Past Events
& Exhibitions

This panel draws together the ideas and growing influence of conservative women, the political activism of gay communities, and the mobilization of Latinx constituencies in the ongoing struggle over votes.

This roundtable conversation looks at the relationships among the Reconstruction Amendments, the 19th Amendment, the Voting Rights Act (VRA), and the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

This panel will use gender as a lens to understand the cross-cutting trends of enfranchisement and disenfranchisement that came together in the wake of the Civil War.

Our series Voting Matters: Gender, Citizenship, and the Long 19th Amendment begins with a keynote address by the historian Martha S. Jones who explores the intersection of gender and race in the battle for the ballot.

No single person sits more squarely at the intersection of these pivotal movements than the political activist and pioneering philosopher Angela Davis. “Radical Commitments” will use Davis’s life and work to ground discussions on the rich tradition of activism and social theory in the late 20th century, bringing together a cross-generational group of leading scholars, activists, musicians, and incarcerated women.

“Vision & Justice” is a two-day creative convening (April 25–26, 2019) that will consider the role of the arts in understanding the nexus of art, race, and justice.

Populism, global crisis, and modernity have rendered citizenship an ever-more fluid and troubled concept. Even as millions of migrants from poorer countries struggle for citizenship in places like Canada, Europe, and the United States, wealthy families and individuals often have the means to purchase legal citizenship rights in a new country. Prominent court cases have granted the legal rights of citizens to corporations, which are themselves created by the government. Meanwhile, indigenous peoples frequently find their citizenship regulated by nation-states as well as tribal governments. In country after country, ethnic majorities are seeking laws to define citizenship based on race, language, and religion. In other settings, nations seek an ideal of citizenship that potentially erases biological, racial, and religious difference.

“Beyond Words” will explore the aesthetics of communication, focusing particularly on how we communicate through the body—how we make ourselves look and smell, move and sound.

This conference will explore the ways in which contemporary notions of disability are linked to concepts of citizenship and belonging. Leaders in advocacy, education, medicine, and politics will consider how ideas of community at the local, national, and international levels affect the understanding of and policies related to disability—and how this has manifested itself, in particular, in higher education.

The 2018 Radcliffe Institute science symposium will focus on how scientists explore realities they cannot anticipate. Speakers from across the disciplines of modern science will present personal experiences and discuss how to train scientists, educators, and funders to foster the expertise and open-mindedness needed to reveal undiscovered aspects of the world around us.

The very meaning of citizenship at local, national, and global levels is in flux in most countries and continents. More than 65 million human beings are currently displaced from their homes, while even in countries where armed conflict is not prevalent, separatist and nationalist movements have reshaped policy. Gender—in all its forms—is essential to any analysis of these trends and to our understandings of citizenship around the world, although it is often overlooked in public debate.

Epidemic disease spreads quickly in our interconnected, globalized world. This symposium looks at new ways of tracking epidemics using big data and social networks to predict and stem the rise of emergent diseases.

This symposium will explore the political dynamics of health care laws and the way they affect people not only as patients but also as citizens. Health professionals, policy and public health experts, economists, sociologists, and political scientists will draw on comparative politics and policies of the US states—alone and as part of a federalist system—and on international perspectives to explore the relationships between citizens and their health care.

The degree to which sports—broadly defined—permeates societies and cultures has never been greater, making it a revealing lens through which to understand many contemporary issues. The Radcliffe Institute conference “Game Changers: Sports, Gender, and Society” will explore the relationship between sports and gender in the United States and around the world.

In March 2016, Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust, in an opinion piece in the Harvard Crimson, urged the university to more fully acknowledge and understand its links to slavery, stating, “The past never dies or disappears. It continues to shape us in ways we should not try to erase or ignore.”

On March 3, 2017, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University will host a daylong conference to explore the relationship between slavery and universities, across the country and around the world.

Politics requires more than voting and electoral mobilization. It requires knowledge of law, organization, identity, history, and culture. This reality is very much evident in Native American life today, where Native communities are sovereign nations within the United States, yet must still negotiate politically within a federal democratic system that at times inconsistently honors their rights, their land and water, and their ways of life. 

Languages constantly evolve, and reflect cultural practices. They are a fluid reflection of the passage of time, influenced by many factors, including age, class, and gender. This conference will focus on a snapshot of the state of language in present-day society as it relates to, mirrors, and affects perceptions of gender. Four panels of experts, including anthropologists, authors, computer scientists, linguists, journalists, performing artists, politicians, and psychologists, will explore different facets of the interplay of gender and language.

The focus of this one-day science symposium is on the explosion of knowledge about past and present DNA, and includes discussions about possible directions and applications for future research. The event includes experts in ancient DNA, de-extinction, human origins, population genetics, forensic science, ethics, business, future synthetic life, and the personal genome.

This symposium will explore the divide between the large number of women who pursue advanced degrees in related scientific fields and their representation in leadership positions in biotech firms. Scientists, industry and venture capital leaders, and academics will also consider new research, experimentation, and promising models that may help industry, universities, government, and private capital improve the current system.

Each year, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University hosts a conference that explores the role of gender in a significant aspect of the human experience. “Who Decides? Gender, Medicine, and the Public’s Health” was the conference in 2014.

Two notable scholars will look back at Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique and consider whether movement toward equality has persisted or stalled since the book was published in 1963. What has changed in roles at home and at work? How has law figured in the balance? Do we have new mystiques today?

Activists, journalists, and academics from different fields and disciplines will examine and analyze recent events in countries affected by the democratizing efforts often described as “Arab Spring” and compare women’s experiences of these events with those of women in other moments of democratic change around the world, including Eastern Europe, South Africa, and Latin America.