Fred Moten Black-Studies Provocateur
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PlantPlant ProspectingProspecting inin ChinaChina •• Prodigies,Prodigies, ThenThen andand NowNow JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2018 • $4.95 Fred Moten Black-studies provocateur Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Seeking great leaders. The Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative off ers a calendar year of rigorous education and refl ection for highly accomplished leaders in business, government, law, medicine, and other sectors who are transitioning from their primary careers to their next years of service. Led by award-winning faculty members from across Harvard, the program aims to deploy a new leadership force tackling the world’s most challenging social and environmental problems. be inspired at +1-617-496-5479 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 2017.11.17_ALI_Ivy_Ad_v1.indd180108_ALI.indd 1 1 11/17/1711/17/17 11:16 1:10 PMAM JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2018, VOLUME 120, NUMBER 3 FEATURES 32 Botanizing in the “Mother of Gardens” | by Jonathan Shaw Seeking seeds and specimens in Sichuan 40 Vita: Henry Chapman Mercer | by Nancy Freudenthal Brief life of an innovative ceramicist: 1856-1930 42 The Low End Theory | by Jesse McCarthy p. 32 Fred Moten’s edgy approach to black studies 46 Prodigies’ Progress | by Ann Hulbert Parents and superkids, yesterday and today JOHN HARVARD’S JOURNAL 14 The Kennedy School redux debuts, financial surpluses— and warning signs, enthusiastic archivist, a taxing time for endowments, the Medical School agenda, dean of freshmen to depart, Samuel Huntington as prophet, social-club penalties imposed, a Maharishi moment, a Harvardian teaches hip-hop in Hangzhou, the University marshal moves on, honoring authors and artists, an unexpectedly dreary football campaign, and a speedy swimmer p. 14 DEPARTMENTS 2 Cambridge 02138 | Letters from our readers—and thoughts on a changing Harvard Square 3 The View from Mass Hall 8 Right Now | The geopolitics of U.S. energy, a knee-pain epidemic, healthcare consolidation 2 12A Harvard | Winter events, celebrating bad art, Newport sans summer crowds, Asian-fusion dining with a quirky Western twist, and more 52 Montage | Jonathan Bailey Holland’s composed music, robotic hospitals, sketch artist, a novel on eternal life, the towering James Madison, an anthropological filmmaker, and more p. 56 62 Alumni | A monk who preserves the world’s treasured manuscripts 68 The College Pump | S.S. Harvard, M.B.A. margin calls, and Americanist Daniel Aaron p. 62 76 Treasure | Games to while away winter On the cover: Photograph by 69 Crimson Classifieds Robert Adam Mayer CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: JONATHAN SHAW/HARVARD MAGAZINE; PETER VANDERWARKER; MATILDE GATONI; WHITE HOUSE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION www.harvardmagazine.com Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 LETTERS EDITOR: John S. Rosenberg SENIOR EDITOR: Jean Martin Cambridge MANAGING EDITOR: Jonathan S. Shaw ART DIRECTOR: Jennifer Carling Educational effectiveness, final clubs, enduring inequalities ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Marina Bolotnikova, Sophia Nguyen STAFF WRITER/EDITOR: Lydialyle Gibson DIGITAL MEDIA MANAGER: Oset Babür UNEQUAL courses. Students gained a ASSISTANT EDITOR: Nell Porter Brown UNIVERSITIES larger vision of what they BERTA GREENWALD LEDECKY I appreciated the use- might contribute as respon- UNDERGRADUATE FELLOWS ful selections from Charles sible citizens enjoying an en- Natasha Lasky, Tawanda Mulalu T. Clotfelder’s extensive re- hanced quality of life. search on inequality in Amer- I doubt that any appre- EDITORIAL INTERN: Sanya Sagar ican higher education (“The ciable progress will be College Chasm: How market made in reducing inequal- CONTRIBUTING EDITORS forces have made American ity until we recover this John T. Bethell, Lincoln Caplan, John higher education radically generous vision, which de Cuevas, Dick Friedman, Adam unequal,” November-Decem- once made America great. Goodheart, Elizabeth Gudrais, Jim ber 2017, page 50). I was sur- Thomas M. Adams ’63 Harrison, Courtney Humphries, prised, nonetheless, to find Washington, D.C. Christopher S. Johnson, Adam Kirsch, only passing reference to the decline in sup- Colleen Lannon, Spencer Lenfield, Stu port by state legislatures for their own insti- EDUCATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS Rosner, Deborah Smullyan, Mark Steele tutions. In fact, many land-grant institutions “Measuring an Education,” In response to HARVARD MAGAZINE INC. receive only token financial support from the President Drew Faust’s latest View From PRESIDENT: Margaret H. Marshall, Ed.M. states that took the federal grants of land, first Mass Hall (November-December 2017, page ’69. DIRECTORS: Peter K. Bol, Jonathan authorized by the Morrill Act of 1862, “ to pro- 5): As a former faculty member, academic L.S. Byrnes, D.B.A. ’80, Scott V. Edwards, mote the liberal and practical education of the dean, and college president, I have never Thomas F. Kelly, Ph.D. ’73, Ann Marie industrial classes in the several pursuits and seen a better understanding of education Lipinski, NF ’90, Lars Peter Knoth professions in life.” Escalating in-state tuition than that of Coleman Barks, the brilliant Madsen, John P. Reardon Jr. ’60, now excludes those of modest means. translator of Rumi, in his interview with Unfortunately, the will to fund public high- Bill Moyers. Bryan E. Simmons ’83 er education has withered under the force of “I believe it doesn’t really matter what the a spurious notion that higher education is teacher talks about. You remember all those BOARD OF INCORPORATORS strictly an individual business investment, classes you took in college? It doesn’t mat- This magazine, at first called the Harvard Bulletin, was whether the degree leads to portfolio manage- ter what was said. What we remember are a founded in 1898. Its Board of Incorporators was char- ment or teaching English. Consider however: few presences. What was being taught was tered in 1924 and remains active in the magazine’s governance. The membership is as follows: Stephen J. a progressive tax on those who actually earn the presence of a few people, and there was Bailey, AMP ’94; Jeffrey S. Behrens ’89, William I. Ben- more could fund the next college generation a connection between the presence and us. nett ’62, M.D. ’69; John T. Bethell ’54; Peter K. Bol; Fox more generously. We all benefit from public But we sat there and took notes and thought Butterfield ’61, A.M. ’64; Sewell Chan ’98; Jonathan S. investment in an educated citizenry. we were studying the French Revolution Cohn ’91; Philip M. Cronin ’53, J.D. ’56; John de Cuevas ’52; James F. Dwinell III ’62; Anne Fadiman ’74; Benja- The glory of the land-grant college was or duck embryos or something, when what min M. Friedman ’66, Ph.D. ’71; Robert H. Giles, NF that it combined practical training and a lib- we were really learning about was coming ’66; Richard H. Gilman, M.B.A. ’83; Owen Gingerich, eral education. Farmers, engineers, scientists, through the teacher.” Ph.D. ’62; Adam K. Goodheart ’92; Philip C. Haughey ’57; Brian R. Hecht ’92; Sarah Blaffer Hrdy ’68, Ph.D. accountants, and future professionals in all Thomas B. Coburn, M.T.S. ’69, Ph.D. ’ 77 ’75; Ellen Hume ’68; Alex S. Jones, NF ’82; Bill Kovach, spheres learned skills that served their com- Warren, R.I. NF ’89; Florence Ladd, BI ’72; Jennifer 8 Lee ’99; Ran- munities and with their professors took part dolph C. Lindel ’66; Ann Marie Lipinski, NF ’90; Scott in the advancement of knowledge. General I very much appreciated President Faust’s Malkin ’80, J.D.-M.B.A. ’83; Margaret H. Marshall, Ed.M. ’69, Ed ’77, L ’78; Lisa L. Martin, Ph.D. ’90; David education requirements introduced students letter. Education may be defined as the cre- McClintick ’62; Winthrop L. McCormack ’67; M. Lee to a broad range of learning in literature, his- ative use of knowledge. At the interface of Pelton, Ph.D. ’84; John P. Reardon Jr. ’60; Harriet Ritvo tory, philosophy, the arts, and the social sci- knowledge and creativity is that experience ’68, Ph.D. ’75; Henry Rosovsky, JF ’57, Ph.D. ’59, LL.D. ences, as well as what we now call STEM known as education. This definition pro- ’98; Barbara Rudolph ’77; Robert N. Shapiro ’72, J.D. ’78; Theda Skocpol, Ph.D. ’75; Peter A. Spiers ’76; Scott H. Stossel ’91; Sherry Turkle ’69, Ph.D. ’76; Robert H. Weiss ’54; Jan Ziolkowski. 2 January - February 2018 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 THE VIEW FROM MASS HALL Education as a Civil Right n november, I had the distinct privilege of addressing some 600 Harvard alumni at the Smithsonian Institution’s Nation- al Museum of African American History and Culture. The event—the sixteenth in the Harvard Campaign’s “Your Har- Ivard” series that has taken me from Boston to Berlin to Dallas to Singapore, and concludes in February in San Francisco—included remarks from a personal hero of mine, Congressman John Lewis, LL.D. ’12, who in many ways willed the museum into existence with his lifetime commitment to civil rights and remembrance in America. A panel of Harvard faculty explored the evening’s theme: education as the civil-rights issue of our time. The museum was the perfect backdrop for this conversation. Its exhibition halls surround visitors with testaments to the liberating power of learning and the hard-fought struggle by African slaves and their offspring to gain access to education: the tattered bible that Nat Turner carried into a slave rebellion, prompting laws that made it a crime to teach enslaved persons to read; the hymnal Har- riet Tubman cherished, though it is believed she could neither read nor write; the Celtics jersey of basketball legend Bill Russell, LL.D.