Past Events
& Exhibitions
View recordings of more Radcliffe events on YouTube.
All Events & Exhibitions
Nemo’s Fever: Deep Thoughts on Water, Culture, and Climate Resilience
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2023–2024 Frances B. Cashin Fellow Rob Verchick
12 PM ET
Exhibitions Tour: In Their Own Voices and A Female Landscape and the Abstract Gesture
Gallery EventsThis dual tour of two Harvard Radcliffe Institute exhibitions—In Their Own Voices: Black Women’s Lives from the Archives and A Female Landscape and the Abstract Gesture—is an opportunity to view and celebrate materials and artworks by and about Black women.
1 PM ET
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
A Female Landscape and the Abstract Gesture Opening Program: Curator Talk with Chassidy A. Winestock
LecturesIn this opening program for A Female Landscape and the Abstract Gesture, the curator Chassidy A. Winestock will offer an introduction to the exhibition and its historical context, followed by a conversation with Mary Schneider Enriquez.
4 PM ET
Revisiting Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower in 2024
LecturesParable of the Sower, first published in 1993, engages young readers in complex climate issues through fiction while demonstrating the power that arts and literature can have on our communities.
4 PM ET
Dear Mothership: Poems
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2023–2024 Mary I. Bunting Institute Fellow Marcus Wicker
12 PM ET
Using Evidence and Data to Illuminate Our Food Systems
Lectures • Climate Change Science Lecture SeriesJessica Fanzo, a climate, nutrition, and immunology expert, will discuss how innovations in data gathering and analysis can illuminate our complex food systems and also equip decision-makers to navigate the difficult course of making our food systems more resilient in the face of the climate crisis and environmental instability.
4 PM ET
Rising Tides: Broadening Public Participation in Climate Action through Mixed Reality Visualization
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2023–2024 Radcliffe fellow Narges Mahyar
12 PM ET
Free Speech, Political Speech, and Hate Speech on Campus
LecturesHarvard Radcliffe Institute will host an interdisciplinary panel to discuss the purposes and scope of academic freedom and the legal norms that govern how universities respond to conflict and protest.
4 PM ET
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
On Narrative, Violence, and Migration
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2023–2024 Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Fellow Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi
12 PM ET
In Their Own Voices: Black Women’s Lives from the Archives Public Tour
Gallery Events • In Their Own Voices Gallery Series1 PM ET
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Water Stories with the Artist Alia Farid
Gallery Events • Water Stories Gallery SeriesJoin the artist Alia Farid for a tour of Water Stories: River Goddesses, Ancestral Rites, and Climate Crisis and a discussion of the artwork Chibayish, 2023.
12 PM ET
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Sophie Scholl and the White Rose Resistance to Hitler
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2023–2024 Lisa Goldberg Fellow Rebecca Donner
12 PM ET
Water Stories with Harvard South Asian Music Association
Gallery Events • Water Stories Gallery Series5:45 PM ET
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2023–2024 Evelyn Green Davis Fellow Francesca Wade
12 PM ET
Water Stories with the Artist Evelyn Rydz
Gallery Events • Water Stories Gallery SeriesJoin the artist and educator Evelyn Rydz for an afternoon of conversation and collective artmaking within the exhibition Water Stories: River Goddesses, Ancestral Rites, and Climate Crisis.
1 PM ET
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Inclusivity and Rigor in the Science of Sex Differences
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2023–2024 Radcliffe fellow Donna L. Maney
12 PM ET
Kim and Judy Davis Dean’s Lecture in the Social Sciences: Conversation with Ruth J. Simmons
Lectures • Kim and Judy Davis Dean’s Lecture in the Social SciencesJoin us for a conversation between scholars and university leaders Ruth J. Simmons, former president of Prairie View A&M University, Brown University, and Smith College, and Tomiko Brown-Nagin, dean of Harvard Radcliffe Institute.
4 PM ET
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
What’s Inside a Generative Artificial-Intelligence Model? And Why Should We Care?
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2023–2024 Sally Starling Seaver Professor Fernanda Viégas
12 PM ET
In Their Own Voices: Black Women's Lives from the Archives Opening Event
LecturesThe opening event for the In Their Own Voices exhibition features Taryn Jordan (Colgate University), Kalimah Redd Knight (The League of Women for Community Service), and Holly Smith (Spelman College) in conversation with the curator Petrina Jackson.
4 PM ET
Responsibility and Repair: Legacies of Indigenous Enslavement, Indenture, and Colonization at Harvard and Beyond
Conferences & SymposiaThe second day of the conference will bring together scholars, tribal leaders and historians, university representatives, and others to explore issues of enslavement and indenture, colonization in New England, and Harvard and New England tribal repair. The Friday program will feature a keynote by Tara Houska (Couchiching First Nation), environmental and Indigenous rights advocate and founder of the Giniw Collective.
9 AM ET
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Responsibility and Repair: Legacies of Indigenous Enslavement, Indenture, and Colonization at Harvard and Beyond Evening Event
Conferences & SymposiaThe opening session of the conference will feature a keynote by Dallas Goldtooth (Mdewakanton Dakota and Dińe), an activist, actor (Reservation Dogs, Rutherford Falls), organizer, writer, Dakota culture and language teacher, and founding member of the sketch comedy group, the 1491s.
7:30 PM ET
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Climate Justice Universities: Another Education Is Possible
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2023–2024 Radcliffe-Salata Climate Justice Fellow Jennie C. Stephens
12 PM ET
Gender Underground: A Trans History of Do-It-Yourself
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2023–2024 William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Fellow Jules Gill-Peterson
12 PM ET
Conversation with Sherrilyn Ifill
LecturesThe civil rights lawyer and scholar Sherrilyn Ifill will join dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin, dean of Harvard Radcliffe Institute, in conversation about the recent United States Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action and access to higher education.
4 PM ET
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
And Then They Vanished: A Hidden History of Mexico’s Disappeared
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2023–2024 Shutzer Fellow Oscar Lopez
12 PM ET
Altered Gazes
ExhibitionAltered Gazes foregrounds women as creators and consumers of countercultural content. In addition to materials from our growing collection of comics, zines, erotica and pornography, and other alternative publications, the exhibition features materials from the Ludlow Santo Domingo Collection, one of the largest gatherings of underground, alternative, and pop-culture publications in the world.
through Friday, January 19, 2018
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
100+ Years at 73 Brattle
Exhibition • Radcliffe Institute Public Art CompetitionA public art installation by John Wang ’16, winner of the biennial Radcliffe Institute Public Art Competition
through Friday, March 1, 2019
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Xaviera Simmons: Overlay
ExhibitionOverlay, an exhibition created by the multimedia artist Xaviera Simmons for Harvard Radcliffe Institute, uses text-based video, photographs, and soundscapes to feature characters rooted in stories and historical narratives found in the archives of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute’s Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America.
through Saturday, July 1, 2017
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Playing Fair? Title IX at 45
ExhibitionOver the past four decades, the phrase “Title IX” has become practically synonymous with women’s sports. The events leading up to Title IX’s passage in 1972 and the struggle ever since to figure out how to implement the law fairly demonstrate how athletics became part of the broader political and cultural struggles of contemporary American life.
through Saturday, September 16, 2017
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
A.K. Burns: No Time, No Place, No Body
Exhibitionthrough Friday, April 14, 2017
8 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