prestigious Pushcart Prize.
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Evolution of a sacred text made visible at Houghton
When Jane Cheng ’09 arrived at Harvard four years ago, her interest in book conservation led to a job at the Weissman Preservation Center, and it was that job that led her to the medieval text that would become the subject of both her senior thesis and a new exhibition organized by Cheng at Houghton Library.
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Symposium, exhibition on Conan Doyle at Houghton
A new exhibition, “‘Ever Westward’: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and American Culture,” opening May 5 at Houghton Library, hopes to paint a fuller picture of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s contributions to world literature, which range from historical fiction to personal memoir to science fiction and beyond.
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Play space
The Adams House Pool Theatre sits in the heart of Westmorly Court, one of the several “Gold Coast” dormitories that now make up Adams House. Originally built as a pool, the space has become home to unconventional, spirited productions and has gained a reputation as an alternative venue on campus.
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‘What’s so funny ’bout peace, love, and sustainability?’
Even on Earth Day — an April celebration of the environment since 1970 — humor traditionally has had little place. There’s always more oh-oh than ho-ho.
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Performance rings old bones with sounds of ‘selection’
The Harvard Museum of Natural History’s galleries rang with music Tuesday evening (April 28) as the facility’s fossils made room for musicians performing seven original classical pieces written in honor of the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species.”
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Locke: More enlightened than we thought
English political philosopher John Locke died nearly a century before the American Revolution, and in his time parliamentary democracy was in its infancy. But his Enlightenment ideas — including the right to life, liberty, and property — went on to inspire American revolutionaries.
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GSD students help Netherlands plan for future
“Arriving this morning we made our way to our home for the next six nights, the floating hotel boat, The Merlijn,” wrote Martin Zogran, assistant professor of urban design in Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD), in his blog that highlighted details of the Harvard-Netherlands Project: Climate Change, Water, Land Development, and Adaptation.
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Sing a song of praise
From Puritan psalms to spirituals to Ellington and Coltrain, a Divinity School class explores – and performs – the sacred and musical.
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Sing a song of praise
Every Monday a small group of students gathers in Andover Hall for a sacred musical journey.
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Remembering the ‘American War’ of the ’60s
How do nations remember? In part, they remember through monuments — public art designed to capture a national memory and carry it through the ages.
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Paulus reaches beyond boards
Clad in black and white, her brown hair loose about her shoulders, her green eyes intense, Diane Paulus sits in her office and smiles. Against the window rests a stolen treasure from her days as a Harvard freshman, a poster of the American Repertory Theater’s (A.R.T.) production of Samuel Beckett’s “Endgame.”
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Handel’s ‘Saul’ to be performed in memory of John Raymond Ferris
The Harvard University Choir and the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra will present Handel’s magnificent oratorio “Saul” on April 26. The performance is dedicated to the memory of John Raymond Ferris, University organist and choirmaster from 1958-1990, who passed away last summer.
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Seniors Buzney, Barron win Mellinger Award
Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra (HRO) members Catherine Buzney ’09 and Christine Barron ’09 have been named recipients of the Rachel Mellinger Memorial Award.
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Human colonization of Australia and the Americas examined
A recent symposium about the prehistory of Australia and the Americas brought together scholars from 10,000 miles apart. But that’s nothing compared to the journey early humans made to populate Australia and the Americas tens of thousands of years ago.
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Chance favored expedition leader in ‘missing link’ discovery
A graphic in an undergraduate geology textbook serendipitously led to the 2004 discovery of the missing link between fish and land animals far in the Canadian Arctic, one of the creature’s discoverers said during an April 16 lecture at Harvard.