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Articles: Arts

Map of New York City, 1895

This 1895 map of New York City was created by socialist activist Walter Vrooman, who hoped that by showing the "concrete socialism" of every street, park, school, public building, and public dock in red (and allowing private enterprises to recede into the white background), he might persuade readers that the rest of the map should be socialist as well. 

From the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center/Boston Public Library

Arts

Curator Garrett Dash Nelson ’09 on the Boston Public Library’s exhibition of “persuasive cartography” 

6.17.20

Beds were set up for Spanish flu patients outside the Harvard-affiliated Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in 1918.
Photograph courtesy of the Brigham and Women's Hospital Archives

Fall semester interrupted, a century ago

6.23.20

Fragments from Callimachus, as styled by fellow poet Stephanie Burt

6.13.20

Ethnographer Roberto Gonzales spent 12 years following the lives of undocumented young people.

Photograph by Adam Glanzman

Sociologist Roberto Gonzales on the predicament of undocumented young people

July-August 2020

Painted portrait of a man from a Hellenistic coffin found in Egypt

(Click on arrow at right to view full image) No true likeness of Callimachus is known to exist, but the Libyan-born poet probably resembled the men whose faces appear on the Hellenistic coffins unearthed in Fayum, Egypt, including this one.

Photograph by Agis/Alamy Stock Photo

Brief life of a multifaceted poet: c. 310 B.C.E. - c. 240 B.C.E.

July-August 2020

Multiple small paper tabs, each decorated with a simple line drawing of a different facial expression

Photograph by iStock

Marjorie Garber explores the word’s complexity and history.

July-August 2020

Protestors with a large poster demanding reform of the Electoral College

Click on arrow at right to view full image
Photograph by Erik McGregor/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

Problematic features of the Electoral College

July-August 2020

Painted fresco of a landscape, from a Roman villa

Landscape from a villa at Boscotrecase—an inventive illustration in Mosaics of Knowledge

Photograph by Sites & Photos/Shmuel Magal/Alamy Stock Photo

Recent books with Harvard connections

July-August 2020

Author Gabrielle Zevin seated on a sofa in Los Angeles with her dog Nico

A spontaneous photo of Zevin and her late dog Nico taken on a sofa trashed in Los Angeles. “As soon as we were done, a random guy loaded it into his truck.”

Photograph by Hans Canosa

A prescient novelist is hopeful that “after great change, amazing things can happen.”

July-August 2020