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The BMW name and logo are registered trademarks. 125896_2_v1 1 7/20/07 11:46:15 AM SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2007 VOLUME 110, NUMBER 1 FEATURES page 11 34 Honorable Forester Peter Ashton’s productive immersion in tropical forests now yields crucial information about biodiversity and threatened ecosystems TOM MOSSER KRIS SNIBBE/HARVARD NEWS OFFICE by Christopher Reed page 59 DEPARTMENTS 40 Writing as Performance A literary scholar deconstructs his own texts 4 Cambridge 02138 to reveal what it costs to “write about the other as Communications from our readers if your life depended on it” 11 Right Now Stephen Greenblatt Calcium channels and male by contraceptives, bad bets and bad apples, the evolution of Vita: Gordon McKay faith, moderating macho 48 Brief life of an inventor with a lasting Harvard 19 Montage legacy: 1821-1903 Screen savant, dance master, Harry R. Lewis contemporary chamber music, by the poet-curator, and more 32A New England Regional 50 Bricks and Politics page 34 Section The sometimes-indelicate interaction of design, community interest, A seasonal calendar, the modern style in historic homes, and institutional desire that shapes the buildings Harvard erects and a tasty, tiny restaurant by Joan Wickersham 78 The Alumni Two politicians who have opted out, 59 John Harvard’s Journal HAA’s new president, “Justice” made The Law School’s big moving day, President Drew Faust arrives at Massachusetts mobile, Hunn Award winners, and more Hall, the Medical School’s new dean, multiplying interests for the scholar of 84 The College Pump LOUISE MURRAY/ROBERT HARDING WORLD IMAGERY/CORBIS multiple intelligences, the campus under construction Paths straight and true, and the man on the map and reconstructed, rescheduling the academic calendar, 92 Treasure inaugurating the School of Engineering and Applied Preserving pulp pleasures Sciences, University people in the news, competitors 85 Crimson Classifieds with GUTS, strong support for professorships, an unused Arboretum asset, the departing Harvard College On the cover: Harvard’s dean, student homes away from home, fresh high-rise housing complex at One Western Avenue. “Undergraduate” fellows, soccer stars, rugged women Photograph by Jim Harrison. ROBERT ADAM MAYER playing rugby, and a preview of fall sports page 19 Harvard Magazine 3 www.harvardmagazine.com ADVERTISEMENT LETTERS Editor: John S. Rosenberg Executive Editor: Christopher Reed Senior Editor: Jean Martin 02138 Managing Editor: Jonathan S. Shaw Deputy Editor: Craig Lambert Cambridge Production and New Media Manager: Mark Felton Le professeur, global warming and deficits, outside the academy Assistant Editor: Nell Porter Brown Art Director: Jennifer Carling Assistant Art Director: Vera Leung Berta Greenwald Ledecky FAITH AND UNBELIEF Undergraduate Fellows I am surprised Casey N. Cep, Emma M. Lind that Katherine Dunn Editorial Interns: (“Faculty Faith,” July-August, page 15) Eliza M. Pickering, Anna Reinhard does not refer to the main historical Web Intern: Blaise Freeman source of the higher percentage of “non- believers” among faculty than in the gen- Contributing Editors eral public. It derives, like the secular uni- John T. Bethell, John de Cuevas, Adam versity itself, from the Enlightenment of Goodheart, Max Hall, Jim Harrison, Harbour Fraser Hodder, Christopher S. the eighteenth century and its embarrass- Johnson, Adam Kirsch, Colleen Lannon, ment about and hostility toward religion. Deborah Smullyan, Mark Steele, Janet Harvard historian Crane Brinton has Tassel, Edward Tenner stated, “The spirit of the Enlightenment is hostile to organized religion....The cor- Editorial and Business O≠ice rosiveness of the Enlightenment is 7 Ware Street, nowhere clearer than in its attack on Cambridge, Mass. 02138-4037 Tel. 617-495-5746; fax: 617-495-0324 Christianity.” The result is the continuing Website: www.harvardmagazine.com embarrassment about religion in the Reader services: academy and the fact that divinity schools of psychology and biology. A simple ques- 617-495-5746 or 800-648-4499 in secular universities are usually at the tion such as, “When did you become a bottom of the status hierarchy. I speak as nonbeliever?” might reveal that disbelief HARVARD MAGAZINE INC. President: Henry Rosovsky, Jf ’57, one raised by fine atheist parents in Green- predated the choice of discipline. If so, Ph.D. ’59, LL.D. ’98. Directors: Richard wich Village and with graduate study in maybe it wasn’t that psychology and biol- H. Gilman, M.B.A. ’83, Leslie E. physics and the philosophy of religion. ogy made these professors into nonbeliev- Greis ’80, Alex S. Jones, Nf ’82, Bill Owen C. Thomas ers, as the article suggests, but rather that Kovach, Nf ’89, Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Berkeley, Calif. their disbelief contributed to their chosen Alan J. Stone, Richard Tuck career path. Harvard Magazine (ISSN 0095-2427) is published bimonthly Academics’ belief or nonbelief in God is Jorge Colapinto by Harvard Magazine Inc., a nonprofit corporation, 7 Ware Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02138-4037, phone 617- only one part of their views on religion. Wynnewood, Pa. 495-5746; fax 617-495-0324. The magazine is supported by reader contributions and subscriptions, advertising rev- Organized religion provides powerful rit- enue, and a subvention from Harvard University. Its edi- uals and supportive communities for the Statements appear in Dunn’s report torial content is the responsibility of the editors. Periodi- cals postage paid at Boston, Mass., and additional mailing like-minded, which help to stave o≠ anxi- supposedly giving varied percentages of o≠ices. Postmaster: Send address changes to Circulation ety and despair at the present state of those who are “agnostic”; I beg to dis- Department, Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware Street, Cam- bridge, Mass. 02138-4037. Subscription rate $30 a year in a≠airs by connecting participants to rich agree. In fact, 100 percent of college pro- U.S. and possessions, $55 Canada and Mexico, $75 other foreign. (Allow up to 10 weeks for first delivery.) Sub- heritages of music, architecture, liturgy, fessors are agnostics; so are 100 percent of scription orders and customer service inquiries should be and ethical activity. For just such reasons, garage mechanics, clergy (any and all sent to the Circulation Department, Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02138-4037, or call 617- one can be an agnostic and also an adher- faiths), and stockbrokers. 495-5746 or 800-648-4499, or e-mail addresschanges@har- vard.edu. Single copies $4.95, plus $2.50 for postage and ent of an organized religion. The most basic definition of “agnostic” handling. Manuscript submissions are welcome, but we David C. Balderston is someone who does not know. No one cannot assume responsibility for safekeeping. Include stamped, self-addressed envelope for manuscript re- New York City has ever known where this cosmos/exis- turn. Persons wishing to reprint any portion of Harvard tence originated, why it is here, or how it Magazine’s contents are required to write in advance for permission. Address inquiries to Catherine A. Chute, It may not take “a longitudinal study will all end up. It seems highly unlikely publisher, at the address given above. Copyright over decades” to find out why nonbeliev- that anyone will ever know. Obviously, © 2007 Harvard Magazine Inc. ers are overrepresented among professors many people pick a faith-fable of their 4 September - October 2007 MORE THAN 250 YEARS OF UNINTERRUPTED HISTORY… 1911. When the Lost City of the Incas was discovered in Peru, Vacheron Constantin was 156 years old. © Photographer: Herbreteau Dany OVERSEAS CHRONOGRAPH Selfwinding mechanical movement. Soft-iron antimagnetic screen. Water- resistant to 150 m (~490 feet). 18K gold luminescent hour markers and hands. Screwed-in crown and screw-locked pushpieces. 49150/B01A-9095 ...DEDICATED TO PERFECTION choosing, or more likely the faith-fable my case, has demonstrated the impor- popular in their family or neighborhood. tance of speaking truth to power in the I have no quarrel with that, so long as classroom as well as outside it. Hard they don’t try to use it to control my life. though it is, I am still teaching interna- There is no great onus to being agnos- tional relations, especially American for- Publisher: Catherine A. Chute tic, other than the obvious fact that you eign policy, to the next generation! Director of Finance: Diane H. Yung will never be elected president of the Linda B. Miller ’59 Director of Circulation: Felecia Carter United States. And consider the most Adjunct professor, Brown University Director of Marketing charming and endearing quality of ag- South Wellfleet, Mass. Cara Ferragamo Murray nostics: they do not send missionaries! Director of Advertising Lyle R.