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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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Tom Nichols
Photograph by Stu RosnerThe Mirage of Knowledge
Tom Nichols dissects the dangerous antipathy to expertise.
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May-June 2018
Letters
Feeding the world, Alain Locke’s faith, divestment
At work on Harvard’s Washington agenda
Ideas for the president-elect’s consideration, from costs and partnerships to Allston and admissions
The College Pump
Illustration by Michael Witte
When teaching was gendered, Porsche populism, and Harvard’s presidential symbolism
Treasure
Click to see full image of the Ziegler models.
Photograph by Jim Harrison
Artifacts of embryology
In this Issue
Linnea Olson, shown with her dog, Kumo, has survived 13 years with lung cancer.
Photograph by Jim Harrison
Using precision medicine, Harvard researchers target cancer.
Eunice Kennedy Shriver races her brother Ted and others in Washington, D.C., to kick off a 1975 Special Olympics fundraising coast-to-coast marathon.
Photograph by Bettmann/Getty Images
Brief life of a world-changer: 1921-2009
Jim and Deb Fallows in his hometown, Redlands, California
Photograph by Coco McKown
James ’70 and Deborah Fallows ’71 explore “what the hell is happening in America.”
Sunset in Sampela, a village standing a few hundred yards from land in southwestern Indonesia. The nearest sizable island with an airstrip is a two-hour boat ride away.
Photograph by David Hu
In Indonesia, the Bajau fishermen’s way of life is under pressure.
Illustration by Phil Foster
Understanding the real consequences of the new tax law
Letters
Feeding the world, Alain Locke’s faith, divestment
At work on Harvard’s Washington agenda
Ideas for the president-elect’s consideration, from costs and partnerships to Allston and admissions
Right Now
Illustration by Jason Ford
Interventions that mobilize family support networks have powerful effects.
Illustration by Doug Panton
The digital tools advertisers rely on can be easily manipulated to influence public opinion on politics.
A deputy sheriff confronts civil-rights marchers in front of the county courthouse in Greenwood, Mississippi, in 1966. Greenwood, nicknamed “the Cotton Capital of the World,” depended heavily on slave labor in the nineteenth century and became a flashpoint for racial strife throughout the twentieth.
Photograph by Bettmann/Getty Images
A new book traces today’s politics back to chattel slavery.
Harvard Squared
Sleeper’s summer home sprawls across Eastern Point, with views of Gloucester Harbor.
Photograph by Eric Roth/Courtesy of Historic New England
A sprawling house museum celebrates decorative arts and the creative spirit of Henry Davis Sleeper.
Abbi of Bacabi (1978), among Cannon’s last and unfinished works
Image © 2017 Estate of T. C. Cannon.
Works by T.C. Cannon at the Peabody Essex Museum
Cyclists at the Harvest River Bridge, which opened last year on the newest section of the trail
Photograph by Jessica Mink
Cycling the Neponset River Greenway
Among the museum's “Ugly Truth” figures are Aunt Jemima and golliwogs.
Harvard Magazine/NPB
The National Black Doll Museum
Pammy’s jewel-box interior
Photograph courtesy of Pammy’s
Best new restaurants in and around Cambridge
John Harvard's Journal
A homecoming: Announced as president-elect, Lawrence S. Bacow speaks on February 11
Photograph by Kris Snibbe/Harvard Public Affairs and Communications
Lawrence S. Bacow named Harvard’s twenty-ninth president
David Davidson
Photograph by Stu Rosner
A dining executive on Harvard’s changing food environment
FAS dean to step down, John Lewis to speak at Commencement, Hillary Clinton at Radcliffe, and more
Mara Sidmore, artistic director of Applied Theatre Practice at the Bok Center
Photograph by Jim Harrison
A theatre troupe aims for higher ed.
News briefs, from green-energy goals and a move to course preregistration to final-club final sanctions
Course credit toward fast-tracking the A.B. is eliminated.
Photograph by Lydia Carmichael/HM
First-Gen policies, Smith Center services, and more University news
Professor Jorge Domínguez is placed on administrative leave.
Illustration by Wenting Li
The Undergraduate chooses a concentration.
The son and nephew of MLB players, Quinn Hoffman ’20 has played the game for as long as he can remember.
Photograph by Jim Harrison
For Quinn Hoffman, baseball is the family business.
Seth Towns ’20, the Ivy League Player of the Year, scored a game-high 24 points in the Crimson’s 74-55 victory over Cornell in the Ivy tournament semifinals.
Photograph courtesy of Harvard Athletic Communications
The basketball teams fall short of the NCAAs.
Harvard sprinter Gabby Thomas ’19
Photograph courtesy of Harvard Athletic Communications
Late winter and early spring highlights
Montage
Photograph courtesy of Jack Lueders-Booth/Gallery Kayafas
For seven years, Jack Lueders-Booth (above, left) visited the Massachusetts Correctional Institution-Framingham to teach a photography workshop several days each month. Roaming the grounds, he took women prisoners’ portraits with Polaroid, Leica, and medium-format film cameras, documenting scenes from daily life.
The portraits in Jack Lueders-Booth’s 40-year-old series feel even more vivid today.
Claire Chase
Photograph by Stu Rosner
How flutist Claire Chase signals a key change for Harvard’s music department
Richard III
Photograph by Bridgeman Art Library
Stephen Greenblatt mines Shakespeare to interpret modern times.
Battle hymn: surmounting the Berlin Wall, November 10, 1989, to the tune of “Ode to Joy,” a setting Beethoven scarcely imagined
Photograph by Peter Kneffel/AP IMages
Recent books with Harvard connections
Hanna Holborn Gray
Photograph courtesy of the Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library
The former University of Chicago president and Harvard Corporation fellow crafts a timely memoir.
Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words
Alumni
Sellers at the John Brown Fort, at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park
Photograph by T.J. Kirkpatric
William Sellers aims to expose a new generation to America’s origins.
The official 2018 slates
Adams speaks at a national meeting to address LGBT elder housing issues, hosted by the Obama administration in 2015.
Photograph courtesy of SAGE
Michael Adams of SAGE is looking out for LGBT elders.
Shared Interest Group gatherings in Cambridge
The College Pump
Illustration by Michael Witte
When teaching was gendered, Porsche populism, and Harvard’s presidential symbolism
Treasure
Click to see full image of the Ziegler models.
Photograph by Jim Harrison
Artifacts of embryology