Past Events
& Exhibitions

Millions of Americans have long struggled to pay for housing, with communities of color additionally burdened by housing discrimination and historical race-based policies, such as legalized segregation, redlining, and mortgage discrimination. Our panel of experts will explore these issues as they relate to Greater Boston.

This session will consider what it means to organize for gender rights in global contexts in the 21st century during a pandemic.

Ocean Vuong is the author of the New York Times best-selling novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (Penguin Press, 2019), forthcoming in 30 languages. A 2019 MacArthur Fellow and 2014 Pushcart Prize recipient, he is also the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds (Copper Canyon Press, 2016).

In this program, Christy Coleman, an American historian, will discuss the power that museums have to genuinely engage with communities around what matters most to them.

Douglas Ridloff is the founder and executive director of ASL Slam, a nonprofit organization that creates safe spaces for the Deaf community to thrive in the many modalities of their native language.

Fred Wilson is a conceptual artist whose work investigates museological, cultural, and historical issues that are largely overlooked or neglected by museums and cultural institutions.

Kiese Laymon will talk with Courtney R. Baker about whether the actual histories of American colleges and universities should be ripe sites for Black American horror and comedic narratives. 

Racial disparities in our carceral systems are profound and troubling. As a society, we appear to be at an inflection point where racial justice is a core priority for the incoming Biden administration and a majority of the public. This program will bring together the compassionate work of a practitioner on the front lines with the expertise of a world-renowned researcher in criminal justice policy.

How does the precarious position of African American young adults facilitate a reimagining of democracy? What does this reimagining mean for American politics?

The COVID-19 pandemic—the greatest public health challenge in more than a century—has forced many hard decisions. The partial or full closures of schools nationwide have become a flashpoint with very strong opinions on both sides and have reinforced the critical role that schools play in supporting the health of our children.

We are in the midst of an education crisis, greatly exacerbated by COVID-19, that is preventing many children from reaching their full potential. These gaps are most acutely felt by Black and brown children. The speakers in this program will discuss inequalities among social groups in schools and society, with a focus on racial, economic, social, and cultural differences, and the role of education in the lives of all youth, including African American men. 

Join leading epidemiologists for a panel discussion as they assess the current and future state of the epidemic. 

This concluding sessions asks a variety of experts to briefly unfold a single “big idea” that captures the significance of the 19th Amendment for voting rights, citizenship, and democracy today.

Speakers on this panel will discuss how higher education can and should rise to the challenges of 2020 and beyond.

Join us for a discussion about antiracism in higher education with award-winning author Ibram X. Kendi, joined by Radcliffe Institute Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin and Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana.

Anne Wojcicki, cofounder and CEO of 23andMe, will discuss the next phase of consumer genetics: taking action.

“Education Justice: Centering Student Voices” is the second in a two-part series that explores education justice in carceral settings and through nontraditional paths.

“What college does, it helps us learn about the nation,” said Rodney Spivey-Jones, a 2017 Bard College graduate currently incarcerated at Fishkill Correctional Facility in New York, in the docuseries College behind Bars. “It helps us become civic beings. It helps us understand that we have an interest in our community, that our community is a part of us and we are a part of it.” 

This program will explore how uneven distribution of social support drives obesity; how framing affects policy; and how lack of research fuels speculation and reinforces racist stereotypes.

The speakers in this program will discuss water’s vital role across four areas of modern inquiry: biology, earth science, public health, and the search for extraterrestrial life.

This panel of experts will examine the role and impact of slavery in the North and discuss the influence of Agassiz and how Black abolitionists responded to scientific racism.

Nikole Hannah-Jones, will engage in conversation with Tomiko Brown-Nagin about pressing issues of race, civil rights, injustice, desegregation, and resegregation.

Join us this summer for a series of Virtual Radcliffe Book Talks exploring recent publications whose subjects or authors have a connection with the Radcliffe Institute.

Join us this summer for a series of Virtual Radcliffe Book Talks exploring recent publications whose subjects or authors have a connection with the Radcliffe Institute.

Join us this summer for a series of Virtual Radcliffe Book Talks exploring recent publications whose subjects or authors have a connection with the Radcliffe Institute.

Join us this summer for a series of Virtual Radcliffe Book Talks exploring recent publications whose subjects or authors have a connection with the Radcliffe Institute.

This Radcliffe webinar, cosponsored by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, will bring together experts from public school systems, foundations, and academia to explore the present and future of US education.

Speakers discuss contemporary police violence against people of color along with ethical issues that we must consider as we reflect on the current turmoil and attempt to envision how our nation might be transformed. 

This Radcliffe webinar brings together historians, physicians, and organizers to discuss the disparate impact of the pandemic on the physical and mental health of sexual and gender minorities.

The Radcliffe Institute is offering a two-part series of virtual programs to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on incarcerated people.

Music has played a large social function during the coronavirus pandemic: from the daily balcony concerts in Italy to the virtual performances of countless orchestras, it has helped tie communities together where social distancing has atomized us. During this Radcliffe webinar, we will talk with musicians about their experience during the crisis—from the precarious position of performers without gigs to the healing role music can play.

Part I of this discussion series focuses on people who are incarcerated and their families, exploring how systemic racism and mass criminalization threaten both incarcerated individuals and their communities

In this Radcliffe webinar, scholars, public officials, community activists, and medical professionals join to discuss domestic violence in the midst of this public health crisis and consider ways to aid those in need.

Camara Phyllis Jones RI ’20 and David R. Williams will explore how we might overcome, “the somnolence of racism denial,” dismantle the system of racism, and put in its place a system in which all people can thrive.

In this Radcliffe webinar, scholars and practitioners engage in a conversation about how to leverage the policy opportunities the epidemic presents for changes that could support an equitable public health response.

In this Virtual Radcliffe program, two Indigenous professors of medicine will consider the implications of the pandemic for lives and livelihoods in contemporary American Indian communities.

Mary Bassett and Khalil Gibran Muhammad will discuss inequity and public health in the time of COVID-19, exploring how the virus exacerbates existing inequalities.

This Radcliffe webinar contextualizes the history of disability civil rights and considers what is necessary to achieve an equitable health outcome for persons with disabilities during this time of crisis.

In this talk, the career diplomat and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein will argue that the world’s people deserve better.

David Altshuler will discuss protein-folding correction for cystic fibrosis and investigative CRISPR-based gene-editing approaches for sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia.

Clint Smith's upcoming nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed, explores how different historical sites reckon with—or fail to reckon with—their relationship to the history of slavery.

Haunting and humorous, poignant and political, the award-winning documentaryFixed rethinks “disability” and “normalcy” by exploring technologies that promise to change our bodies and minds forever.

In a program designed around a musically illustrated discussion, the internationally renowned pianist Gabriela Montero will discuss her evolution as an improvisational artist and creative dissenter.

Xenotransplantation is a promising strategy to address the shortage of organs for human transplantation. Concerns about pig-to-human immunological compatibility and the risk of cross-species transmission of porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs) have impeded the clinical application of this approach.

For centuries, in both the arts and the sciences, the human heart has been a source of reverence and marvel: Western artistic traditions have explored the heart as the vessel of sacred identity and the visceral instrument of emotional life, while the sciences know it as an exquisitely complicated pump that has tested the limits of medicine and engineering. Although these approaches may seem incompatible, recent advances in both fields provide surprising opportunities for art and science to converge around new insights and questions.

Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Imani Perry, and Robert Reid-Pharr will join in conversation to discuss how their work as biographers speaks to key contemporary discussions about black politics, community, identity, and life.

In this performance-based lecture, the globe-trotting magician Joshua Jay will pull back the curtain on the way magicians think.

Research in experimental biology and biomedical sciences has been greatly facilitated by the use of animal models. Because of their evolutionary proximity to humans, non-human primates are favorable models for understanding human neurobiology and brain disorders.

Alondra Nelson will discuss the Obama administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy and, in particular, the evolution of the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) in the United States.

Who are the modern Koreans, and what do they care about? Koreans have experienced colonialism, diaspora, war, national division, immigration, and a persistent nuclear threat—and yet, they have achieved extraordinary gains in their homelands and elsewhere.