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President Lawrence S. Bacow
Larry Bacow puts Harvard in the perspective of the pandemic.
Sarah Whiting
Photograph courtesy of Harvard Public Affairs and CommunicaitonsThe new dean has been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
The blue regions are oil palm plantation, while the forest regions (yellows and greens) are colored by tree height, which is a proxy for carbon.
Image courtesy of Global Airborne Observatory, ASU Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science.The world needs tropical forests—but rainforest destruction continues unabated, and it may be even worse than you thought.
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The blue regions are oil palm plantation, while the forest regions (yellows and greens) are colored by tree height, which is a proxy for carbon.
Image courtesy of Global Airborne Observatory, ASU Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science.The world needs tropical forests—but rainforest destruction continues unabated, and it may be even worse than you thought.
Karen Dynan
Photograph courtesy of Karen DynanThe severe economic fallout, in context
Tommie Shelby, chair of African and African-American studies
Photograph by Melissa BlackallSpeakers discuss history, progress, hope, and home.
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Photograph courtesy of Lauren Spohn
“We are the generation that is coming of age in the COVID-19 crisis,” writes Lauren Spohn ’20. “We can we build? What can we sacrifice? What risks can we take?”
Professor and platform: William C. Kirby logs on to Zoom from home for his first remote teaching session.
On taking a Harvard Gen Ed class remotely with William C. Kirby
Photograph by Allison Kern/Harvard Magazine
“I feel lucky that I took for granted my Harvard experience before its abrupt end.”
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Loeb House, where the University's governing boards meet
Photograph by Harvard Magazine/JCThe coronavirus pandemic threatened to disenfranchise alumni balloting.
Tommie Shelby, chair of African and African-American studies
Photograph by Melissa BlackallSpeakers discuss history, progress, hope, and home.
Tracy P. Palandjian ’93, M.B.A. ’97, chair of the Harvard Alumni Association Committee to Nominate Overseers and Elected Directors, and Philip Lovejoy, HAA executive director
Photographs: Courtesy of Tracy P. Palandjian and Will Halsey/Courtesy of the Harvard Alumni AssociationOn the eve of a contested election for the governing board, looking under the hood of the nominating process
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At The Homestead
Photograph by Norman Eggert/Alamy Stock Photo
Delving into the world of Emily Dickinson
Photograph by Ryan Carollo
Contra dancing, Balkan music, sea chanteys—and more!
At the French Windows. The Artist’s Wife, (1897), by Laurits Andersen Ring
Courtesy of the Bruce Museum
Images that help unveil the truth of what we can see
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Photograph courtesy of Lauren Spohn
“We are the generation that is coming of age in the COVID-19 crisis,” writes Lauren Spohn ’20. “We can we build? What can we sacrifice? What risks can we take?”
Photograph by Allison Kern/Harvard Magazine
“I feel lucky that I took for granted my Harvard experience before its abrupt end.”
Photograph by Drew Pendergrass
“What will it mean to end our time on this campus with no closure, no time to reflect on what it all meant?”
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Our editors curate their favorite literary stories in Harvard Magazine.
Ken Liu
Photograph © Lisa Tang LiuKen Liu’s speculative fiction on maintaining and transcending humanity
At The Homestead
Photograph by Norman Eggert/Alamy Stock Photo
Delving into the world of Emily Dickinson
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2020 Ivy foil champion Geoffrey Tourette '21 celebrates a point.
Photograph courtesy of Harvard Athletics Communcations
A focus on process leads Harvard fencers to an Ivy championship.
At his seventieth Harvard-Yale game, in 2012, Paul Lee ’46 proudly carried the replica Little Red Flag. Steve Goodhue ’51 is beside him; Spencer Ervin ’54 and Jeff Lee ’74 stand behind.
Photograph courtesy of Judy Goodhue
Are you eligible to carry the (replica) Little Red Flag?
Matt “Happy” Gilmore smiles behind the wheel. Zamboni-driving takes focus, but Gilmore says that he loves waving to children in the crowd and making their day.
Photograph by Jim HarrisonHarvard’s Zamboni operators’ quest for the perfect sheet of ice
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At his seventieth Harvard-Yale game, in 2012, Paul Lee ’46 proudly carried the replica Little Red Flag. Steve Goodhue ’51 is beside him; Spencer Ervin ’54 and Jeff Lee ’74 stand behind.
Photograph courtesy of Judy Goodhue
Are you eligible to carry the (replica) Little Red Flag?
Samuel Eliot Morison
Photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty ImagesMorison, Handlin, and a new view of the Mem Hall fire
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March-April 2020
Pippa Norris
Photograph by Stu Rosner
Pippa Norris puts America’s flagging democracy in global context.
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From the archives
Tom Nichols
Photograph by Stu RosnerThe Mirage of Knowledge
Tom Nichols dissects the dangerous antipathy to expertise.
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January-February 2008
Letters
I sympathize with the shocked Athenians and disgusted Germans who visited the exhibit of ancient sculptures that had recently been colored, as...
The College Pump
"Your wooden arm you hold outstretched to shake with passers-by." Three worthy books full of Harvard references have arrived...
Treasure
The stock market plummets. Credit is tight. Bankers quake. Then J.P. Morgan organizes a consortium of financial saviors to provide cash to banks...
In this Issue
Photomontage by Stuart Bradford
When Alison finally heard her son Matthew’s diagnosis, she had already spent a night on the Web, terrifying herself, as she puts it...
This posthumous portrait of Whitman by her friend Helen Merriman hangs in the Radcliffe College Room of the Schlesinger Library. The leaves in Whitman's bodice may be laurel, symbols of victory and of artistic achievement.
Courtesy of Imaging Department, Harvard University Art Museums, © President and Fellows of Harvard College
Sarah Wyman Whitman was an original and compelling figure in late nineteenth century Boston. Very much a public personality, she was a painter...
Illustration by Annie Bissett
When Dan Kindlon watches the Tigers play softball, he sees the legacy of feminism for girls. “My daughter’s concentrating on...
Soldiers' graves near General Hospital, City Point, Virginia, circa 1861-1869. Photographer unknown
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
The Civil War transformed American society and institutions. It brought about the formal end of slavery (but not of racial discrimination). It...
Letters
I sympathize with the shocked Athenians and disgusted Germans who visited the exhibit of ancient sculptures that had recently been colored, as...
Right Now
Illustration by Robert Neubecker
Are some experiences so horrific that the human brain seals them away, only to recall them years later? The concept of “repressed...
Photograph courtesy of Robert Wood
Small, winged insects have a reputation for accidentally buzzing into closed windows or swooping into your eye during a bike ride. But the...
Prehistoric quids—wads of masticated leaves found in dry rock shelters—are yielding DNA clues to the origins of framing in the American Southwest.
Photograph by Steven Leblanc
A question mark has long hovered over human transitions from hunting and gathering to farming: did agriculture spread by communication—in...
Photograph by Shepard Sherbell/Corbis Saba
Until the mid 1980s, victims of domestic abuse who called the police could expect the officers to do little more than tell the abusive spouse to...
After the announcement that Tom Cruise would not play the male lead in Cold Mountain, the movie’s value on the Hollywood Stock Exchange dropped by $21.50, indicating a drop of $21.5 million in traders’ expectations for the movie’s ticket sales. The price rebounded on news that Jude Law and Nicole Kidman (pictured) would star in the film.
Courtesy of Miramax Films/Zuma/Corbis
For Anita Elberse, whose latest research investigates the impact of big-name stars on films’ revenues, pop culture and rigorous analysis...
New England Regional
Tom Towers at a gathering for Staying Put in New Canaan
Photograph by Stu Rosner
As board president of Staying Put in New Canaan, Tom Towers, M.B.A. ’64, believes in self-reliance. The Connecticut organization, modeled...
Enjoy nature this winter: take a brisk walk in the Arnold Arboretum, view the stars from the Harvard College Observatory, or learn about the...
During the last five years, MIT’s former director of planning, Robert Simha, MIT president emeritus Paul Gray, and a core group of other...
The Beehive's boiler-room-with-a-touch-of-Paris bar
Courtesy of the Beehive
If you’re 30-plus and want a fun night out with live music and a splash of funk, where do you go? The clubs and bars lining Lansdowne and...
John Harvard's Journal
Harvard president Drew Faust made the inaugural performance at the New College Theatre, on November 1, the setting for her announcement of a...
Hasty Pudding Theatricals (HPT) returns to its historic home this year for its 160th production. (Since the inaugural show in 1844, the group...
For a while, all seemed to go well at the ribbon-cutting ceremonies for the New College Theatre on October 17. As a jazz trio played in the...
Politically, U.S. professors are less liberal than many people believe, but their ranks also include fewer conservatives than in the early...
Photograph by Jim Harrison Bruce Western His interest in prisons began “almost by accident,” says the new director of the Kennedy...
When physicist Eric Mazur’s research group created a new material called black silicon one day in 1998, he knew right away they were on to...
The University’s Office of News and Public Affairs has debuted HarvardScience (http://harvardscience.harvard.edu), a website on...
Illustration by Mark Steele
1913 The Alumni Bulletin welcomes the founding of the Harvard University Press as an “eminently appropriate [way to] powerfully...
A year ago, Harvard filed three sets of plans for building in Allston with the City of Boston: a master plan for the new Allston campus, plans...
How will Americans know that their Supreme Court is truly dedicated to interpreting the Constitution as the Founding Fathers would wish?...
The museum of modern and contemporary art that Harvard plans to build in Allston will have to wait. In September, the Harvard Corporation...
Five alumni—two of them former faculty members—and the recipient of an honorary doctorate were among those to whom Nobel Prizes were...
Photograph by Justin Ide/Harvard News Office Jorge I. Domínguez Harvard’s engagement with the world widened significantly during...
Public Health Dean Steps Down Photograph by Kris Snibbe/ Harvard News Office Barry R. Bloom Barry R. Bloom, dean of the Harvard School of...
Mollie wright ’09 expected to spend her summer in Costa Rica teaching English. She was, after all, a volunteer for WorldTeach, a...
On a hot September day in 2004, President Lawrence H. Summers was addressing the large group of newly arrived freshmen and their parents about...
Rebounding from a rocky start, the football team defeated its first six Ivy League opponents and scripted a stunning finale by routing a...
In the fall, the Tokyo publisher Asahi Shinsho released a new title in Japanese, loosely translated as The Unknown Story of Matsuzaka’s...
In the north country of New Hampshire, skiers from Dartmouth, the current NCAA champions, reign supreme, while the Green Mountains are home to...
Montage
Pink Martini onstage, with Thomas Lauderdale on piano at far left, and vocalist China Forbes.
Photograph by James Wilder Hancock/Pink Martini
At the end of Pink Martini’s Carnegie Hall debut this past June, a conga line broke out in the audience and bounced its way up and down...
The Complete Fables of Jean de La Fontaine, translated by Norman R. Shapiro ’51, Ph.D. ’58 (University of Illinois, $80 cloth, $25...
Lisa Nestles into the folds of Adam’s grey fleece jacket, her hand entwined in his. The two lovers share a park bench and an uncertain...
With its muted hues and pine floorboards, the store resembles a medieval library with a blinking Apple iMac on the counter. Inventory at James...
Improbable as it may seem, James D. Watson—the co-discoverer (with Francis Crick) of the structure of DNA—has written a Book of...
Porter University Professor Helen Vendler grew up with her mother’s poetry books, which “stopped with the Victorians.” It was...
Marcia Chellis requests a source for “Everything is high school.” Barbara Murray would like to verify an anecdote involving...
Alumni
Sarah Chayes in a war-ravaged village near Kandahar
Photograph by Eve Lyman
The sound of a bomb detonating breaks the stillness of Kandahar’s morning hours. To Sarah Chayes ’84, in her office in the small...
Physician-photographer Judith Peterson evokes “adoption.”
Photograph © Judith R. Peterson
Images are integral to the way human beings understand the world around them. As a physician and a photographer, Judith R. Peterson ’82...
En route to the math placement exam, Annette Ghee ’83 met classmate Burt Hamner. Each one thought the other cute… and they were...
Eye on Harvard is an Internet talk show “for and about Harvard people” that appears on InTimeTV.com. The subject matter is...
University clubs offer a variety of social and intellectual events, including Harvard-affiliated speakers (please see the partial list below)...
University president Drew Faust stopped in Chicago on November 9 for a black-tie dinner to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the city’s...
The College Pump
"Your wooden arm you hold outstretched to shake with passers-by." Three worthy books full of Harvard references have arrived...
Treasure
The stock market plummets. Credit is tight. Bankers quake. Then J.P. Morgan organizes a consortium of financial saviors to provide cash to banks...