Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898

Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898

January-February 2012

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Letters

Keynesian economics, solar costs, education excesses, and more

The College Pump

Peter Sellars

An Upstairs at the Pudding girlhood, and undergraduate impresario Peter Sellars at Adams House

Treasure

A page from a miniature novel written by teenager Charlotte Brontë

Miniature manuscript books by Charlotte Brontë

In this Issue

Mary Kinsella Scannell, vice president for early education and care, plays with baby Kinsey Ferraguto and toddler Margot Vorhees.

Supporting children by teaching the adults who shape their lives

Robert Brustein onstage at the Loeb Drama Center, home of the American Repertory Theater, which he founded in 1979

Harvard playwrights, directors, producers, actors, and artistic directors speculate about theatrical prospects for the future.

When not dealing with major global water issues, John Briscoe manages this small dam near his home. He holds the hook used to open the sluice gate.

John Briscoe tackles water insecurity around the world.

Dressed for duty

Brief life of a maritime original: 1902-1982

Saint Jerome—whose Latin translation <i>was</i> the European Bible for a thousand years— by Theodoricus of Prague (fl. 1359-1381)

Adam Kirsch reads the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library—the latest stage in the “American conquest of the Middle Ages”

Letters

Keynesian economics, solar costs, education excesses, and more

Right Now

Theda Skocpol analyzes the politics and demographics of the Tea Party.

Eating even small amounts of red meat daily increases the risk of diabetes.

Brains scans reveal that In moral decision-making, people rely on emotion to guide choices in some situations and rationality in others.

New England Regional

The Insight Meditation Society

New England retreat centers offer quietude and the promise of insight.

Gonzaga Eastern Point Retreat House

Catholic oceanside retreat center

Emery House

Silent contemplation while living among Episcopal monks

The Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center

Organic farming and spiritual retreats in a camp-like atmosphere

The Abode of the Message

Sufism, body treatments, and spiritual workshops abound.

Erbaluce’s minimalist décor lets the food shine.

Sensuous Italian fare in Boston

“Horseshoe crabs,” by Piotr Naskrecki, Harvard Natural History Museum

January-February 2012 calendar of events at Harvard

John Harvard's Journal

Kicking up their heels: a “flash mob” started off the evening’s dancing with a choreographed routine to the tune of James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag.”

The 375th anniversary celebration was wet and muddy, but full of youthful spirit.

i-Lab director Gordon S. Jones with some of the products he has created or helped develop and bring to market

A new University center for innovation and entrepreneurship

Eric Nelson

Profile of a Harvard government professor and political theory scholar

The University, still adjusting to the financial crisis, incurs a $130-million deficit and pursues both savings and new revenues.

Harvard's largest faculty narrows its deficit, but faces continuing financial challenges.

Headlines from Harvard's history

Gustave M. Hauser and Rita E. Hauser

A $40-million gift jump-starts a University initiative to adapt learning and teaching to twenty-first-century opportunities and challenges.

Sherman Fairchild, new home for stem cell and regenerative biology (the biggest undergraduate life-sciences concentration), buzzed with activity on a fall evening. A $65-million to $70-million rehab (see <a href="http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/11/gut-renovation">“Gut Renovation”</a>) brought members of this first cross-school (Medicine and Arts and Sciences) department together in Cambridge sooner than would have happened at the planned Allston science center site.

A foreign-policy pundit at Commencement, Rhodes and Marshall Scholars, stem-cell center, the Fogg under wraps, and more

Left to right: John Bethell, Robert Neubecker, and Jim Harrison

Honoring an outstanding writer and artists who enliven the magazine's pages

Views of Boston: Diverse housing…

The Undergraduate writes about "Reinventing Boston," a course that sends students out to learn about urban progress and problems through immersion in city life.

Quarterback Collier Winters dove for Harvard’s third touchdown in a 37-20 defeat of Penn.

The Crimson football team won the Ivy trophy, and records fell.

Women's soccer and men's heavyweight crew have banner seasons.

Details of the ceremony

Montage

David Kwong shuffles the cards. Behind him, a video gives a closer look at his hands.

David Kwong has a trick that’s all his own.

A correspondence corner for not-so-famous lost words

Katrina Roberts

Katrina Roberts’s poems suggest that life springs from stardust.

Popular works by evolutionary biologist and baseball fan Stephen Jay Gould back in print

Arthur Kleinman and colleagues explore the Chinese people's yearnings after a century of upheaval and disasters.

Jonathan Epstein as King Lear in a 2003 Shakespeare &amp; Company production

Actor Jonathan Epstein teaches “five-finger exercises for the soul.”

From old money and new glitz (the glass Trump Tower) at Michigan Avenue, below, to a different life in the Near South Side, close to the Loop

Sociologist Robert J. Sampson documents enduring neighborhood differences in Chicago.

<i>Peasant Kermis,</i> an outdoor festival, by Pieter Bruegel (c. 1567-1568), from the Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna

Recent books with Harvard connections

Alumni

Paul O’Brien’s tough ministry in Lawrence, Massachusetts

News from Shared Interest Groups

Harvard alumni may sign in to view class notes and obituaries.

The College Pump

Peter Sellars

An Upstairs at the Pudding girlhood, and undergraduate impresario Peter Sellars at Adams House

Treasure

A page from a miniature novel written by teenager Charlotte Brontë

Miniature manuscript books by Charlotte Brontë