Editors' Choice
Taylor Swift: Harvard’s Version
“We are lucky enough to be living in a time when one of our major artists is also one of the most famous people on the planet,” Burt says. “Why would you not have a course on that?”
Goodbye, Beloved
To me, Sethe was the literary embodiment of womanhood — the queenly woman with blood on her hands and a tree scarred into her back. She was the personification of repression and “rememory,” the manifestation of a traumatic past into the present.
On the Run with Graham Blanks
I’m buckling up my helmet when Blanks walks out of Winthrop House, wearing Harvard Cross Country gear head to toe. He tells me we’ll be “jogging” today, at a 7:21-minutes-per-mile pace. The average non-elite male runner races a 5K at 9:28 minutes per-mile pace. Blanks runs towards the river, feet pattering like a steady metronome while I pedal beside him.
Joseph Fasano is Not Ready to Renounce the Universal
Fasano is not your typical poet’s poet. Far from content with keeping poetry ensconced to its narrow readership of academics and literary savants, he has worked in past years to democratize the genre.
FM’s Campus Ghost Tour
On this Halloweekend, remember more than just your jackets when you leave the Mather JCR. Take a look at a few of Harvard’s most persistent spirits — you might even encounter one as you cross campus this week.
Fifteen Questions: Bruno Carvalho on Cities, Bike Lanes, and Punny Halloween Costumes
The urbanist sat down with Fifteen Minutes to discuss cities and urban studies. “I’m not sure I would say cities are inherently anything except for places where strangers live among each other and places where constructions are supposed to last beyond a single generation,” he says.
To Be Tamed
“The Little Prince” makes me homesick for all the places I’ve been and all the places I have yet to see.
Buying Time
The Time Trade Circle is a Cambridge-based time bank that serves the Boston metropolitan area. The principle is straightforward: you complete a task for someone, and the number of hours it took to complete the task is deposited into your account. You can then “cash in” those hours whenever you want.
The SEC Library, Curated by a Person, Not an Algorithm
Though the library may seem incongruous with the rest of the building, it was a planned part of the SEC from the start and is just as innovative as the technology created in it.
Nesting in Ephemera
I sliced up some magazines, printed out a few photos from my camera roll with a sticker printer I’d just received for my birthday, and stuck it all above my bed. The mere presence of color, and the memories each small picture held, felt like a balm — something consistent and bright and mine to return to. With a couple scraps of paper, I’d planted roots.
Did Harvard’s Sex Magazine Come Too Soon?
Along with nudity, the first issue of H Bomb promised art and text galore. The editors also had a vision for the future of the magazine: “longer, smarter, and definitely hotter.” But this projection for H Bomb’s future did not survive the test of time.
The World is Aryt Alasti’s Garden
Aryt Alasti works as a security guard at Harvard from the evening until early morning. He returns home for a brief two-hour nap before coming back to campus. Then he toils each day caring, alone, for dozens of plants across Harvard.
A 1,500-Pound Pumpkin and a Dream
After handing the pumpkin boat off to the next rider, Chang reflected on his journey. Referencing “Cinderella,” he jokes: “Now we don’t need magic to make pumpkins into these creatures, we can use human ingenuity.”
A FunGi Among Us: Meet Lawrence Millman, the Square’s Expert Mycologist
Millman’s passion for discovering drives him still. Whether it’s encountering a fungal species that had not been seen since 1909 or learning about the traditions of the cultures he encounters from the Arctic to the archipelagos, the unpredictability of his work never ceases to impress him.
Two Harvard Students, Two Contrasting Approaches to Human Augmentation
Although the two concentrators may seem to be operating in parallel, their paths are quickly diverging. Beneath the auspices of human augmentation, Cai and Nguyen have fundamentally different approaches to technology, ones that will shape their futures — and perhaps ours, too.
Fifteen Questions: Rochelle Walensky on Pandemics, Public Health, and Reading for Fun
FM sat down with the former CDC director to discuss her experience as one of the nation’s public health leaders during an unprecedented global pandemic. "I don’t know that America appreciates how the people of CDC, the 12,000 people of CDC, work tirelessly, quietly,” she says. “You never know their name.”
Adam Mastroianni’s ‘Invitation to a Secret Society’
Mastroianni’s path through science has been a waltz through the highest echelons of the academy. Now, propelled by the popularity of his blog, he is leaving the hallowed halls to chart a different path for scientists.
Fifteen Minutes’ Top 15 Places to Make Out on Campus
Here’s our intel on the top 15 places to make out on campus, just for you. Thank us later.
Seeking the Past
For a while, I couldn’t help but to think pessimistically about life. What if this phone call is my last? What if this joke is my last? What if this outfit is my last? After all, friends, family, and circumstance remain victims of life’s volatility. It felt rather odd to be working toward something; what if the future I’m hoping for isn’t realized? What if the future isn’t realized?
Fifteen Questions: Vijay Iyer on Cognition, Temporality, and Musical Community
Professional musician and Harvard professor of the arts Vijay Iyer sat down with Fifteen Minutes to chat about his career, his teaching philosophy, and the neuroscience of music.
Astronomical Imperialism: Harvard In the Peruvian Skies
The data collected by Harvard College Observatory in Arequipa in the late 19th to early 20th century, is foundational in the study of astronomy and has furthered our understanding of the cosmos. But this type of cross-continental scientific undertaking cannot be separated from its impact on its workers — both the Indigenous people building Harvard facilities in Peru and the low-paid women astronomers in Cambridge.
Mixing Two Types of Mountains: A Night with Exchanging Notes
The program sends artists from America and Georgia to each others' countries. "I'm going to bring this American clawhammer old-time style to the highest inhabited village in Europe," says Maxwell Evrard, "and I’m going to make people tap their foot."
Anywhere I Go
When you lose the trappings of the familiar, you have no reminder of who you have been, or who you are supposed to be. So being in new places, at least at first, is both terrifying and exhilarating: You get to move a little more freely, losing the weight that expectations and environmental cues hold.
The Ghost of Susan Sontag
“The Self as a Project.” That’s what Sontag told Charlie Rose she was working on when she wasn’t writing. The grand irony is that she took that noble aspiration of the liberal arts colleges she swore off and made it hers: teaching people how to think.