Past Events
& Exhibitions
View recordings of more Radcliffe events on YouTube.
All Events & Exhibitions
Reckoning with Echoes of the Past: A South African Story
LecturesThe repercussions of violent histories extend far beyond these events to engender repetitions that echo for generations. In this lecture, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela will reflect on this problem and consider alternative ways of theorizing and making sense of the “transgenerational trauma” phenomenon, with the South African post-apartheid context as backdrop.
4 PM ET
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Machine Learning Emergence from Quantum Matter Data
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2022–2023 Edward, Frances, and Shirley B. Daniels Fellow Eun-Ah Kim
12 PM ET
Drawing Us Together: Public Life and Public Health in Contemporary Comics Opening
Gallery EventsIn this opening discussion for the exhibition Drawing Us Together: Public Life and Public Health in Contemporary Comics, cartoonists and scholars Hillary Chute, Joel Christian Gill, and James Sturm will discuss comics and their ability to tell stories across time, experience, and identity.
4 PM ET
Prejudice and Power: Stratification Economics, a General Theory of Intergroup Inequality
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2022–2023 Katherine Hampson Bessell Fellow William Darity Jr.
12 PM ET
Book Talk with Olivia Laing
Lectures • Virtual Radcliffe Book TalksOlivia Laing is the author of six books of fiction and nonfiction and writer for the New York Times, Guardian, Financial Times, and other publications. Laing’s reading from her new book, Everybody: A Book About Freedom (W. W. Norton & Company (2021), will be followed by a discussion with Joey Soloway, Emmy Award-winning creator, writer, producer, and director.
4 PM ET
Book Talk with Meghan O’Rourke
Lectures • Virtual Radcliffe Book TalksMeghan O’Rourke RI ’15 is an award-winning writer, poet, and editor. In this book talk, O’Rourke will be discussing The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness (Riverhead Books, 2022).
4 PM ET
Book Talk with Miguel Syjuco
Lectures • Virtual Radcliffe Book TalksMiguel Syjuco RI ’14 is an author, journalist, civil society advocate, and assistant professor of practice, literature and creative writing at New York University Abu Dhabi. This book talk will feature Syjuco’s most recent work, I Was the President’s Mistress!! (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022).
4 PM ET
Book Talk with Gish Jen
Lectures • Virtual Radcliffe Book TalksGish Jen RI ’02 is the award-winning author of Thank You, Mr. Nixon (Knopf, 2022), eight other books, and dozens of short stories and articles. Jen’s reading will be followed by a discussion with Alice Kessler-Harris RI ’02, R. Gordon Hoxie Professor Emerita of American History at Columbia University.
4 PM ET
Title IX at 50: Progress Made and Challenges Ahead for Women’s Sports
LecturesOn the 50th anniversary of the passage of Title IX, we will celebrate the significant strides made in women’s athletics and discuss the inequities that remain. Current and former competitive athletes will reflect on advancements since 1972, share their personal experiences, and consider the best ways to push forward.
4 PM ET
Radcliffe Day 2022
Radcliffe DayOn Radcliffe Day 2022—Friday, May 27—we will award the Radcliffe Medal to Sherrilyn Ifill.
Each year on Radcliffe Day, the Institute awards the Radcliffe Medal to an individual who embodies our commitment to excellence, inclusion, and social impact. First awarded to Lena Horne in 1987, recent honorees include Dolores Huerta, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Melinda French Gates.
10:30 AM ET
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
The Social Costs of Pretrial Detention
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2021–2022 Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor Sandra Susan Smith
12 PM ET
Charismatic Robots in Everyday Human Spaces
Lectures • HRI Science Lecture Series on AIHeather Knight will present work from the Collaborative Humans and Robotics: Interaction, Sociability, Machine learning and Art (CHARISMA) robotics lab at Oregon State University. CHARISMA demonstrates the possibility of automated work and technology with everyday human communication and interactions.
1 PM ET
The Time of Slavery: History, Memory, Politics, and the Constitution
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2021–2022 Joy Foundation Fellow Ariela Gross
12 PM ET
Telling the Truth about All This: Reckoning with Slavery and Its Legacies at Harvard and Beyond
Conferences & SymposiaUniversities and other institutions around the world have begun to reckon with their ties to slavery and its enduring legacies. Such efforts have uncovered previously unknown or ignored histories of enslavement, financial ties to slavery, and support for racist ideologies. They have also called attention to the long history of Black leadership and resistance. Taking these histories as a starting point, this conference will consider how institutions can pursue sustained and meaningful repair.
9:15 AM ET
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
The Descendants (A Novel)
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2021–2022 Radcliffe Fellow Ladee Hubbard
12 PM ET
Who Is Policing the Police?
LecturesThis program will explore what real police accountability looks like and include the voices of current and former law enforcement officers, activists, and academics to ask the question: Who is policing the police?
4 PM ET
Making Race: Policy, Sex, and Social Order in the Early Modern French Empire
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2021–2022 Radcliffe Institute Fellow Mélanie Lamotte
12 PM ET
Inclusions: Envisioning Justice on Harvard’s Campus
LecturesInclusions–a participatory, student-generated art installation–serves as the inspiration for this conversation about the intersection of art, visual culture, and representation at Harvard. The discussion will foreground the perspectives of the Harvard student organizers and focus on how we can use art to envision justice collectively and translate these ideas to the immediate context of our own campus.
5 PM ET
1350 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
The Children Go (Novel in Progress)
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2021–2022 Mildred Londa Weisman Fellow Lysley Tenorio
12 PM ET
Out for Blood: Feminine Hygiene to Menstrual Equity (Exhibition Opening)
LecturesJoin us for a discussion featuring leading activists and scholars working toward menstrual justice. The program will open the exhibition Out for Blood: Feminine Hygiene to Menstrual Equity.
4 PM ET
Lift Ev’ry Voice: Celebrating the Music of Black Americans
PerformancesIn honor of Eileen Southern, a pioneering scholar of Black music, the Aeolians of Oakwood University will join the Harvard Choruses and the Kuumba Singers of Harvard College in concert to premiere new works and celebrate the rich legacy of Black music in the US.
7 PM ET
45 Quincy Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Black Music and the American University: Eileen Southern’s Story
LecturesJoin us for the second of two one-hour webinars exploring the legacy of Eileen Southern, author of The Music of Black Americans: A History and founder and editor of The Black Perspective in Music.
4 PM ET
The Impact of Gold Mining on the Feasibility of Malaria Elimination in the Amazon
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2021–2022 Joy Foundation Fellow Caroline Buckee
12 PM ET
To Laugh Is Human: Gender and Comedy
Conferences & SymposiaAre we entering a new age of comedy? As once marginalized voices take center stage, fresh comedic genres are challenging assumptions about who and what can be funny. Join us as comedians, academics, and activists share their surprising insights into gender and comedy and how laughter can deepen and transform our sense of humanity.
9:30 AM ET
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
To Laugh Is Your Only Job
PerformancesJoin us for a night of stand-up comedy featuring student comics from the Harvard College Stand-up Comic Society and the Harvard Undergraduate Feminist Comedy Collective. Through a series of individual sets, student performers will explore the intersection of gender and comedy—and keep us laughing in the process. The program will include a brief panel discussion and a Q&A with the audience.
7 PM ET
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Lamia Joreige: After the River
ExhibitionIn this exhibition, the visual artist and filmmaker Lamia Joreige uncovers the different facets of Nahr Beirut (Beirut River), with its recent and rapid transformations from dumping ground to a place scheduled for ambitious development. After the River invites reflection on the interwoven narratives of the river, its surroundings, and the people who live and work there.
through Saturday, March 4, 2017
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Wendy Jacob: Calm. Smoke rises vertically.
ExhibitionWorking with vibrating walls, a livestreaming weather report, and architectural models from schools for the blind, this exhibition explores sensory experience through differing modes of perception. The artist Wendy Jacob challenges the viewer to place touch on an equal footing with sight. The title comes from the Beaufort Wind Scale, which relates wind speed to observed conditions at sea or on land.
through Saturday, January 14, 2017
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
through Friday, March 17, 2017
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Women of the Blackwell Family: Resilience and Change
ExhibitionThe Blackwells were a multigenerational family of abolitionists, entrepreneurs, educators, musicians, doctors, writers, expatriates, suffrage supporters, and women’s rights activists.
through Friday, October 21, 2016
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Seeds of Culture: The Portraits and Stories of Native American Women
ExhibitionMatika Wilbur, a member of the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes and the creator and director of Project 562, selects a group of striking photographs from among the thousands of portraits she has taken in recent years. Written narratives and audio of the interviews she conducted as part of her project accompany the photographs. Elders, activists, educators, culture-bearers, artists, and students have shared with Wilbur their realities as Native women. They convey how ancestral and contemporary identities shape their lives and hopes in Indian Country.
through Saturday, May 28, 2016
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Valérie Massadian: Little People
ExhibitionThere should be a fancy text here.
There won’t be. Sorry. I’m not fancy.
I’d rather get on my knees and talk with children
I’d rather talk to strangers whose language sometimes I can’t understand
I’d rather sense people, little and not so little, beyond language
I’d rather share the beauty of silence between two souls
I’d rather protect the sensuality and the precious way children improvise the world I’d rather spend time building a shack with a four-year-old than socialize
I’d rather, you’d rather, we’d rather. . .
In here, I’ll gently ask you to take your shoes off, and if you got holes in your socks, who cares, I do very often.
And when you take your shoes off, try to also take your armor off—for here, you can roll on the carpet, lay on the bed, draw on the walls, hide in the closet, sit in silence, gaze into the joy, the sadness, the way children are in and out of the world they live in, with and without us.
—Valérie Massadian
through Saturday, April 16, 2016
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
“A Language to Hear Myself”: Feminist Poets Speak
Exhibition“A Language to Hear Myself”: Feminist Poets Speak celebrates the ways that feminist poets fashioned words and ideas into a powerful form of personal and political expression.
through Friday, June 17, 2016
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Reiko Yamada and Vijay Iyer: Reflective
ExhibitionThis installation is unique in that its material is drawn from recordings of the acclaimed jazz pianist, composer, and Harvard professor Vijay Iyer. The sound material, improvised and recorded in collaboration with Reiko Yamada, has been digitally processed and programmed specifically for the exhibition.
Reflective explores the relationship among decisions, actions, and results. The movements of a visitor in the intimate, darkened gallery space is detected by motion capture sensors, which alter the sound quality of the precomposed piece, making the experience more disturbing or pleasant. Each visitor experiences a unique version of the piece, which is four minutes long.
through Saturday, January 30, 2016
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Cookbooks to Treasure: Culinary Rarities from the Schlesinger Library
ExhibitionFrom Renaissance medical manuals expounding the health and mood-influencing qualities of foods, to the first cookbooks by women, the books in this exhibition open windows into understanding the people who produced and used them.
through Friday, February 19, 2016
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
teamLab at Radcliffe: What a Loving and Beautiful World
ExhibitionThis exhibition is only the second ever in the United States dedicated to teamLab, which has been acclaimed by critics for its ability to digitally generate sophisticated and dreamlike worlds. In teamLab at Radcliffe: What a Loving and Beautiful World, Chinese and Japanese characters appear on the walls of the gallery. When the viewer’s hand touches a character, an image of the meaning of the character emerges and interacts with images generated from other characters. The result is a colorful, multisensory space that continuously evolves as the images that are released from the characters influence one another.
through Saturday, December 19, 2015
Corita Kent: Footnotes and Headlines
ExhibitionThis exhibition explores Kent’s teaching, artistic process, career, and activism, all of which disrupted the dichotomies of fine/commercial art and religious/secular art.
through Friday, December 4, 2015
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Until Safety is Guaranteed: Women and the Fight Against Violence
ExhibitionThis exhibition provides historical evidence on the topic of gender violence and documents the experiences of women who have survived domestic abuse and sexual violence.
through Friday, August 14, 2015
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
What They Wrote, What They Saved: The Personal Civil War
ExhibitionThis exhibition features diaries, letters, and firsthand accounts from four years of Civil War that offer intimate glimpses into the lives of men and women affected by the strife.
through Friday, March 20, 2015
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Judy Chicago: Through the Archives
ExhibitionJudy Chicago was born Judith Sylvia Cohen in Chicago, Illinois, on July 20, 1939, the oldest child in a family of secular Jewish liberals. Her father, Arthur, conveyed a passion for social justice and a belief that the purpose of life was to make a difference.
through Thursday, September 25, 2014
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
It Changed My Life: The Feminine Mystique at 50
ExhibitionFriedan's assertion that women needed meaningful work to be fulfilled propelled her book to the best-seller list and began a national conversation about gender equality.
through Thursday, February 6, 2014
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Stepping Stones for New Americans
ExhibitionThe documents and memorabilia of Denison House, the Lebanese Syrian Ladies' Aid Society, the North Bennet Street School, and the Window Shop showcase the diversity of the immigrant experience in Boston and the changing socio-political context in which the groups operated.
through Thursday, September 13, 2018
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tenacious Women: Activists in a Democratic Society
ExhibitionThe exhibit features the lives and work of four women from the late 19th century through the end of the 20th century, who were dedicated to democratic change and expanding the rights and freedoms of women and all Americans. From traditional methods of lobbying legislators and holding elected office to grassroots public demonstrations and teach-ins, these women exemplified American civic responsibility.
through Friday, September 7, 2012
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
It’s Complicated: 375 Years of Women at Harvard
ExhibitionThe Radcliffe College Archives at the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America are a uniquely valuable resource for the study of women in higher education, the Harvard-Radcliffe relationship, and the lives of the many remarkable women affiliated with Radcliffe College. The archives chronicle Radcliffe College from its beginning as the Harvard Annex in 1879 through its transition to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in 1999. The Library's resources about Radcliffe College were used to create this exploration of the complicated story of women at Harvard University, and an evolution toward equality.
through Thursday, May 31, 2012
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Women on the Clock: Hard Work and Low Wages
ExhibitionWomen on the Clock: Hard Work and Low Wages showcases the everyday experiences of women who work for an hourly wage. Organized into five sections—service industries, factory and mill work, clerical and office work, non-traditional trade jobs, and organizations that fought against discrimination in the workplace—this exhibition uses diary excerpts, letters, surveys, photographs, and audio-visual recordings to illustrate women workers’ trials and triumphs.
through Monday, March 12, 2012
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Our Bodies, Ourselves: The Collective Goes Global
ExhibitionForty years ago a small group of women in Boston, frustrated by a lack of useful medical information, began an enterprise to educate themselves and others about their bodies. The fruit of this endeavor, which took shape in an ongoing process of discovering and sharing knowledge collectively, was the ground-breaking Our Bodies, Ourselves, a publication that was subsequently translated and adapted into more than 25 languages, and made available around the globe.
through Wednesday, October 12, 2011
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
From Woman To Human: The Life and Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman
ExhibitionThough she wrote and lectured extensively on reforming marriage and the family, Charlotte Perkins Gilman rued the attention and notoriety that her own marriages and family life unavoidably attracted.
through Thursday, February 17, 2011
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138