Worldwide Week at Harvard 2023

9 - 13 October 2023

Worldwide Week at Harvard showcases the remarkable breadth of Harvard’s global engagement. During Worldwide Week, Harvard Schools, research centers, departments, and student organizations host academic and cultural events with global or international themes.

Submit your event here.

Worldwide Week Events

Tuesday 10th

Oct
10
Tue
Lecture/Panel

Collaborative Systems for Solving Complex Social Challenges: Preventing Mental Illness in Chile

4:00PM to 6:30PM
In-person: Thompson Room (110), Barker Center, 12 Quincy Street (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/collaborative-systems-for-solving-complex-social-challenges-mental-health-tickets-703465242477?)

Event showcasing Worldwide Week: Harvard’s Chile Regional Office, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, part of the Mahindra series Pedagogies for Life.

The Coalition represents a unified platform, bringing together diverse institutions with a shared goal: crafting sustainable, innovative solutions to bolster mental health in the Maipú and Peñalolén communities. Our particular emphasis lies in aiding women and children.

Addressing this layered and complex challenge demands collaboration from actors accross society, academia, political local authorities, social leaders, the business sector, NGO's and professionals from various fields, including medicine and arts. Sharing a common purpose, driven by trust, knowledge, grassroots experience, and focus on solutions, we implement interventions that embrace preventive strategies by harnessing social technologies. These technologies extend beyond digital means, involving human intellect and creativity, all aimed at positively transforming social processes.

The pandemic's global reach has exposed our societal fragility, yet it has also revealed a profound resilience. Communities banded together, addressing urgent mental health concerns, especially among isolated children and women forced to uphold family structures. The Coalition's high-impact work has deepened our understanding of prevention and spurred innovation in crafting well-structured solutions for multifaceted mental health challenges.

Event Presenters

  • Claudia Bobadilla, Board Business Member, Founder Puente Social and Senior Fellow, Harvard ALI
  • Fawwaz Habbal, Former Executive Dean for Education and Research, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Senior Lecturer on Applied Physics
  • Carolina Leitao, Major in Peñalolén, Chile
  • Benjamin Miller, Leader, Speaker, Advocate Empower Program
  • Doris Sommer, Ira and Jewell Williams Professor, Romance Languages & Literatures, African and African American Studies, Harvard University
  • Susana Torres, President of the Board of the Chilean-Swiss Chamber of Commerce
  • Brian Trelstad, Faculty Chair, Advanced Leadership Initiative and Senior Lecturer of Business Administration and Joseph L. Rice, III Faculty Fellow, Harvard Business School
  • Mario Valdivia, Former Dean and Professor, Medical School, Universidad de Concepción
  • Benjamín Villa, Master’s in Design Engineering, Harvard University, and co-instructor with Professor Habbal
  • Tomás Vodanovic, Mayor in Maipú, Chile

Host Organization(s)

DRCLAS Chile Regional Office, The Mahindra Humanities Center, Cultural Agents, Puente Social, Viñedos Chadwick, Municipalidad de Maipú, Municipalidad de Peñalolén, Universidad de Concepción, Cámara Chileno Suiza de Comercio

Oct
10
Tue
Social

CultureFest

5:30PM to 7:30PM
In-person: https://engage.sph.harvard.edu/

The Office for Student Affairs invites you to participate in our annual CultureFest event on Tuesday October 10th from 5:30-7:00pm in the Kresge Cafeteria! Celebrate our diverse community with cultural snacks, music, activities and more. All are welcome to attend this fun, social, and community-centered event!

Wednesday 11th

Oct
11
Wed
Lecture/Panel

Digital Activism against Gendered Violence.

12:00PM to 1:30PM
In-person: https://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/event/gavaza-maluleke-colloquium

Hutchins Center's Fellows present at a weekly colloquium. At this session, Gavaza Maluleke , Lecturer in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Cape Town, will present on digital activism and gendered violence in Post-Apartheid South Africa. As a fellow Dr. Maluleke’s book-length project seeks to analyze women’s digital activism against gendered violence with a focus on hashtag feminisms in post-apartheid South Africa. Employing a digital ethnographic approach, which relies on analyzing textual and multimedia online communications, this project follows the online articulations of womxn speaking out against gendered violence in the hashtags that have gone viral on South African Twitter from 2015-2022.

Event Presenters

Gavaza Maluleke, Mandela Fellow at the Hutchins Center and Lecturer in Political Studies at the University of Cape Town

Host Organization(s)

Hutchins Center

Oct
11
Wed
Lecture/Panel

Job Search for International Students with Dan Beaudry

4:30PM to 5:30PM
MCS (54 Dunster Street, Cambridge, MA 02138)

Interested in hearing how H-1B sponsorship happens from the inside? Dan Beaudry, former head of campus recruiting at Monster.com, shares the potent job search system used by many international students to find U.S. employment. H-1B’s are won in ways you likely don’t expect.

 

Host Organization(s): Mignone Center for Career Success

Thursday 12th

Oct
12
Thu
Lecture/Panel

Harvard Humanitarian Initiative Global Showcase

10:00AM to 11:00AM
https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_mDy697hAT2yYczjMNjSFuw

This event will be a public webinar. Attendees will learn about our global research and educational programs. They will also learn about opportunities to get involved. We will have both faculty PIs and program staff present.

 

Hosted by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.

Oct
12
Thu
Lecture/Panel

In our own voices: Community-led research on police violence in Brazil

2:00PM to 3:30PM
In-person: CGIS S216, 1730 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA 02138

Join us for a presentation of the participatory action research project, “Voices of Pain, Struggle, and Resistance of Mothers of Victims of State Violence in Brazil.” The project is a collaborative initiative led researchers at Harvard Kennedy School, the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP), and Mothers of May, a collective of mothers of victims of police killings in Brazil. IMPORTANT NOTE: the conversation will be in Portuguese. Please bring your own earphones to access the online simultaneous translation app.

Presenters:
Yanilda González, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Raiane Assumpção, Professor and President of the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP)
Débora Maria da Silva, Coordinator and Co-founder, Mothers of May Movement
Edna Carla Souza Cavalcante, Coordinator, Mothers of the Periphery
Nívia do Carmo Raposo, Movement of Mothers and Families of Victims of State Violence
Rute Fiuza, Mothers of May of the Northeast
Aline Rocco, Researcher, Center for Forensic Anthropology and Archeology
Valéria Oliveira, Researcher, Center for Forensic Anthropology and Archeology

Host Organization:

David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS)

Oct
12
Thu
Lecture/Panel

Center for International Development: Research Engagements in Morocco with Professor Rema Hanna

2:30PM to 3:45PM
Perkins Conference Room, Rubenstein 4th Floor, Harvard Kennedy School (in person only); https://hksexeced.tfaforms.net/f/cid-check-in?c=7014V000000jCwBQAU&ts=1694709789&

How does the Center for International Development (CID) help to create a culture of evidence-based policymaking through research engagements? Join CID Faculty Affiliate Rema Hanna and CID students to learn about ongoing research and programming in Morocco, where CID started an engagement in 2020 in collaboration with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and is looking to expand the research scope in the coming years.

Event Presenters

Rema Hanna, Jeffrey Cheah Professor of South-East Asia Studies and Chair of the International Development Area at the Harvard Kennedy School. She is the Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) Faculty Director and a CID Faculty Affiliate.

Host Organization

Center for International Development (CID)

Oct
12
Thu
Lecture/Panel

The First European Women in the Americas

4:30PM to 6:00PM
In person and virtually: https://cervantesobservatorio.fas.harvard.edu/enhttps://cervantesobservatorio.fas.harvard.edu/en/contact

The historical and literary imaginary of the colonization of the Americas has been crystalized in epic deeds and hardworking, valiant men. The near-total absence of women in a centuries-long process would lead us to think the men were there alone, even if it is manifestly obvious that this could not have been the case. When the voices of minoritized groups arrive on the literary and historiographical scenes (only in the 20th century), we understand that women had been silenced, though, of course, they had had much to do and to say. Thanks to collaborative history and to historiographic metafiction, among other critical perspectives that help, little by little, to register notable absences, we can now approach colonization in its multiple perceptions. As a professor of literature, the speaker will address the topic by resorting to literary texts, memoirs, and biographies. This event will be held in Spanish.

 

Hosted by Observatory of the Spanish Language and Hispanic Cultures in the United States (Instituto Cervantes at Harvard University)

Oct
12
Thu
Lecture/Panel

Wagner Special Lecture

4:30PM to 6:00PM
TBA

The Korea Institute has invited Professor Bruce Cumings from the University of Chicago to present the Wagner Special Lecture. Additional information will be posted soon.

The Wagner Special Lecture is a memorial lecture in honor of Edward W. Wagner(1924- 2001), who was the cornerstone of the Korean Studies program at Harvard. The lecture consists of a 40-50 minute presentation followed by approximately 30 minutes of discussion. 

Oct
12
Thu
Lecture/Panel

Empowerment through education in prisons: examples in Greece and the US

5:15PM to 7:15PM
Hybrid: William James Hall, Room 105, 33 Kirkland St, Cambridge, MA; Zoom link TBA

This open roundtable discussion brings together different experiences and ideas on teaching humanities to residents within prisons, domestically and abroad. We will also hear the perspective of a re-entering citizen after decades behind bars. What can be done to improve education programs in prisons? Why are the humanities crucial now more than ever? How have these initiatives helped to empower the residents within these facilities? Join us to learn more and get involved in the development of the CHS prison education initiative.

Event Presenters

Emily Allen-Hornblower, Associate Professor of Classics, Rutgers University
Jessie Bates, Harvard student (Senior), Social Studies Concentrator
Matina Goga, Curricular Development Manager, Center for Hellenic Studies in Greece
Alkistis Kontogianni, Emeritus Professor, Department of Theatre Studies, University of the Peloponnese
Marquis McCray, Mass Incarceration Survivor and Advocate for the Humanities (Behind Bars and Beyond)
Adaner Usmani, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Social Studies, Harvard University

Moderator
Caroline Stark, Associate Professor of Classics, Howard University, and Associate Director of Academic Affairs, Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, DC

Friday 13th

Oct
13
Fri
Lecture/Panel

Future of Cities: Extreme Heat

4:00PM to 5:30PM
Askwith Hall (Longfellow), Graduate School of Education

Extreme weather patterns are increasing; how should individuals and institutions decide what to do next? Future of Cities: Extreme Heat, the third installation of OVPIA’s Future of Cities series, will showcase a panel discussing concerns around environmental justice and public health as global average temperatures rise. Cosponsored by the Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs, the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University, and the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University, this discussion will convene experts in urban planning and design, building design and materials, environmental science, public health, and medicine to share their ideas on tangible next steps for lessening the impact of extreme heat.

The event will be held at 4pm on Friday, October 13, 2023 at Askwith Hall at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and will be open to the Harvard community. It will feature an introduction by University Provost Alan Garber and remarks from Vice Provost for International Affairs Mark Elliott and Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability James Stock. Moderator John Macomber of Harvard Business School will then lead a panel discussion with Harvard faculty members and practitioners, including:

  • Satchit Balsari, Assistant Professor in Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
  • Zoe Davis, Climate Resilience Project Coordinator, City of Boston
  • Francesca Dominici, Clarence James Gamble Professor of Biostatistics, Population and Data Science at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Co-Director of the Harvard Data Science Initiative
  • Jane Gilbert, Chief Heat Officer, Miami-Dade County, Florida
  • Spencer Glendon, Founder, Probable Futures
Oct
13
Fri
Lecture/Panel

Is Activism Futile?: The Case of Israel

4:00PM to 6:00PM
In-person: Harvard Faculty Club, Library, 20 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138 No registration required. https://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/event/activism-futile-case-israel

ANNUAL HILDA B SILVERMAN MEMORIAL LECTURE ON ISRAEL-PALESTINE

 

Host Organization(s)

The Middle East Forum at Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies
Religion, Conflict and Peace Initiative, Harvard Divinity School