The exhibition “The Space of Appearances: A Shared Tongue” is an excerpt from Yulia Spiridonova’s ongoing project “Wayward Son,” which examines contemporary displacement of people from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and Central Asia. The individuals photographed in this body of work have in common the Russian language and the experience of leaving their respective home countries due to political repression, the gradual collapse of personal freedoms, the erosion of civic life and civil society, or war.  

This day-long, in-person workshop introduces history and social studies educators to practical approaches for teaching the Cold War through readily available open-access materials. The program will include a historical lecture on the Cold War, a review of Cold War-related materials available through open-access digital collections and the Fung Library, and presentations by the developers of A Visual Guide to the Cold War. Participants will explore the archive’s resources and learn strategies for incorporating primary sources into classroom instruction through short demonstrations, discussion, and collaborative activities.

Created over the course of fourteen years, Iranian photographer Azadeh Akhlaghi’s project stages and photographs pivotal moments from Iran’s tumultuous twentieth-century history. Drawing on meticulous archival research and her background in cinema, she casts professional and nonprofessional actors and photographs each scene from multiple angles to reimagine historical events as complex tableaux, set in real locations in Iran.

Harvard student guides connect adult visitors with the research, teaching, and Indigenous engagement surrounding the cultural heritage in the museum’s care. How do items come to the museum? Who studies them? How are they cared for? How do they return home? Adult visitors may drop in at the scheduled times. No reservation is required. Tours meet in the lobby and last approximately 45 minutes.

Despite being closely intertwined with artistic and cultural developments in Japan, ikebana has received relatively little analysis within the field of art history. This blind spot is particularly noteworthy in the early 20th century, when ikebana leaders began consciously positioning their arrangements as artworks in response to a perceived decline in the everyday relevance of the genre. This presentation examines formal, material, spatial, and conceptual developments in modern Japanese flower arrangement through a case study of Teshigahara Sōfū (1900–1979), the founder of the Sōgetsu school of ikebana. Sōfū, an advocate for ikebana as art (geijutsu), believed that displaying ikebana works successfully within exhibition halls could help elevate their artistic status in modern times. Throughout the 1930s he exhibited large-scale experimental installations, dubbed sōgōka (“total flowers”), that combined ikebana and multiple media into immersive environments. By analyzing their remaining photographic documentation, this presentation shows how sōgōka drew visual inspiration from Constructivism, Surrealism, and new architectural spaces, but remained grounded in timeless intangible qualities of ikebana. The overlapping historical consistencies and radical innovations of sōgōka highlight the unexpected ways in which many artists participate in modern art historical narratives of linear progress and ruptures from the past.

The German American Conference is the world’s largest student-led conference on European-American relations. It is co-sponsored by the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University. The conference runs for three days from October 9-11, 2026. This year’s theme is “Rethinking Transatlanticism: New Visions for a Shifting Relationship.” Tickets are on sale now.

Created over the course of fourteen years, Iranian photographer Azadeh Akhlaghi’s project stages and photographs pivotal moments from Iran’s tumultuous twentieth-century history. Drawing on meticulous archival research and her background in cinema, she casts professional and nonprofessional actors and photographs each scene from multiple angles to reimagine historical events as complex tableaux, set in real locations in Iran.

Will AI replace us? If so, who gets replaced, and who doesn’t? In an AI-driven economy, formal degrees are losing their luster. Germany and the US need to revisit alternative methods of education to prepare workers with new skills for a new kind of workforce. This event seeks to understand how formal education may be lacking in terms of AI education, as well as the ways that vocational education and the Ausbildungssystem can fill in these gaps to build a more skilled future workforce.

Harvard student guides connect adult visitors with the research, teaching, and Indigenous engagement surrounding the cultural heritage in the museum’s care. How do items come to the museum? Who studies them? How are they cared for? How do they return home? Adult visitors may drop in at the scheduled times. No reservation is required. Tours meet in the lobby and last approximately 45 minutes.

As geopolitical tensions rise and old alliances come under pressure, trade is increasingly becoming a tool of power. The United States and Europe are reassessing dependencies, reshoring critical industries, and looking for new partners, sometimes at each other’s expense. What happens when economic cooperation can no longer rely on political trust? Can the transatlantic relationship withstand a more competitive global order, or are allies increasingly becoming rivals?

Created over the course of fourteen years, Iranian photographer Azadeh Akhlaghi’s project stages and photographs pivotal moments from Iran’s tumultuous twentieth-century history. Drawing on meticulous archival research and her background in cinema, she casts professional and nonprofessional actors and photographs each scene from multiple angles to reimagine historical events as complex tableaux, set in real locations in Iran.

Harvard student guides connect adult visitors with the research, teaching, and Indigenous engagement surrounding the cultural heritage in the museum’s care. How do items come to the museum? Who studies them? How are they cared for? How do they return home? Adult visitors may drop in at the scheduled times. No reservation is required. Tours meet in the lobby and last approximately 45 minutes.

Created over the course of fourteen years, Iranian photographer Azadeh Akhlaghi’s project stages and photographs pivotal moments from Iran’s tumultuous twentieth-century history. Drawing on meticulous archival research and her background in cinema, she casts professional and nonprofessional actors and photographs each scene from multiple angles to reimagine historical events as complex tableaux, set in real locations in Iran.

Harvard student guides connect adult visitors with the research, teaching, and Indigenous engagement surrounding the cultural heritage in the museum’s care. How do items come to the museum? Who studies them? How are they cared for? How do they return home? Adult visitors may drop in at the scheduled times. No reservation is required. Tours meet in the lobby and last approximately 45 minutes.

Harvard student guides connect adult visitors with the research, teaching, and Indigenous engagement surrounding the cultural heritage in the museum’s care. How do items come to the museum? Who studies them? How are they cared for? How do they return home? Adult visitors may drop in at the scheduled times. No reservation is required. Tours meet in the lobby and last approximately 45 minutes.

The exhibition “The Space of Appearances: A Shared Tongue” is an excerpt from Yulia Spiridonova’s ongoing project “Wayward Son,” which examines contemporary displacement of people from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and Central Asia. The individuals photographed in this body of work have in common the Russian language and the experience of leaving their respective home countries due to political repression, the gradual collapse of personal freedoms, the erosion of civic life and society, or war.

A collaboration between the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Sarajevo-based VII Foundation, the exhibition “Imagine: Reflections on Peace” profiles bodies of work by photographers whose lives have been dedicated to covering war and its aftermath. It is the culmination of decades of global reporting and takes a deep dive into post-conflict societies, exploring what happens on the ground when the peacemakers and diplomats depart, and what we can learn about peace-building from those lived experiences. The intention for this project is to have domestic and global impact through policymaking, peace-building—in towns and cities in the process of rebuilding—and in classrooms, encouraging the next generation to create better ways of avoiding conflict and making a better peace. This exhibition presents work from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Colombia, and Lebanon. A public viewing will be held on Thursday, October 22nd at 4 pm immediately preceding the Weatherhead Center’s annual Jodidi Lecture at 5 pm, to be delivered by the director of The VII Foundation, Emmy-nominated filmmaker and award-winning photojournalist, Ron Haviv.

Created over the course of fourteen years, Iranian photographer Azadeh Akhlaghi’s project stages and photographs pivotal moments from Iran’s tumultuous twentieth-century history. Drawing on meticulous archival research and her background in cinema, she casts professional and nonprofessional actors and photographs each scene from multiple angles to reimagine historical events as complex tableaux, set in real locations in Iran.

A talk in the Science and Technology in Asia online seminar series, hosted by Victor Seow.

Speaker: Guanli Zhang, Associate Professor, School of Sociology, Beijing Normal University; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2026-27
Chair/Discussant: Susan Greenhalgh, John King and Wilma Cannon Fairbank Research Professor of Chinese Society Emerita, Harvard University

Join the Ash Center for an in-person book talk with Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor, director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation and author of “Radical Duke: How One Aristocrat and the American Revolution Transformed Britain.” In “Radical Duke,” Allen argues that the sparks of the “Age of Revolution” were ignited—not in the thirteen American Colonies or in the barricades in France, but in Britain—largely through the efforts of a reform-minded aristocrat. The book tells the lesser story of Charles Lennox, the third Duke of Richmond, who, from 1767 to 1782, was a leading voice against Crown overreach. Lennox fought against political corruption, disenfranchisement and attacks on civil rights and liberties. By examining the political innovations of Lennox and other British reformers, Allen offers lessons that can be applied for contemporary political systems and for those seeking to transform them through reform.

Malaria remains a major global health challenge, disproportionately affecting young children and pregnant women. Despite substantial progress in malaria control, developing highly effective and durable vaccines has remained a longstanding challenge. The recent introduction of two malaria vaccines represents an important advance; however, protection remains incomplete and wanes over time, underscoring the need for improved approaches to malaria vaccination. In this presentation, Dr. Azza Idris will discuss how insights from protective human monoclonal antibodies are informing the development of next-generation malaria vaccines, including approaches to designing immunogens that target conserved sites of vulnerability on P. falciparum. This webinar is free and open to the public and will include time for audience Q&A.

In today’s global academic and professional environments, the ability to navigate cultural differences is essential for effective collaboration. This interactive workshop explores how cultural values and communication patterns may influence teamwork, leadership, feedback, trust, decision-making, disagreement, and responses to uncertainty. Using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and Erin Meyer’s Culture Map as practical lenses rather than fixed categories, participants will reflect on their own assumptions, compare cultural perspectives, and analyze common challenges faced by multicultural teams. Through brief conceptual inputs, guided reflection, small-group activities, and practical scenarios, participants will explore strategies for building more inclusive, effective, and resilient global teams. The workshop is designed for students and members of the Harvard international community interested in strengthening their intercultural awareness and their capacity to collaborate across cultures.

Join us in-person at the Mignone Center for Success for a guest panel featuring alumni and graduate students about the wide-ranging career paths and opportunities in global health. They’ll share their journeys into global health careers, the skills that helped them succeed, tips for finding meaningful experiences (in the U.S. and abroad), and their thoughts on where the field of global health is headed. This event is only available to current Harvard undergraduate and graduate students from any school who are interested in global health. Undergraduate students can register using the Crimson Careers link, while graduate students can register in person upon arrival.

This Worldwide Week, the Harvard University Africa Office is screening an exclusive abridged version of the new documentary series, The Trials of Winnie Mandela – a Netflix feature sizzling through Africa and igniting conversations about African women leaders in politics. After the film join us for a panel discussion featuring the granddaughter of Winnie and Nelson Mandela, a producer of the Netflix series, and faculty experts on gender in African politics. Over 30 years since South Africa became a free and democratic nation, the country continues to struggle with delivering on the vision of freedom fighters like Winnie Mandela. Although she was highly instrumental in the fight against the oppressive apartheid government in South Africa, many argue that Winnie Madikizela Mandela – former wife of Nelson Mandela, was left out when the ANC assumed leadership of the country in 1994.  In South Africa, her legacy has been viewed as controversial, due to her association with violence, her perceived radicalism, and later legal scandals. Yet, she was long viewed as the face of the anti-Apartheid movement , while her husband was imprisoned.  In this Netflix documentary, Winnie Madikizela Mandela insists that ANC decided to sideline her and mistreat her after she led them to freedom.  Our panelists will explore the larger lessons of Winnie Madikizela Mandela’s story alongside other strong female political leaders in Africa. How does gender shape who gets to be a “revolutionary” — and who gets access to power? How are African women leaders remembered, and what new narratives are emerging for young women shaping African politics today?

Since its release in July, Christopher Nolan’s IMAX film “The Odyssey” has made as big a splash as any film in recent memory, drawing large crowds to theaters and eliciting vociferous debate among pundits. What are we to make of Nolan’s reworking of this Homeric epic? How does his version adapt the ancient story and shape the narrative through cinematic techniques? What does the film and its reception tell us about our own time and its relationship to the past?

The 2026 Busch-Reisinger Museum Lecture. Berlin-based artist and filmmaker Pınar Öğrenci will discuss her 2024 film Glück auf in Deutschland (Good Luck in Germany), which is featured in her first major exhibition in the United States, here at the Harvard Art Museums. The film examines the construction of postwar German identity in the Ruhrgebiet, a heavily industrialized region known for coal mining and steel production, as shaped by layered experiences of survival, resistance, and resilience. In it, Öğrenci applies a feminist lens, broadening the history of industrial labor beyond the male worker and the factory. The lecture brings Glück auf in Deutschland into conversation with Öğrenci’s other films, exploring filmmaking as a political practice through which the history of “guest workers” can be connected to ongoing struggles around labor, migration, and belonging.

A collaboration between the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Sarajevo-based VII Foundation, the exhibition “Imagine: Reflections on Peace” profiles bodies of work by photographers whose lives have been dedicated to covering war and its aftermath. It is the culmination of decades of global reporting and takes a deep dive into post-conflict societies, exploring what happens on the ground when the peacemakers and diplomats depart, and what we can learn about peace-building from those lived experiences. The intention for this project is to have domestic and global impact through policymaking, peace-building—in towns and cities in the process of rebuilding—and in classrooms, encouraging the next generation to create better ways of avoiding conflict and making a better peace. This exhibition presents work from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Colombia, and Lebanon. A public viewing will be held on Thursday, October 22nd at 4 pm immediately preceding the Weatherhead Center’s annual Jodidi Lecture at 5 pm, to be delivered by the director of The VII Foundation, Emmy-nominated filmmaker and award-winning photojournalist, Ron Haviv. A Harvard ID is required.

The exhibition “The Space of Appearances: A Shared Tongue” is an excerpt from Yulia Spiridonova’s ongoing project “Wayward Son,” which examines contemporary displacement of people from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and Central Asia. The individuals photographed in this body of work have in common the Russian language and the experience of leaving their respective home countries due to political repression, the gradual collapse of personal freedoms, the erosion of civic life and civil society, or war.  

Created over the course of fourteen years, Iranian photographer Azadeh Akhlaghi’s project stages and photographs pivotal moments from Iran’s tumultuous twentieth-century history. Drawing on meticulous archival research and her background in cinema, she casts professional and nonprofessional actors and photographs each scene from multiple angles to reimagine historical events as complex tableaux, set in real locations in Iran.

From the vantage point of a Warsaw-based security expert, the presentation will focus on the nuclear threats facing Europe, initial lessons for nuclear deterrence from the Russia-Ukraine war, as well as the review of responses, including ongoing adaptation of NATO’s nuclear deterrence posture, implementation of the French “forward deterrence” concept, the evolving role of the United Kingdom, and ideas for a “European” nuclear deterrent. The presentation will also touch upon the question of the likelihood of friendly (and unfriendly) nuclear proliferation in Europe.

Please join Professor Rui Yang, Dean of Hong Kong University and Chen Yidan Visiting Global Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, for this conversation with HGSE faculty Fernando Reimers and Liao Cheng. Professor Yang is an internationally recognized leader in Chinese higher education systems, and how Chinese intellectual traditions shape education globally. Lunch will be provided. Please register at https://forms.gle/aoipZvobCiSdbM8eA

Part of the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute Weekly Colloquium Series. Rita Freed was Associate Professor of Art at the University of Memphis and founding Director of the Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology before coming to the MFA, Boston, to head the Department of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian and Near Eastern Art, a position she now holds as Emerita. She also teaches Egyptian and Nubian Art at Wellesley College and to underserved at risk high school students through the Seymour Institute. Freed has excavated in Egypt at numerous sites from the Delta to Karnak as well as in Israel and Cyprus. The exhibitions she has curated and co-curated include Egypt’s Golden Age, A Divine Tour of Ancient Egypt, Ramesses the Great, Pharaohs of the Sun, The Secrets of Tomb 10A and Ancient Nubia. Now. Recently she was the Richard D. Cohen Fellow in Art History at the Hutchins Center, Harvard University, where she pursued research in Nubian art and developed methods to make it more widely available. She is currently working on a book entitled Ancient Nubian Art: A History.

Join us for WAPPP’s Changemakers Series – conversations exploring how leaders can turn bold ideas into meaningful and lasting change. These sessions will explore how evidence-based policymaking and organizational practices can help advance gender equity: from translating research into organizational change and policy reforms to navigating resistance and ensuring accountability. The fall semester will feature three changemakers from different sectors and parts of the world, one from the public sector (Australia), one from civil society (Switzerland) and one from the private sector (India). Carolina Müller-Möhl is presiding the Müller-Möhl Group, which was founded by her, a Single Family Office that actively manages the family’s investments. She has – besides others – served as a board member of Nestlé (2004-2012) and currently sits on the boards of Neue Zürcher Zeitung (a swiss media group), Orascom (a leading developer of fully integrated destinations) and Fielmann (Europe’s largest optician). Carolina is highly committed to address sociopolitical causes and brings her efforts under the Müller-Möhl Foundation, which focuses on compatibility of work and family life, education, promotion of a free market in Switzerland and philanthropy in general. Furthermore she sits on several foundation boards including Bertelsmann Foundation, Avenir Suisse and University of St. Gallen. Carolina received an Erasmus scholarship at LSE (London School of Economics) and holds a Master Degree in Politics (Hons) from Freie Universität Berlin. She attended executive Education Programs at Harvard Kennedy School, Singularity University and Europa Institute Basel. In 2007 she was nominated Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

Did you know that Harvard has more than 20 offices worldwide? This year, the third annual Information Table returns for Worldwide Week 2026. It will be staffed by the directors of Harvard’s offices in Johannesburg (South Africa), Nafplio (Greece), São Paulo (Brazil), Shanghai (China), and more, who will be available to answer questions about Harvard’s global presence and network and their home offices’ programming and resources. We’ll also be joined by colleagues in Global Support Services. Come join us in the Science Center Plaza to learn more about Harvard’s engagement around the world!

Join Carsten Brzeski and Hans-Helmut Kotz for a discussion of the challenges facing the German economy and its long journey out of stagnation. The conversation will explore Germany’s economic outlook and what it may take for Europe’s largest economy to regain momentum.

Taiwan is where the uneasy peace between the United States and China will be tested–and possibly broken. Beijing believes that “reunification” is inevitable. American military strength has preserved peace and stability for decades, but its advantages are eroding. Beijing has found critical gaps in U.S. strategy and is working to squeeze, isolate, and coerce Taiwan into submission without firing a shot. If deterrence fails, the consequences of a Taiwan crisis would be catastrophic–plunging the global economy into chaos, shattering U.S. alliances, and allowing China to dominate the region and reshape the world order. In Defending Taiwan, Eyck Freymann presents the first integrated strategy to deter war with China and preserve an honorable peace. Drawing on untranslated Chinese sources, cutting-edge military and economic analysis, and deep historical research, Freymann argues that Washington’s deterrence strategy must extend beyond conventional military power and familiar threats of mutually assured destruction. America must work with allies to develop a bold new vision of technological and economic statecraft–and a plan to secure its interests if deterrence fails. Freymann examines China’s full range of strategic options. The United States can deter them all. But to do so, it must integrate its military strength, economic leverage, technological leadership, and diplomatic influence into a single, coherent plan to prevent war.

The talk with Professor Mukulika Banerjee of the London School of Economics and Political Science, and moderated by Ping-hsiu Alice Lin, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University explores the relationship between democracy, citizenship and everyday life in an Indian village.
Drawing on more than twenty years of ethnographic research in a single rural location in India, this talk offers an anthropological theorisation of democracy. It explores how the practices of farming and village life provide insights into why democracy requires ongoing cultivation, as well as the risks of overlooking this knowledge in contemporary politics.

Why Brazil? Why Harvard? And what can we build together? Join us in celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Harvard Brazil Office during this special Worldwide Week event. The program will begin with a screening of a short anniversary video, followed by a conversation with Marcia Castro, Director of the Brazil Studies Program at DRCLAS, about the office’s role in supporting faculty, students, and academic collaboration in Brazil. Discover the people and ideas behind two decades of collaboration, and join us for a conversation about what comes next.

A book talk and discussion by Kristina Hook, Assistant Professor of Conflict Management, Kennesaw State University.

Jack Tannous, Associate Professor of History and Hellenic Studies, Department of History, Princeton University. Bio: I am interested in the cultural history of the eastern Mediterranean, especially the Middle East, in the Late Antique and early medieval period. My research focuses on the Syriac-speaking Christian communities of the Near East in this period, but I am interested in a number of other, related areas, including Eastern Christian Studies more broadly, Patristics/early Christian studies, Greco-Syriac and Greco-Arabic translation, Christian-Muslim interactions, sectarianism and identity, early Islamic history, the history of the Arabic Bible, and the Quran. I am also interested in manuscripts and the editing of Syriac and Arabic (especially Christian Arabic) texts. I am working on a book about the history of Syriac in the late antique and early medieval period. I have edited and translated the Syriac letters of George, Bishop of the Arab Tribes (d. 724) as well as the Karshuni life of Theodota of Amid (d. 698) and hope to eventually publish these.

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly part of our lives, it forces us to confront questions about its place and purpose. What kind of life do we want technology to serve? How can we make sure it remains in the service of humanity? What activities should be outsourced to technology and what, if any, should remain distinctively human? With its attention to human flourishing, its reflections on intelligence and virtue, and its philosophy of ends, Aristotle’s ethical and political thought can give us very valuable tools for this discussion. This realization is at the heart of The Lyceum Project, an annual interdisciplinary initiative inspired by Aristotle’s Lyceum and bringing together philosophers, scientists, technologists, policymakers, artists, and civil-society leaders in Athens every June. This panel will explore the origins and development of the project. It will consider why a renewed dialogue between Aristotle and contemporary technology is valuable, and how Aristotle’s ideas might help us think differently about the development, governance, and human purposes of AI.

The exhibition “The Space of Appearances: A Shared Tongue” is an excerpt from Yulia Spiridonova’s ongoing project “Wayward Son,” which examines contemporary displacement of people from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and Central Asia. The individuals photographed in this body of work have in common the Russian language and the experience of leaving their respective home countries due to political repression, the gradual collapse of personal freedoms, the erosion of civic life and civil society, or war.  

The exhibition Imagine: Reflections on Peace profiles bodies of work by photographers whose lives have been dedicated to covering war and its aftermath. It is the culmination of global reporting done by The VII Foundation and takes a deep dive into postconflict societies, exploring what happens on the ground when the peacemakers and diplomats depart, and what we can learn about peacebuilding from those lived experiences. The intention for this project is to have domestic and global impact through policy making, peacebuilding—in towns and cities in the process of rebuilding—and in classrooms, encouraging the next generation to create better ways of avoiding conflict and making a better peace. This exhibition presents work from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Colombia, and Lebanon. A Harvard ID is required.

Discover how co-created national research priorities and practical interventions are integrating oral health into whole-person care for people with severe mental illness – shaping practice and policy while showcasing leading models and lived-experience insights from across the globe.

Created over the course of fourteen years, Iranian photographer Azadeh Akhlaghi’s project stages and photographs pivotal moments from Iran’s tumultuous twentieth-century history. Drawing on meticulous archival research and her background in cinema, she casts professional and nonprofessional actors and photographs each scene from multiple angles to reimagine historical events as complex tableaux, set in real locations in Iran.

Jung Hyun Kim, PhD, David E. Bell Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, presents “From labor market institutions to individual workplaces: Rethinking the health effects of labor market conditions.”

Over twenty-five years Morocco built an automotive and aeronautics export base largely from scratch, expanded renewables, and positioned itself as a bridge between Europe and Africa — while still struggling with low female labor-force participation, weak educational outcomes, and a growth rate that has not delivered the convergence the country hoped for. Karim El Aynaoui, former Director of Economics at Bank Al-Maghrib and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Moroccan Economy, joins the Growth Lab for a candid accounting: which industrial policies paid off, which did not and why, and what Morocco’s experience offers other middle-income economies attempting the same climb.

The Mahindra Humanities Center Medieval Studies Seminar presents Jack Tannous, Associate Professor of History and Hellenic Studies, Department of History, Princeton University. Bio: I am interested in the cultural history of the eastern Mediterranean, especially the Middle East, in the Late Antique and early medieval period. My research focuses on the Syriac-speaking Christian communities of the Near East in this period, but I am interested in a number of other, related areas, including Eastern Christian Studies more broadly, Patristics/early Christian studies, Greco-Syriac and Greco-Arabic translation, Christian-Muslim interactions, sectarianism and identity, early Islamic history, the history of the Arabic Bible, and the Quran. I am also interested in manuscripts and the editing of Syriac and Arabic (especially Christian Arabic) texts. I am working on a book about the history of Syriac in the late antique and early medieval period. I have edited and translated the Syriac letters of George, Bishop of the Arab Tribes (d. 724) as well as the Karshuni life of Theodota of Amid (d. 698) and hope to eventually publish these.

Over twenty-five years Morocco built an automotive and aeronautics export base largely from scratch, expanded renewables, and positioned itself as a bridge between Europe and Africa — while still struggling with low female labor-force participation, weak educational outcomes, and a growth rate that has not delivered the convergence the country hoped for. Karim El Aynaoui, former Director of Economics at Bank Al-Maghrib and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Moroccan Economy, joins the Growth Lab for a candid accounting: which industrial policies paid off, which did not and why, and what Morocco’s experience offers other middle-income economies attempting the same climb. The Growth Lab’s “Development Talks” is a series of conversations with policymakers and academics working on economic growth and development in countries, regions, states, and cities in the US and around the world. The seminar provides a platform for practitioners and researchers to discuss both economic growth and development and analytical work centered on policy.

In The Yahoo Boys, journalist Carlos Barragán explores the world of online romance scams through the lives of Nigerian fraudsters and their victims. Blending investigative reporting with personal insight, the book examines the tactics, motivations, and human impact behind a global form of cybercrime. Join us to hear Carlos discuss the book and share firsthand insights into his reporting and the realities behind these scams. The talk will include time for audience questions—an opportunity to engage directly with the author.

Why do some states generate military power from economic resources more effectively than others? Standard answers focused on regime type, wealth, or aggregate resources cannot explain why countries matched on these characteristics often diverge sharply in mobilization outcomes. I argue that the effectiveness of industrial mobilization depends on two characteristics: conversion distance—the gap between peacetime economic capabilities and wartime production needs—and whether state-business relations enable effective state intervention in the economy. When conversion distance is short, increasing military production is faster and less costly. When state-business relations combine insulation from parochial interests, access to firm-level information, and authority to reallocate resources and discipline private actors, states can develop and administer sound mobilization policy. An original Military Production Dataset allows measurement of outcomes and supports case selection. I then evaluate the argument with cross- and intra-case evidence drawn from a most-similar comparison of Japan and Italy in World War II. Despite comparable economic resources, regime type, military strategies, and conflict expectations, Japan produced more than four-and-a-half times more equipment in priority sectors between 1940 and 1943. The argument refines materialist and institutional accounts of power generation with implications for the measurement of the balance of power and the duration and outcomes of war.

Four and a half years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, evidence of Russia’s genocidal acts and intent continues to grow. This event will present legal and factual findings of mounting evidence that Russia is committing genocide against Ukrainian nationals.

Theodore Hughes crosses borders to demonstrate how stories of dying and death―what he calls the thanatographic imagination―in North Korea, the United States, and South Korea energize ideas about history, the present, and the future. What meanings are attached to deaths in a so-called “limited war” that turned out to be limitless? What does the 1953 armistice reveal about the nature of war itself in the post-1945 era? Death Without End: Korea and the Thanatographics of War shows how literary texts, films, nonfiction, and other forms of cultural production from the late 1940s to the 1960s give rise to revolutionary belongings, gendered selfhoods, and anticommunist cosmopolitanisms as they address an incommensurate loss of life in war and multiple forms of postarmistice violence.

This presentation introduces Mapping Global China, an open-access research initiative that maps and analyzes China’s expanding global presence. Bringing together original datasets, interactive maps, and narrative storytelling, the project examines how Chinese capital, institutions, infrastructure, and other forms of engagement are reshaping places around the world. I will present some of the project’s new tools and findings and reflect on what mapping can reveal about the changing geography of Global China. Registration appreciated for planning purposes: https://forms.gle/B3Siv5j5ws1biHbn7

Join us at the historic Grolier Poetry Book Shop at 7:00 pm for Arrowsmith Press’s 2026 Fall Book Launch, a joint celebration featuring readings by Yaryna Chornohuz and Amira El-Zein. Prior to the main event, join both authors for a pre-event reception hosted by and held at HURI from 5:00 – 6:15 pm. In-person tickets are sold out, but you can still join us online via the Zoom livestream.

Between 1911 and 1924, the Russian art historian, novelist, essayist, and critic Pavel Muratov (1881-1950) published a dazzling trilogy of travel impressions entitled Obrazy Italii, previously untranslated but now rendered into English by Lena Lenček under the title Evocations of Italy (Northwestern University Press, 2026). At once erudite and lyrical, philosophical and practical, historical and of its moment, this strange and unclassifiable text is as radical in its free-wheeling bending of generic conventions as was Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy in its own time. Yet, as this presentation will demonstrate, this brilliant “impossible” text deliberately deploys multiple discursive modalities in its objective of reanimating and reconstituting the classical Italian tradition of il viaggio educativo (“the educational journey”) so as to provoke in his contemporary readers, as equally the readers of today, a remolding of aesthetic and ethical values.

Join us for this year’s Harvard Africa Mixer, part of Worldwide Week at Harvard! Our largest community event of the year, the Harvard Africa Mixer brings together students, fellows, faculty, and staff members from across Harvard who have a connection to or love of Africa. Celebrate our community with African food, music, and dancing! Please RSVP to help us plan for food. We look forward to seeing you there! Harvard ID Required. This event is not open to the public.

The exhibition Imagine: Reflections on Peace profiles bodies of work by photographers whose lives have been dedicated to covering war and its aftermath. It is the culmination of global reporting done by The VII Foundation and takes a deep dive into postconflict societies, exploring what happens on the ground when the peacemakers and diplomats depart, and what we can learn about peacebuilding from those lived experiences. The intention for this project is to have domestic and global impact through policy making, peacebuilding—in towns and cities in the process of rebuilding—and in classrooms, encouraging the next generation to create better ways of avoiding conflict and making a better peace. This exhibition presents work from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Colombia, and Lebanon. A Harvard ID is required.

Created over the course of fourteen years, Iranian photographer Azadeh Akhlaghi’s project stages and photographs pivotal moments from Iran’s tumultuous twentieth-century history. Drawing on meticulous archival research and her background in cinema, she casts professional and nonprofessional actors and photographs each scene from multiple angles to reimagine historical events as complex tableaux, set in real locations in Iran.

This presentation will discuss how Ukraine has used nation-branding techniques to engage global publics through promotion and consumption. The analysis will outline three dimensions – consumer choice, identity projects, and transactional practices – which distinguish how contemporary promotion interpellates publics differently from traditional wartime propaganda.

Join the Harvard Center for International Development for a conversation with Professor Adnan Khan, Professor of Public Policy and Co-Director of the Executive MPA/MPP Program at the London School of Economics and Political Science. With more than three decades of experience spanning government, academia, and international development, Professor Khan brings a rare perspective on how economic policy is shaped in practice. He will explore what growing political and economic fragmentation and technological disruption mean for international development, drawing on both research and practitioner perspectives.

The session explores how five integrated elements—flipped lectures, AI-powered learning agents, real-world client projects, a capstone conference, and book-chapter publication—cultivate comparative thinking across internationally diverse cohorts in a comparative education policy course taught residentially and online. Drawing on a review of 80 studies and course evaluation data, it argues structured cross-national interaction (not mere proximity) builds systems thinking and intercultural competence. The format includes a course overview, evidence review, live AI-agent demo, small-group discussion, and Q&A, aimed at educators across disciplines.

Harvard student guides connect adult visitors with the research, teaching, and Indigenous engagement surrounding the cultural heritage in the museum’s care. How do items come to the museum? Who studies them? How are they cared for? How do they return home? Adult visitors may drop in at the scheduled times. No reservation is required. Tours meet in the lobby and last approximately 45 minutes.

The Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia invites you to join a not-for-credit Bahasa Indonesia and culture course. This class is open to a wide audience including Harvard students, faculty, fellows, staff members, as well as students and scholars from the greater Boston area. Your instructor, Ricardus Williams Djee Wau, a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA), will guide you through a comprehensive curriculum designed to accommodate all proficiency levels: beginner, intermediate, and advanced.

The event is an upcoming seminar on South Asian politics, co-hosted by the Saxena Center at Brown University, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, and the Mittal Institute at Harvard University. The seminar will feature Adam Auerbach, Associate Professor of Political Science, Yale University.  His research centers on local governance, urban politics, and the political economy of development, with a regional focus on South Asia and India in particular. He is the author of Demanding Development: The Politics of Public Goods Provision in India’s Urban Slums (Cambridge University Press, 2020), which examines how slum residents in India demand and secure public services, and Migrants and Machine Politics: How India’s Urban Poor Seek Representation and Responsiveness (Princeton University Press, 2023), co-authored with Tariq Thachil. His research on governance and development in India has been published in leading political science and development journals.

The rat snake (aodaishō, Elaphe climacophora) by far Japan’s most ubiquitous snake, is frequently found inside farm houses and roofs and is widely considered to be a guardian deity of rice. Mountain landslides are referred to as ja-nuke (serpent breakouts). In medieval legends, women transform into terrifying snake-serpents. What is the relationship among these different snakes and serpents? What is their connection to the water and mountains? This talk examines both the “natural”—snakes, foxes, mountains, rivers, tall trees—and the “supernatural”—serpents, demons, ghosts, and tengu—as key parts of the “eco-social imaginary,” a way of living and seeing that binds the community with its physical environment. The “social” here is not just humans but the larger community of animals, reptiles, birds, trees, and the surrounding mountains, often treated as earth beings. The presentation provides a sweep of Japanese history, over which these relationships and practices emerged and changed, highlighting major shifts with a focus on the issue of “broken reciprocity.”

Since its founding in 1958 by Harvard and Cornell Universities, the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis has excavated, conserved, and published on aspects of the ancient city of Sardis in western Türkiye from the prehistoric through the Islamic periods. The expedition is one of the longest-running international projects sponsored at Harvard and is one of the oldest classical archaeology projects in the Mediterranean. In July 2025, the ancient city of Sardis and the Lydian Tumuli of Bin Tepe were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The Archaeological Exploration of Sardis has offered students opportunities to gain academic, professional, cultural, and life skills while contributing to the entire process of archaeological research, documentation, conservation, and publication. Each summer the project has over seventy team members, largely from Türkiye and the U.S., as well as in recent years from twenty other countries.    This Worldwide Week at Harvard 2026 event will introduce activities of the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis, highlighting the long-standing involvement of students, and discuss opportunities to participate in the summer 2027 field season at Sardis in Türkiye.  Recent Sardis student participants will present about their experience at the site, collaborating with team members from various fields and institutions around the world, and how it has helped shape their academic careers.

Harvard, 1959: red brick, tradition – and suddenly, Le Corbusier.
The Stranger at Harvard tells the remarkable story of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Le
Corbusier’s only building in North America, and of Josep Lluís Sert, the Spanish architect in exile and
Harvard GSD dean who helped bring it into existence.
Combining an illustrated lecture with a small installation of contemporary photographs of the
Carpenter Center taken by the speaker, the event explores architecture as a story of migration,
cultural exchange, identity, and belonging.
Once a radical stranger within historic Harvard, the Carpenter Center is now one of its modern icons.

The first part of The Human Condition follows Nakadai Tatsuya as Kaji, a pacifist technocrat who naively signs a devil’s contract by accepting an unlikely post as supervisor of forced laborers in a remote Manchukuo mine in exchange for promised exception from military conscription. Newly-wed, Kaji is accompanied by his devoted bride—played with ardent intensity by the radiant Aratama Michiyo—who valiantly endures the harsh desolation and bitter frustration her husband can barely contain. Nakadai’s struggle to improve the plight of the Chinese POW laborers while appeasing the disdainful military authorities and protecting his marriage, is just the first of the Herculean tasks that await. No Greater Love makes stunning use of widescreen cinematography to transform the bleak landscapes into a stark, otherworldly expression of the vast, pitiless void that threatens to erode the couple’s fervent love and convictions. Co-presented with the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies.

The exhibition “The Space of Appearances: A Shared Tongue” is an excerpt from Yulia Spiridonova’s ongoing project “Wayward Son,” which examines contemporary displacement of people from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and Central Asia. The individuals photographed in this body of work have in common the Russian language and the experience of leaving their respective home countries due to political repression, the gradual collapse of personal freedoms, the erosion of civic life and civil society, or war.  

Created over the course of fourteen years, Iranian photographer Azadeh Akhlaghi’s project stages and photographs pivotal moments from Iran’s tumultuous twentieth-century history. Drawing on meticulous archival research and her background in cinema, she casts professional and nonprofessional actors and photographs each scene from multiple angles to reimagine historical events as complex tableaux, set in real locations in Iran.

Harvard student guides connect adult visitors with the research, teaching, and Indigenous engagement surrounding the cultural heritage in the museum’s care. How do items come to the museum? Who studies them? How are they cared for? How do they return home? Adult visitors may drop in at the scheduled times. No reservation is required. Tours meet in the lobby and last approximately 45 minutes.

Please join us for an upcoming seminar on South Asian politics, co-hosted by the Saxena Center at Brown University, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, and the Mittal Institute at Harvard University. The seminar will feature Adam Auerbach, Associate Professor of Political Science, Yale University.

Now an unwillingly conscripted soldier of the Imperial Army, Kaji must battle on simultaneous fronts: against both the combat enemy and the commanding officers who invent ever more extreme punishments for his unwillingness to surrender his outspoken leftist beliefs. Nakadai’s incredible range is revealed as he draws deep from a corporeal expressivity not seen in the earlier film to voice through gestures and his mesmerizing countenance the profound transformation of an idealist pushed to the absolute limits by forces beyond him. Stirring and politically charged, Road to Eternity looks clear-eyed at the horrors of war while drawing a damning portrait of Japanese military authority. At the same time Kobayashi pays gentle tribute to another side of war by focusing on the poignant friendships and love that endures even the most hopeless battles and imprisonments.

The Shochiku Centennial Collection at the Harvard Film Archive presents: THE HUMAN CONDITION, directed by Kobayashi Masaki (screened in three parts), co-presented with the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies

Created over the course of fourteen years, Iranian photographer Azadeh Akhlaghi’s project stages and photographs pivotal moments from Iran’s tumultuous twentieth-century history. Drawing on meticulous archival research and her background in cinema, she casts professional and nonprofessional actors and photographs each scene from multiple angles to reimagine historical events as complex tableaux, set in real locations in Iran.

Harvard student guides connect adult visitors with the research, teaching, and Indigenous engagement surrounding the cultural heritage in the museum’s care. How do items come to the museum? Who studies them? How are they cared for? How do they return home? Adult visitors may drop in at the scheduled times. No reservation is required. Tours meet in the lobby and last approximately 45 minutes.