On the cover: Claudine Gay, photographed at University Hall, June 13, 2023. Photograph by Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Public Affairs and Communications
Letters
Cambridge 02138
Affirmative action, climate change, undergraduate options
Reading the Tea Leaves
The messages and meanings of Harvard’s presidential installations
September-October 2023
On the cover: Claudine Gay, photographed at University Hall, June 13, 2023. Photograph by Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Public Affairs and Communications
Features
A “Scholar’s Scholar”
A profile of Harvard’s thirtieth president
The Return of History
Ukrainian scholar Serhii Plokhy on the war in his home country
Getting Close, in Selma
Acting at a moment of conscience
Arthur Augustus Johnson
Brief life of a Black baseball impresario: 1890-1951
RIGHT NOW Harvard research and ideas
What Makes Humans Smart?
The critical role of cultural intelligence
Polishing off Plastic Pollution?
Engineering microbes to metabolize plastic waste
Picking Team Players
A test can identify these productivity-boosting personnel.
John Harvard's Journal University news
New Digs
Claudine Gay’s first day in her presidential office
After Affirmative Action
The Supreme Court upends admissions.
Irene Soto Marín
Ancient history professor studies coins, ceramics, and Zelda.
Campus Conversations on Speech
Some faculty members and students express concern that free inquiry has become constrained.
Yesterday’s News
A coin toss forecasts a surprising football score.
News in Brief
New Arts and Sciences dean, chief financial officer, Allston construction, and more
“This global, diverse, vibrant community”
Alumni Association President Ty Moore
Honoring Alumni Interviewers
Miller-Hunn Award recipients
Montage Books, creative arts, performance and more
Getting His Reps in
Anwar Floyd-Pruitt’s wildly profuse art
The Men Who Can’t Be Saved
Novelist Ben Purkert’s playfully serious look at masculinity
“Shotgun” Diagnosis
The virtues of inaction in delivering medical care
Off the Shelf
Recent books on camping outdoors, economic opportunity, the women of NOW, and more
State-Sponsored Discrimination
The role of zoing law and housing in making America more unequal—and what to do about it
The Sound of Science
Composer and biophysicist Amir Bitran
Life’s Blueprints
The development of developmental biology
Harvard Squared What to do in Boston, Cambridge and beyond
“The Wonder Out There”
Rambling around the Quabbin Reservoir
RISD Craft Fair
Artists showcase their work in Providence, Rhode Island. In the foreground are pieces by Dwo Wen Chen/Three Wheel Studio.
Speaking Volumes
Glimpsing Harvard’s East Asian language materials collection
Stone Walls, a Closer Look
Learning from the past through relics in Concord, Massachusetts
New Impressions
Explore Boston’s cultural institutions through immersive exhibits and offerings.
University People Harvardians far and wide
The New Little Magazines
Keeping literature and long-form journalism alive
Dialed In
“The Dial,” reborn
The New Crew
The 2023-24 Ledecky Undergraduate Fellows.
The Elephant in the Room
Conservative undergraduates’ campus debates
In Defense of Liberal Arts
A semester abroad clarifies the value of the curriculum back home.
