In the News
Vintage Cookbooks Reveal Secrets of America’s Past
"American Cookery" is staging a comeback. Scholars in fields like culinary history and food studies are working alongside a thriving community of food professionals and amateurs, all of whom find cookbooks an invaluable window into daily life in yesterday's kitchens. They turn to the culinary collections at the Radcliffe Institute's Schlesinger Library.
The Roads Not Taken
In November 1972, an improbable campaign to stop a juggernaut of highways from afflicting Greater Boston reached its culmination. Viewed from today, that victory, which was several years in the making, seems preordained. But consider the landscape of the time:
Female to Head Marine Lab
Harvard Medical School Professor and Radcliffe Institute science advisor Joan V. Ruderman will pioneer the next era of the Marine Biological Laboratory as its first female president.
Duly Noted
The Atlantic reports, Harvard English professor Leah Price, one of the co-organizers of TakeNote, a conference dedicated to the history, theory, practice and future of note-taking, opened her introductory remarks with a much-circulated picture of Biden holding up his notes after this year's vice-presidential debate.
A Collection Unlike Others
Photo by Stephanie MitchellMaterial from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection at Harvard Library includes centuries of art, literature, and popular culture artifacts related to the chief avenues to altered states of mind: sex and drugs.
Note-Taking’s Past, Deciphered Today
Image from Houghton LibraryThe New York Times features Radcliffe's Take Note conference, during which 250 historians, literary scholars, psychologists and computer scientists played with the possibilities of paper and screen.
Hello Again, Climate Change
Photo by Jon ChaseWhile many analysts focused on Superstorm Sandy’s intensity, Harvard's Daniel P. Schrag found Hurricane Sandy’s path rather than its power most intriguing. Water and its role in climate change was the subject of Schrag’s Radcliffe Institute lecture, “Wetter Weather: Water on a Changing Planet.”
Confessions Of A Compulsive Note-Taker, Part 1
I took 14 pages of notes about taking notes. Some may call it compulsive; I call it processing information!The prospect of summarizing the Radcliffe Institute’s Take Note conference is daunting. Throughout the course of the day, I took more than 14 pages of notes about taking notes. Questions and comments from the audience produced lively conversations on Twitter. The hashtag (#radtakenote) was one of the most active I’ve ever seen at such an event.
Professor Defines Global Novel
Radcliffe fellow and Rutgers English professor Rebecca L. Walkowitz '92 identified a new genre of fiction, novels that are intended to transcend language barriers, in a lecture at the Radcliffe Institute.
The Designing Woman
Photo by Kris SnibbeThe Harvard Gazette speaks to Radcliffe Institute graphic designer Jessica Brilli about her work in design and painting. "I love doing both — I love painting, and I love doing graphic design. So I feel very blessed to have a job that I like so much, and an outside hobby that ties into it. Both things really inspire each other."