In the News
Statues vs. Systemic Change: How Much of a Difference Does Tearing Down Monuments Really Make?
Tomiko Brown-Nagin. Photo by Rose Lincoln, Harvard Staff PhotographerActivists, scholars, and artists at the forefront of the anti-racist movement say that symbols can be an easy out for powerful institutions still resistant to undoing systemic inequalities. But taken as a whole, the growing collection of fallen symbols is a sign of true progress.
In Research on Feminism and Gay Rights, a Case for Unity
Morgan Melito ’21 is studying history, with a secondary in African and African American studies, and is a member of Harvard’s softball team. With support from a Carol K. Pforzheimer Student Fellowship this summer, Melito is examining the relationship between second-wave feminism and the gay rights movement. Through archival research, she is evaluating the legal and activist legacies of the feminist reproductive justice movement and their effect on gay rights activism and the eventual achievement of foundational Supreme Court rulings.
A Room of One’s Own
Bunting Institute fellows. Photo by Olive PierceThe Equivalents follows Anne Sexton, Maxine Kumin, Tillie Olsen, Barbara Swan, and Marianna Pineda through the birth of the Radcliffe Institute and the modern women’s movement.
In Dark Chapter of Harvard’s History, Family Subplots
Mary McNeil (Mashpee Wampanoag) is a PhD candidate in Harvard’s American Studies program and a research assistant for the African American Trail Project at Tufts University. With support from the Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery initiative, which is anchored at the Radcliffe Institute, McNeil is examining the University’s connections to the slave trade by tracing its financial links to the enslavement of American Indians.
Legal Experts Say Supreme Court Ruling on Trump Financial Records Will Have Far-reaching Effect
Tomiko Brown-Nagin. Photo by Rose Lincoln, Harvard Staff PhotographerDean Tomiko Brown-Nagin comments on the high court’s decisions regarding the release of the President's tax records.
Police Reform in the Spotlight
Photo by Matt Popovich/UnsplashRadcliffe panel explores the nation’s history of policing, what it will take to overhaul a system seen as rife with misconduct and racism, and how America is failing to live up to its democratic beliefs.
Much Bigger than the Police
Clockwise from top left: Laurence Ralph, Monica Bell, and Brandon Terry“Policing, at present, is trapped in an intractable dilemma caused by the gap between a just society and the one we inhabit,” said Harvard political theorist Brandon Terry, leading off a Radcliffe Institute online conversation on American policing and protest.
"Tom Tom" Takes Its Place in the Operatic Canon
Shirley Graham Du Bois in profile, ca. 1945. Photo by Calhoun. Courtesy of Shirley Graham Du Bois Papers, Schlesinger LibraryShirley Graham Du Bois’ "lost opera" tells the diaspora story of African Americans. Originally performed in 1932, it is being reproduced and restored to its rightful place in history.
‘Juneteenth is a day of reflection of how we as a country and as individuals continue to reckon with slavery’
An early celebration of Juneteenth in 1900 at Eastwoods Park in Austin, Texas. Credit: Grace Murray Stephenson/Austin History Center, PICA 05476In a Q&A, Radcliffe Dean and Harvard Law Professor Tomiko Brown-Nagin spoke about the history of Juneteenth and its particular relevance more than 150 years later.
"Indian Sex Life" and the Cultural Control of Women
Durba Mitra wrote a book on the intersection of social norms, gender expectations, and sex in Indian culture. Photo by Jon Chase/Harvard Staff PhotographerResearch and personal story frame Radcliffe Professor Durba Mitra’s new book.