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ALUMNI QUARTERLY

ColloquyThe graduate school of arts and sciences | harvard university fall 2010

Beyond the brush: A fresh take on Chinese art

Rap as poetry?

Cellular detective Susan Mango

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The graduate school of arts and sciences • harvard university Colloquy ALUMNI QUARTERLY

China Now and Then Allan M. Brandt 2 Curating an important new show at Boston’s dean Museum of Fine Arts, GSAS PhD candidate Hao Margot N. Gill Sheng offers a striking reinterpretation of China’s administrative dean artistic tradition. Elisabeth Nuñez director of publications and alumni relations

Bari Walsh editor The Art of Science 6 MacArthur winner Susan Mango sees the beauty Sametz Blackstone Associates in cellular biology. design Graduate School Alumni Association (GSAA) Council Naomi André, PhD ’96, music Reinier Beeuwkes, COL ’62, PhD ’70, division of medical sciences Thomas Davenport, PhD ’80, sociology Mia de Kuijper, MPA ’83, PhD ’83, economics Colloquy with Adam Bradley and Stacy Dick, AB ’78, PhD ’83, economics 8 A. Barr Dolan, AM ’74, applied sciences Andrew DuBois Richard Ekman, AB ’66, PhD ’72, history of American civilization The authors of The Anthology of Rap make the case John C.C. Fan, SM ’67, PhD ’72, applied sciences for rap as a poetic art form. Neil Fishman, SM ’92, applied sciences Kenneth Froewiss, AB ’67, PhD ’77, economics Homer Hagedorn, PhD ’55, history, ex officio R. Stanton Hales, PhD ’70, mathematics David Harnett, PhD ’70, history George Heilborn, AM ’58, physics Karen J. Hladik, PhD ’84, business economics Making the House a Home Daniel R. Johnson, AM ’82, East Asian history, AM ’84, 10 GSAS students play a key role in the life of business economics Gopal Kadagathur, PhD ’69, applied sciences Harvard College as resident tutors in the under- Alan Kantrow, AB ’69, PhD ’79, history of American civilization graduate Houses. Gyuri Karady, PhD ’80, applied sciences Robert E. Knight, PhD ’68, economics Felipe Larraín, PhD ’85, economics, ex officio Jill Levenson, PhD ’67, English and American literature and language See-Yan Lin, MPA ’70, PhD ’77, economics Suzanne Folds McCullagh, PhD ’81, fine arts John J. Moon, AB ’89, PhD ’94, business economics Alumni Books 14 Sandra O. Moose, PhD ’68, economics God, sex, and politics dominate this issue’s F. Robert Naka, SD ’51, applied sciences collection of notable books by GSAS authors. Betsy M. Ohlsson-Wilhelm, AB ’63, PhD ’69, medical sciences Maury Peiperl, MBA ’86, PhD ’94, organizational behavior M. Lee Pelton, PhD ’84, English and American literature and language Nancy Ramage, PhD ’69, classical archaeology, ex officio John E. Rielly, PhD ’61, government Allen Sangínes-Krause, PhD ’87, economics; chair Charles Schilke, AM ’82, history Sidney Spielvogel, AM ’46, economics, MBA ’49, ex officio David Staines, PhD ’73, English and American literature and language Marianne Steiner, MEN ’78, SM ’78, applied mathematics Dennis Vaccaro, PhD ’78, division of medical sciences Donald van Deventer, PhD ’77, economics Lee Zhang, AM ’01, medical sciences Gustavus Zimmerman, PhD ’80, physics

On the cover: Chunbai Zhang, MPH ’09, and his wife, Jade D’Alpoim Guedes, a PhD candidate in anthropology, in the courtyard at Adams House, where they live as resident tutors. psi47622_magazine.qxd:psi47725_magazine 11/23/10 10:29 PM Page 1

from the dean

Allan M. Brandt Dean, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; Amalie Moses Kass Professor of the History of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; professor of the history of science, Harvard Alumni Association Enhancing the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences Appointed Directors Experience John E. Rielly • Daniel R. Johnson

GSAA Council Ex Officio One of my priorities as dean has been to benefit from multiple perspectives, because Drew Gilpin Faust connect more strongly with the remarkable the DGS often becomes a de facto second president of Harvard University Michael D. Smith faculty members who serve as directors of advisor, especially early on in a student’s dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences graduate study in the 57 degree-granting program, when he or she is still making basic Allan M. Brandt programs that comprise the Graduate School decisions about scholarly direction. dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Margot N. Gill of Arts and Sciences. And DGSs are much more attuned to administrative dean of the Graduate School of I’ve instituted a regular schedule of the stresses of graduate life than many of us Arts and Sciences retreats and meetings for our DGSs, and in probably perceived our own advisors as Michael Shinagel PhD ’64, English and American literature and language, these venues we exchange views on key being. Our best DGSs grapple daily with the dean of Continuing Education and University Extension issues and common problems. We’ve explored quality of the graduate experience at John P. Reardon Jr. various strategies for building a more robust Harvard, seeing it as their mission both to AB ’60 executive director of the Harvard Alumni Association advising structure, for example, and talked support their individual students and to through ideas on how to best prepare inter- endorse the broader aims of our program national students to lead sections in an here, in a political and economic climate The GSAA is the alumni association of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. American classroom. where those aims may often be subject to Governed by its Council, the GSAA represents and questions about cost and value. advances the interests of alumni of the Graduate School by With a hand in everything from recruiting It is appropriate that DGSs take such sponsoring alumni events and by publishing Colloquy four care. The world — and the world of graduate times each year. to advising to requirements and overall education — is far more complex these days Graduate School Alumni Association student progress, DGSs are helping to than it was a generation or two ago. In Holyoke Center 350 a restricted and highly competitive academic 1350 Massachusetts Avenue foster a very different graduate experience Cambridge, MA 02138-3846 job market, and in an overall economy that phone: 617-495-5591 • fax: 617-495-2928 than the one many of us will recall. remains frustratingly sluggish, the pressure [email protected] • www.gsas.harvard.edu to succeed in graduate school can feel over- Colloquy on the Web It has been wonderful to see this com- whelming. Our DGSs are there to help Access current and back issues of Colloquy, as well as munity grow and to push collectively against students manage that pressure, assess their a range of other alumni services and information, at www.gsas.harvard.edu/alumni. the sorts of boundaries that might once have own progress, and to have the “difficult been insuperable. Overhearing the DGS from conversations” that may come out of those Letters to the Editor history talking to his counterpart from chem- assessments, as our DGS in Classics, Emma Colloquy does not print letters, but we welcome your thoughts and story ideas. Write to: Colloquy, Harvard istry about dissertation defense practices — Dench, has put it. University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Holyoke to cite one example of this new interaction — This year, I will begin a series of disci- Center 350, 1350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA has renewed my conviction that we must not pline-based meetings of our directors of 02138-3846; or e-mail [email protected]. fail to make use of the resources that Harvard graduate study, which I think will be crucial Moving? University, across its many disciplines, offers to our programs as they define particular Please send your Colloquy mailing label and your new to us. These gatherings underscore for me the challenges that are arising within their own address to Alumni Records, 124 Mt. Auburn Street, 4th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02138-3654. common mission that engages all of us — the professional spheres. These smaller conversa- mission to build and share new knowledge. tions will be especially critical in the human- Colloquy is printed by PrintResource/DS Graphics. Our directors of graduate study personify ities, as we reassert the significance of those the Graduate School’s daily focus on support- fields in a 21st century liberal arts education. ing our students. With a hand in everything When I’m with our directors of graduate from recruiting to advising to requirements study, I get an on-the-ground understanding and overall student progress, DGSs are of what’s really going on in our programs, helping to foster a very different graduate of the successes and challenges of graduate experience than the one many of us will education today. This vantage point is recall. No longer are students confined to crucial, since my task — our shared task — a single track, depending upon a single advisor is to articulate and affirm the value of our to guide them intellectually and support them enterprise, never more critical at Harvard emotionally (or not). Today, our students and in the larger society around us.

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SECTIONHUMANITIES TITLE Collection of the artist, courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Arts, courtesy Museum of Fine Collection of the artist,

CHINA NOW AND THEN

In an important new show at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, a GSAS curator asks contemporary Chinese artists to respond to masterworks of the past, illuminating China’s shifting identity

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Yu Hong, a Beijing artist known for her depictions of women, has produced a compelling new work (far left) that reanimates the Tang Dynasty–era court ladies of this MFA masterpiece (above) as 21st-century women. The new work will open the exhibition dramatically, as eight bolts of golden silk — 17 feet high — cascading from the ceiling. Far left, Spring Romance (2009), by Yu Hong; acrylic on silk. Left, Yu Hong in her studio in Beijing. Above, Court Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk, detail, attributed to Emperor Huizong (Chinese, 1082–1135); hand- scroll; ink, color, and gold on silk.

By Bari Walsh

For many Americans, the popular image of first in the museum’s new Ann and Graham important. “Artists are always working on China is grounded in two opposing visions: Gund Gallery, is not simply an exploration of a problem that they are struggling with in China as an ancient kingdom of romance and one nation’s long artistic tradition. It’s also their own work,” Sheng says, “and when legend, or China as a mass producer of cheap about “new ways of understanding contem- they look at anything — a street, a market, commodities, an economic engine competing porary China, and contemporary Chinese a painting — they pose those questions to it with the United States on the world stage. people,” Sheng says. As a native of China (he and find their individual answers.” When The truth, of course, encompasses both was born in Shanghai) and a longtime resident they look at a masterwork from the past, poles, and contemporary Chinese life is woven of the United States, Sheng is neatly posi- artists are essentially “interrogating the from strands of both kinds of identifiers. tioned to articulate the rewards of that ancient and bringing it back to being a con- Hao Sheng, a PhD candidate in Chinese process of discovery to audiences in Boston. temporary that can speak to them. We art history at the Graduate School and the He began to plan the exhibition five always talk about works of art being time- Wu Tung Curator of Chinese Art at the years ago, when he hatched the idea to invite less, but this is what it means — that in front Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has attempted Chinese artists to come to the MFA, view its of a work of art, you can have a conversation to penetrate the complexities of contempo- permanent collection, and create new works that creates this time-space continuum. That rary China by offering 10 of its leading that responded directly to a selected work in experience opened my eyes to work I thought artists a chance to respond to the cultural the collection. The show will juxtapose those I knew very well. I wanted to bring that treasures of the past. In the process, he’s new creations and the masterpieces that experience to the general audience.” giving museum goers access to an experience inspired them, letting the audience “eaves- There was another, more personal moti- that he, as a curator, cherishes — the chance drop on a dialogue between old and new,” vation. After he graduated from the College to witness the dynamic interplay between Sheng says. of Wooster, in Ohio, Sheng went to Japan artists and their inspiration. The idea arose in part from his own and spent three years apprenticing with Sheng is the curator of Fresh Ink: Ten daily pleasure at watching visiting artists a master potter in a rural village. “It was Takes on Chinese Tradition, which runs interact with the MFA’s permanent collection really what you imagine when you think of through February at the MFA. The show, the of Chinese art, one of the world’s most a romanticized apprenticeship — you get up

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HUMANITIES Collection of the artist, courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Arts, Museum of Fine courtesy, Collection of the artist, Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Arts, © Museum of Fine Photograph Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Anna Mitchell Richards Fund Anna Mitchell Richards Boston. Arts, Museum of Fine Qin Feng created a dynamic installation in response to the oldest object in the exhibition, a monumental bronze vessel from the 11th century B.C. Having grown up in a multilingual crossroads in Western China, he was inspired by the inscriptions on the vessel, and he produced 10 large-scale folding books and 7 hanging scrolls, covered in words that are both ancient and invented. Above, Civilization Landscape Series (book 009 detail). Center, Ceremonial wine vessel (fang yi) with inscription, detail; Chinese, from the early Western Zhou period, late 11th to early 10th century B.C.; bronze. Right, the artist in his Beijing studio, amid a mockup of his installation, Civilization Landscape Series Books 005–019 and Hanging Scrolls 1–13; books: ink, coffee, and tea on paper, with covers wrapped in lambskin; scrolls: ink and earth on paper.

at six in the morning, you sweep the floor, you salon exhibitions, were exported to other America; another, born into a nomadic get hot water for your teacher, you wedge the contexts,” he says. “These narratives were an sheepherding community in Xinjiang Province, clay. Over two years, I made only one shape, important component of nation-building.” now lives in Chelsea, just outside of Boston; a teacup, thousands of times. He said, ‘If you In China, Lippit continues, “there had others had never left China before receiving can do this, you can do anything.’” already emerged a fairly well-defined canon Sheng’s invitation. The immersion made him suspect that of calligraphy and painting, developed over In working with the artists as they the art world emphasized originality perhaps many centuries, that provided a readymade responded to their chosen works, Sheng was more than it should. “Creativity and origi- foundation for the essentially modern notion careful not to let his own perspective as an nality seem to be equated,” Sheng says. “But of a tradition of Chinese art.” The last several art historian shade their interpretations. “If in fact in ceramics, in Asian art, and I think decades have seen “a second moment of you think about the work that Qin Feng in art in general, artists are always looking nationwide artistic self-fashioning” — this chose to respond to” — a bronze vessel from to their predecessors for inspiration. That’s time having “more to do with the shift the 11th century BC, whose inscriptions are a process that has been fully acknowledged in towards a market economy in China and the some of the earliest instances of written the Chinese tradition, which posits that you globalization of the art market than with Chinese — “we actually know very little can’t make sense of yourself unless you can nation-building,” he says. about the culture and the moment of 11th put yourself in the context of the tradition.” The 10 artists included in the MFA’s century BC. Archaeologists can tell us that Defining exactly what that tradition con- exhibition, ranging in age from their late 30s these are ritual vessels. Who used them, what sists in, and how it relates to China’s sense of to early 60s, are Arnold Chang, Li Huayi, Li was their faith — that’s murky to us. itself today, is tricky, according to East Asian Jin, Liu Dan, Liu Xiaodong, Qin Feng, Qiu “But Qin Feng [the Chelsea-by-way-of art historian Yukio Lippit ’93, Harris K. Ting, Xu Bing, Yu Hong, and Zeng Xiaojun. Xinjiang artist] can ignore that lack of infor- Weston Associate Professor of the Humanities. All have a profound engagement with mation and can have a personal response,” China is one of many non-European coun- China’s ink-painting tradition, Sheng says, Sheng continues. “He sees this bronze as tries that “formulated master narratives “but their responses are so varied, from very a transplant from China to Boston, just like about their artistic traditions during the nine- referential to parody.” Their styles and biog- he was, and his emotional response to this teenth and early twentieth centuries, when raphies vary, too; there are installation artists displacement comes into his artwork,” the art institutions of early modern Europe, and conceptual artists here, in addition to a dynamic installation of 10 human-sized such as the Beaux-Arts academies and public ink and oil painters. One was born in folding books and 7 hanging scrolls.

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mass identity. The work, titled Spring FRESH INK: Romance, will hang from the gallery ceiling TEN TAKES ON as eight bolts of cascading golden silk. Arnold Chang, born in New York City, CHINESE chose to respond to Jackson Pollock’s TRADITION Number 10, seeing an opportunity to trace comparisons between traditional Chinese The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston brush strokes and Pollack’s drips and fluidity. Through February 2011 The work Chang created, titled Secluded Curated by Hao Sheng, GSAS PhD candidate Valley in the Cold Mountains, is a handscroll of a delicate landscape, whose strokes mirror • Pollack’s motions. He decided to lay the The exhibition features 10 pairings of classic Pollack painting flat during the exhibition, and contemporary works, among approximately requiring viewers to face it as if it were a 40 pieces overall, including preparatory sketches Hao Sheng, the Wu Tung Curator of Chinese Art at Chinese scroll. and woodblocks by the artists. the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is a Harvard PhD For Sheng, this integration of old • candidate in Chinese art history. and new — “like two mirrors facing each The masterpieces from the MFA’s collection other,” he says — illustrates the idea that the vary in age, medium, and culture. They span classical China we celebrate in museums and 3,000 years, from an 11th century BC bronze Yu Hong, the only woman in the exhibi- the contemporary China we encounter in vessel, to paintings on silk from the Song tion, created a strikingly modern reinterpre- headlines are continuous. “I think this show Dynasties period (AD 960–1268), to a Jackson tation of the 12th-century masterpiece Court can help people understand this continuation Pollock canvas from 1949. Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk. — how China’s own tradition forges how • Showing all the various roles that women Chinese people think of themselves today. The new works also range widely in format, occupy in contemporary China, the new And of course, how Chinese people think from traditional handscrolls, hanging scrolls, work is expressive and specific — an imme- of themselves today is important for all and carved wooden screens to silk banners diate antidote to China’s massiveness, and of us.” and monumental folding books.

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NATURAL SCIENCES

THE ART OF SCIENCE Harvard Office News

An unorthodox approach fuels Susan Mango’s creativity in the lab

By Rebecca Hersher ’11

After earning a biochemistry degree from experimental research has led to the kind Harvard College in 1983, Susan Mango was of creative, elegant studies that push the on the path to becoming a scientist. She limits of biology. Her work on pharynx loved thinking about puzzles, the beauty of (a cavity area behind the mouth) develop- scientific questions, and the elegance of ment in nematode worms has provided experimental design. Graduate school in biologists with one of their most robust biological science was the clear next step. models of organ formation. Then Mango spent a postgraduate year In 2008 her ingenuity was rewarded when doing something completely different: She the MacArthur Foundation gave her one of took a job at the National Gallery of Art in its “genius grants,” which carries with it Washington, D.C., working on conservation $500,000 in no-strings-attached funding. of artworks. Mango grew up in New York, London, “Taking that time, not having set a rigid and Washington, the daughter of a peripatetic trajectory from undergraduate science professor of Byzantine history. She in effect student to full professor, was liberating,” “rebelled” against her humanist parents by Mango says. “I think it helped keep cultivating an interest in science, she says. science fun.” Her own career has taken her all over the Mango, who rejoined Harvard last country. From Harvard, she went to year as professor of molecular and cellular Princeton for her PhD work, moved on to biology (in an office next to her freshman a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of biology professor, Richard Losick), says her Wisconsin, and eventually landed on the interest in art naturally complements her faculty of the University of Utah’s School of interest in science. “Art and biology just Medicine and Huntsman Cancer Institute. aren’t that different,” she insists. “I realized Mango developed a reputation for sometime in graduate school that I think forward-thinking research, and her ground- about biology differently from some scien- breaking work on organogenesis has been tists. For me it’s very grounded in visual and regularly published in high-impact journals. spatial representation.” After decades in the lab, biological experi- “Biology is all about puzzles and mentation continues to intrigue her, she says, imagining processes,” she adds. “I like because “you think the answer is going to puzzles. They’re fun.” be black or white, but it’s always some shade Mango’s unorthodox approach to of gray.”

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alumni notes

Cellular detective Susan Mango wants to understand more about how organs are Applied Science formed. In studying the pharynx of the nematode worm and tracking cells as they Bob Naka, SD ’51, has received an honorary form the organ, she’s found a robust model. degree from UCLA. In 1942, Naka was one of many Japanese-American students who were forced to withdraw from the institution as part of the incar- ceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II. He went on to complete his degree at the University of Missouri and began his career at the Tracking Cells as They Meet Their Fate Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Project Lincoln, working with other engineers to invent an “The notion that you can track individual it, and in that way cause a clean removal of automatic radar signal detection device to locate cells in worms is just phenomenal,” says Susan all the cells in your kidney, to me it’s pretty invading Russian bomber planes. Naka served as Mango, whose lab at Harvard is drawing key convincing that the gene is essential to make the deputy director of the National Reconnaissance inferences about human organ development kidney,” she says. Office (NRO) in Washington, D.C., and spent three from studying the process in C. elegans, a tiny, And that’s just what Mango found when years as the chief scientist of the U.S. Air Force, transparent worm that she affectionately she started looking at throat development in before retiring in 1988. describes as “absolutely beautiful.” worms and happened upon a mutant worm In its embryonic state, C. elegans under- that lacked a pharynx. She and her team East Asian Languages and Civilizations goes a developmental process known as eventually discovered that a single gene, which Margaret B. Wan, PhD ’00, has been awarded stereotypical cleavage, a pattern of cell division they later called pha-4, usually associated with an ACLS Fellowship for her latest book project, whose timing and orientation can be tracked the pharynx, was missing. “Drum Ballads as Local Literature in Nineteenth easily in a research laboratory. “So you can “So we thought, there is one gene, this Century China.” An associate professor of Chinese say, ‘Okay, we know this cell will eventually single gene pha-4, that when mutated, prevents literature at the University of Utah, she is the author be part of the gut,’ which is what we study,” a whole organ from forming,'” Mango recounts. of “Green Peony” and the Rise of the Chinese Martial Mango explains. She and her team can then ask “It was so beautiful, such a simple, clear pheno- Arts Novel (State University of New York Press) and questions — such as, how does the cell trans- type, and it suggested that this gene, pha-4, has co-editor of The Interplay of the Oral and the Written form from a pluripotent state, in which it can a critical role in making the pharynx, and not in Chinese Popular Literature, (Nordic Institute of become any cell type, to its final cellular fate, as just one of its cells but all the pharyngeal cells.” Asian Studies Press). a gut cell? The gene showed no effect on cells not “With C. elegans, the whole process is destined to become part of the pharynx. Don J. Wyatt, AM ’78, regional studies–East very fast, and you can watch it as it happens,” Its effect was so specific that Mango and Asia, PhD ’84, has been appointed John M. McCardell, says Mango, a self-described “impatient” colleagues called it the “organ identity gene, or Jr. Distinguished Professor at Middlebury College. researcher who likes “to be able to do an selector gene.” This endowed professorship has been established in experiment, get a result, think about it, and set Since that discovery, researchers have recognition of the presidency of John M. McCardell, up the next experiment right away. With found genes with similar functions in the eye Jr., 15th president of Middlebury, on the occasion other experimental organisms, like the mouse, and the pancreas. The gene pha-4’s existence has of his retirement. Wyatt is the first to hold the you can’t do that.” been confirmed in creatures both simple and professorship. Lately Mango and her team — including complex, including in humans. GSAS students Youngeun (Kaitlyn) Choi and Is there a gene associated with the formation Economics Jacqueline Rosains — have been watching the of each organ in the body? “It’s possible, but we Richard Grossman, PhD ’88, has written Unsettled nuclei of embryonic worm cells. The cells are haven’t found these ‘organ identity genes’ for all Account: The Evolution of Banking in the Industrialized tiny structures, about half a micrometer deep organs,” Mango says. World since 1800, which was released this summer (a micrometer is 1/1000 of a millimeter), For now there are more questions than by Princeton University Press. The book provides containing the worm’s DNA and clues about answers: How do early things happen early in an a comparative history of banking in Western the process of plasticity — how cells commit to organ’s development? How do later things Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan, and a defined type. happen later? And how does an organ respond Australia, focusing on four types of events that have “Isn’t that amazing, how drastically its to changing environmental conditions through- been central to the lifecycle of banking systems: nucleus changes?” Mango asks, pointing at an out the life of an animal? crises, bailouts, mergers, and regulatory reform. image comparing two developmental stages of Seeking answers to those questions, an embryonic worm. “Over time, the nucleus Mango knows that first steps are key. “If you’re Walter Labys, AM ’65, has recently been gets much more organized, and then it parti- going to build an organ, just like building awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa by the University tions. Certain regions are kind of stuffed away a house, you need to start at the beginning of Montpellier in France. The honor recognizes his into something called heterochromatin,” Mango and then progress,” she says. “You wouldn’t extensive research and collaboration with faculty explains. The reorganization of the genetic put in the plumbing after you’ve put up the and graduate students of the economics faculty material inside a cell’s nucleus may control the walls, right?” between the years 1990 and 2008; the collaboration potential of the cell to be “plastic,” she says. involved the econometrics of time series analysis Broadly, her work is about better under- and applications in the commodity markets and standing “how an animal organizes itself,” she Adapted from “How Does a Worm Build a Throat?” international finance. Labys was a doctoral student continues. “If you can take a single gene, delete by Iris Mónica Vargas for HarvardScience. of Clive W. J. Granger (Nobel Laureate in economics, continued on page 9 Colloquy 7 Fall 2010 psi47622_magazine.qxd:psi47725_magazine 11/23/10 10:29 PM Page 8

col.lo.quy: a conversation, a dialogue ...with Adam Bradley and Andrew DuBois

Uncovering the Lyric Poetry of Rap

rofane, funny, boisterous, bleak, gritty, joyful — rap is all of those, P a cultural form that reaches back to encompass a venerable black oral tradition while remaining utterly contemporary in its subjects and sound. It has been celebrated, reviled, legislated, and theorized, but only now it is being anthologized, in a new

collection edited by Adam Bradley (PhD ’03, DuBois Andrew and Adam Bradley Photos courtesy of English) and Andrew DuBois (PhD ’03, English). The Anthology of Rap (Yale University Press) is the first attempt to collect and analyze lyrics from the beginning Adam Bradley, left, and Andrew DuBois, who both earned PhDs in English in 2003, went from being fans of rap of rap’s recorded history, in the 1970s, to music to connoisseurs, and now to scholars. They’ve produced a groundbreaking anthology of rap lyrics. the present. With a foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and afterwords by rappers Common and Chuck D, the book makes way how much variety and skill make up the signifying. Nonetheless, it’s a tradition that the case for the validity of rap as a poetic art of rap. Seeing a range of lyrics laid is complete unto itself. art form. Bradley, an associate professor out chronologically and framed by their That’s an important thing to note, of English at the University of Colorado historical context is going to enlarge the because often what we’ve seen in the past at Boulder, has written previously about reader’s sense of rap’s cultural impact and have been attempts to offer rap up as the rap’s lyricism (Book of Rhymes: The aesthetic contributions. subject of serious intellectual discourse only Poetics of Hip-Hop), as well as about through the cosigning of more canonical Ralph Ellison; DuBois, an associate professor Have you encountered skepticism about literature. So you’d have things like hip-hop of English at the University of Toronto at rap’s lyric worth? and Shakespeare. There’s a value in that, but Scarborough, is the author of Ashbery’s our purpose was to say that without combin- Forms of Attention and editor of Close Adam Bradley: When Book of Rhymes ing the hip-hop tradition with any other Reading: The Reader. came out, it came out on a trade press, tradition, without asking for admittance because the couple of academic presses within the halls of higher learning, rap Did you learn something new about rap I had pursued had misgivings about the deserves, and indeed has already, a place in after collecting all of these lyrics? What subject matter or about my particular this discourse. can others learn? fusion of hip-hop with the classical poetic tradition, thinking that we couldn’t use some What about rap’s explicit (or offensive) Andrew DuBois: The rhythmic energy and of the same tools of poetic analysis on content? robust diction of rap drew me to the music at rap. I’d like to believe that the book, and a young age, but the work of selecting and now this anthology, conclusively demon- Bradley: Rap is a form that’s in your face, transcribing so many lyrics forced me to see strates otherwise. that doesn’t mince words, and that often these elements with a new kind of clarity. Still, in this anthology, we go to great does so at the expense of certain people’s The range of storytelling strategies in rap is lengths to articulate that rap is a tradition sensibilities. What we wanted to do in pre- amazing, especially in the context of a four- that stands up on its own. Yes, it has a rela- senting this anthology was not to argue one minute song; reading the lyrics helped me tionship to the Western poetic heritage, and way or the other about rap’s explicit content, to see this in a way that listening alone had yes, it has a relationship to the African- but to present the lyrics on their own, let not. But listening is most crucial, and I think American oral tradition as it stretches back them speak for themselves, and let people do that listeners are going to learn in a new through the Toasts, and the Dozens, and the work that they want to do with it.

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alumni notes continued from page 7

2003) at Nottingham University and has published frequently on the modeling of world commodity markets and related price behavior, as well as the That said, one of the headlines that “Web” (The Roots). The Roots are rightly impact of the instability in these markets on devel- comes out of this book for me, and one of considered to be about the most versatile and oping countries. He is professor emeritus in natural the ways it pushes against assumptions about sophisticated group in hip-hop, but what resource economics at West Virginia University, hip-hop content, is that you can pretty much I love about “Web” is how lead rapper Black a University Benedum Scholar, and a Gunnar Myrdal read the first half of it without encountering Thought returns to the battle-rap essence. Scholar at the United Nations in Geneva. much explicit language at all. No hook, no guests, no wasted motion, just 84 unbroken bars of smart invective and English So what is lyrical, poetic, or just aes- shameless self-aggrandizement. David Shaw, PhD ’63, a professor emeritus of thetically pleasing about rap? What can English at Victoria College, University of Toronto, a reader find in this book? “The M.G.M.” (Ghostface and Raekwon). has recently published Secrets of the Oracle: A History These Wu-Tang Clan emcees take the back- of Wisdom from Zeno to Yeats (University of Toronto Bradley: Depending upon your particular and-forth delivery associated with groups Press, 2009). A study of oracles and aphorisms, the interests, tastes, and aesthetic sensibilities, you like the Cold Crush Brothers and Run-DMC book includes a chapter on the wit and wisdom of can open up this book and find satisfaction. to another level on this one. A two-way Shaw’s former colleague, Northrop Frye. For me it begins in the ear, it begins with stream-of-consciousness hip-hop reality rhyme and rhythm. One of the things that we show about fight night with rap stars. Judson D. (Jay) Watson III, PhD ’89, has been learn from all great poets and poetic traditions named Howry Professor of Faulkner Studies at the is that there is a music to language itself. How did you come to hip-hop, and how University of Mississippi, where he teaches in the But this is a book not just of rhymes but did hip-hop become a scholarly direction? Department of English. Watson is the author of of stories, of wisdom. It’s a book of life. Forensic Fictions: The Lawyer Figure in Faulkner These lyricists don’t just talk about money, Bradley: When I was 7, I was pulled out of (University of Georgia Press, 1993) and editor of and cars, and clothes; they talk about life and school by my mother. My teacher had told a forthcoming collection of essays, Faulkner and death in all its forms. You can see the last 30 her, Adam is the sweetest boy in the class, but Whiteness (University Press of Mississippi, 2011). He or so years of our country’s history written he’s just not bright. We moved in with my is currently completing a monograph, Reading (For) from the perspective of these young men and grandparents, and my grandmother, who’d the Body in Southern Narrative, for the University of women, many of whom are black, most of been a teacher, quit her job and dedicated Georgia Press. whom are minorities, many of whom began herself to teaching me at home, which she did on the fringes of the socioeconomic structure for the next 8 or 9 years. The way she got me Government of our society and then went on to rise to into reading and writing was through poetry. Franklyn Johnson, PhD ’52 reports that his positions of fame and wealth. That’s part of She would read me Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, book, One More Hill, has been released in its fourth the story of this tradition, part of the story Wordsworth, Robert Frost — and before edition by the Cantigny First Division Foundation. the book tells. In the process it gives us long I was reading their poetry back to her. The book recounts his experience as a replacement a shifting view of this country — of issues of I first heard rap in the mid-1980s — this officer and then platoon leader of an anti-tank race relations, of course, but also about the was in Salt Lake City, Utah, and rap took platoon with the 18th Infantry Regiment of the 1st shifting terms of our culture, of the whole longer to get there. I started listening to Run- Infantry Division in World War II. His story depicts great American contract of life, liberty, and DMC and De La Soul, and even as a kid the experiences and feelings of soldiers in that and the pursuit of happiness. I could sense a deep connection between every war: the training, camaraderie, apprehension, the music I listened to and the poetry I was fighting, boredom, and then more fighting. He What is your favorite selection in this reading. It took coming to Harvard to find initially saw action with the Big Red One in Tunisia in anthology? the critical vocabulary to be able to articulate North Africa. He made two amphibious assault that connection. landings: one at Gela, Sicily, in 1943, the other on DuBois: Hard to choose! Here are three Omaha Beach at Normandy in 1944. favorites: What was your path to this project? How does it fit within your larger body Leland Stauber, PhD ’64, has published a new “Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa” (De La of interests? book entitled The American Revolution: A Grand Soul). A serious song that doesn’t fall into the Mistake (Prometheus Books, 2010), an iconoclastic trap of didacticism. Posdnous and Dove DuBois: At a professional level, I’m primarily assessment of America’s revolutionary period. trade verses about a classmate who is being a poetry critic, with an emphasis on American Stauber, retired as associate professor of political sexually abused by her father, who is also lyric poetry; a personal obsession of mine is science at Southern Illinois University – Carbondale, their high school guidance counselor. Their popular music, and I’ve been a rap fan and presents a fundamental reinterpretation of the complicity in the tragic conclusion is implied, record collector ever since I first had a little founding saga of America, arguing that our independ- given their nonchalant response to their spending money. To me, rap is the best ence from Britain was premature and that the friend’s situation. Formally virtuosic, with popular poetry of my lifetime, as well as the experience of Canada has in many ways been prefer- a stanzaic variation at the end that sonically kind of lyric poetry that I first tried to write able. He cites the unfinished business of slavery, for parallels the story itself, and brave in its (with little success, alas!), so it made sense to example, and America’s often cumbersome system characterization. bring together these interests in a book. continued on page 11

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STUDENTSECTION LIFE TITLE

Making the House a Home

Photographs by Jessica Scranton

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alumni notes continued from page 9

Rich Johnston, a PhD candidate in English, is in his fourth year as resident tutor at of checks and balances, as among the Revolution’s Cabot House. A big part of his job is helping College students make the choices unfortunate legacies. they know they want to make, but may not be able to articulate or justify in the face of external pressures, he says. History Marv Levy, AM ’51, published an autobiography, Where Else Would Your Rather Be? (Sports Publishing LLC), documenting his career in football. Levy rose from being an obscure assistant coach to becoming the head coach of the Buffalo Bills, leading them to an historic four consecutive Super Bowl appear- ances, ultimately landing a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Linguistics Jaklin Kornfilt, PhD ’85, has been awarded the As resident tutors in Harvard’s undergraduate Houses, Humboldt Research Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, which promotes academic GSAS students are mentors, friends, and role models, cooperation between excellent scientists and scholars from abroad and from Germany. The forming a tightknit community of learners award recognizes researchers whose discoveries or insights have had a significant impact on their disci- pline and beyond. As a professor of linguistics at Syracuse University, Kornfilt has published Turkish By Bari Walsh Grammar (Routledge), is co-editor of Syntactic Theory and First Language Acquisition: Crosslinguistic Rich Johnston’s apartment is almost exactly House life is at the center of Harvard’s Perspectives (volume 2, Lawrence Erlbaum), and has the one you’d want if you dreamed of living undergraduate experience, and tutors play authored more than 60 journal articles and book in Cambridge as an academically inclined 20- a significant role in defining the unique char- chapters on Turkish syntax. or 30-something. There is the cozy-chic and acter of each House and providing resources appropriately studious-looking living room, — academic, recreational, and emotional — Psychology warmed by the books and records lining the for the undergraduates residents. Thomas F. Pettigrew, PhD ’56 received the walls and by the oriental rugs — a harmo- What tutors get in return, Johnston says, International Society for Political Psychology’s 2010 nious blend of authentic and IKEA — on the is a real home — an idea as much as a place, Harold Lasswell Award. The award is given for floor. There is the wall of whisky from and one that can feel increasingly appealing, distinguished scientific contributions in the field of Scottish distilleries you wish you could visit. and increasingly remote, as the rigors of political psychology. Upon acceptance of the award, There is the garden, and there are your a typical PhD program intensify. “Research he gave a talk entitled “The Post-Racism Myth and vegetables. The apartment is in a historic is a very isolating thing,” says Johnston. Mass Media Mistakes” at the annual meeting of the building just outside Harvard Square, with “I genuinely enjoy being around the people Society, held in San Francisco in July. a dramatic expanse of green grass that beckons here, given the solitariness of what graduate a Frisbee toss when friends come over. school is. There’s a really positive vibe, and Romance Languages and Literatures One thing, though: The place comes the kinds of conversations you have with Carmen Oquendo-Villar, PhD ’08, has received with a whole lot of undergraduates attached. students can be provoking and fun. I’ve a Guggenheim Fellowship, which recognizes individ- Johnston is a resident tutor at Cabot House, gotten a chance to work with students who uals who have demonstrated exceptional capacity one of Harvard’s 12 residential Houses, and do amazing things — not only are going to for productive scholarship or exceptional creative part of his job is to open his doors to the do amazing things, but have done them. ability in the arts. An assistant professor at SUNY, College students who live there — to be It’s humbling.” Oquendo-Villar’s films include Boquita (2005), a friend, advisor, and even exemplar (on a good Mizery (2007), La aguja (2011), and Diana de Santa Fe day) of a happy, balanced, and wise adult. ••• (2012). She will remain in Puerto Rico for one year, Johnston, a sixth-year PhD student in In 1929, Harvard President A. Lawrence working on La aguja/The Needle, which recently English, is one of 246 resident tutors at Lowell championed the ideal of a Harvard won second place in the HBO Documentaries Harvard. Most are GSAS students; some are House system that was “a social device for competition of works in progress, and completing graduate students from the professional a moral purpose,” as Harvard College Dean a book on Chile’s 1973 coup as a performance and schools or practitioners with a continuing Evelyn Hammonds recalled in a recent report media event. Harvard affiliation. All are motivated by the on the Houses. Lowell believed that the desire to join a tight-knit community and College’s mission was to develop the mind, Submit Alumni Notes to: Colloquy, Harvard University guide students in their personal and intellec- body, and character of its students, and that Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Holyoke Center tual development. by integrating students of various ages with 350, 1350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138- Tutors receive room and board, but this affiliated tutors and faculty, Houses could 3846; or gsaa@fas. harvard.edu. Alumni Notes are subject is not a gig to take for cheap rent alone. break down barriers — of class and back- to editing for length and clarity.

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STUDENT LIFE

The tutor’s role is about helping students find the right answers, not telling them what to do. “We encourage them to do what they love to do, explore whatever they can. The path to success can be a long and winding one,” says Jade D’Alpoim Guedes, tutor at Adams House.

ground, in those days — and encourage health at Boston University/Boston Medical “personal and corporate responsibility.” Center. “They come in as wonderful exam- Lowell was ahead of his time in under- ples of rising scholars in their fields, and they standing the benefits of what are now known gain immense maturity and experience as as living-learning communities, says Harvard teachers, supervisors, and leaders.” College Dean of Student Life Suzy Nelson, “Not everyone can handle all these roles whose office oversees the residential system at the same time,” he continues, “but those and helps train tutors. “We’ve learned over who can thrive on the amazing academic and the years that the more students can connect social community that we all take as our goal in a meaningful way, not only academically, to build here — not just for our undergradu- but also socially and emotionally, the more ates, but our ourselves, our tutors, and our likely they are to graduate and to thrive,” she staff. Just as many, if not most, of the says. Harvard’s residential college system, students who graduate from Harvard feel which epitomizes the living-learning model, that House life is a centrally important realizes Lowell’s vision of bringing together feature of their college experience, we and a community of peers, who learn from one our tutors feel that as well.” another, and a community of tutors, who mentor and inspire. ••• In most collegiate living communities, “We wear any number of hats, alternately or these more-senior scholars are “resident simultaneously,” says Johnston, who is in his advisors” or “resident assistants.” At fourth year as House tutor, and who this fall Harvard, they have always been called served as interim resident dean at Cabot. tutors, Nelson says, reflecting the significant Tutors do intensive sophomore advising pedagogical role they play. “When the House with students who are selecting their major masters recruit a staff of tutors,” she says, concentrations; they advise students in their “they’re first and foremost looking for grad- own disciplines or in specially assigned roles, uate students who have a zest for learning, such as race relations, gender issues, or who have a desire to talk about their scholarly fellowships; they host study breaks and other work and to share that enthusiasm with community-builders; and perhaps most students. The tutor has a special role — he important, they bring their own interests to or she is really supposed to model the life the House, enriching it in diverse and unique of a scholar.” ways. Johnston has led bird-watching excur- Tutors do that and more, says Sean sions and tours of Mt. Auburn cemetery, as Palfrey, a longtime master at Adams House well as outings to see art, film, and music. He with his wife, Judith Palfrey, the T. Berry calls himself “aggressively domestic”; he Brazelton Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard bakes his own bread and brews his own beer, Medical School. “Their job is to serve as right in the little galley kitchen at Cabot. respected role models, teachers, responsible The role requires openness and flexibility, authority figures, and friends, and in the he and other tutors say. “You have to be Jade D’Alpoim Guedes and her husband, Chunbai process they have to field questions of all a good listener, and a good question-asker. Zhang, resident tutors at Adams House sorts, from pre-professional and specialty- A lot of the time, you’re helping the students specific academic issues, to personal, to decide to do what they already know they lifestyle, and philosophical ones,” says want to do,” Johnston says. Palfrey, a professor of pediatrics and public Jade D’Alpoim Guedes, who with her

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husband, Chunbai Zhang, is a tutor at students through the process of applying to ate bubble,” she says — assuring a worried Adams House, agrees. The role is about medical school and coordinates the letters of student, for example, that it’s OK to take “letting students come up with the answers recommendation they need from the resident “only” four classes this term. — guiding them to finding the right answers dean. “In medicine, we don’t usually have The Massenburgs are natural community for themselves, instead of telling them what the opportunity to interact with undergradu- builders, so the transition to residential life to do,” says D’Alpoim Guedes, a fifth-year ates on a daily basis. I’ve felt tremendous has been smooth. “Eliot is an open space, PhD student in anthropology who helps satisfaction in this role,” he says. warm and welcoming, with lots of energy oversee the Pool (a theater space in Adams To do it well, D’Alpoim Guedes says, “it and a lot going on,” says Nedra, a math that was once an actual swimming pool, one takes compassion. You have to be someone teacher at an innovative charter high school of the House’s many historical quirks). She who wants to learn and wants to know in Boston. “People really want to get to also runs a culinary club in Adams and bakes about other people. You have to be genuine- know you. I already feel very connected, and homemade treats to lure students in for ly interested in seeing things from other peo- for me that’s important.” a break and a chat. ple’s points of view. This has definitely ended Sorell Massenburg is a fourth year PhD She strives to encourage the undergrad- up making me a better teacher,” she adds. student in applied physics who talks about

Sorell and Nedra Massenburg, center, are newlyweds and new resident tutors at Eliot House, where they have found a warm community. “I already feel very connected, and for me that’s important,” says Nedra, who teaches at a Boston charter school. Sorell is a PhD candidate in applied physics.

uates in her entryway, to whom she feels Like other tutors, D’Alpoim Guedes “modeling the need to be connected. You especially close, “to do what they love to do, says that balancing competing responsibilities can’t live in a vacuum. You have to care to explore whatever they can. Harvard and creating boundaries and emotional space about those around you.” undergraduates can be scared of failure. We can be a challenge. But resolving those chal- He smiles broadly as he mentions the try to open their minds, to show them lenges productively is part of what they’re guitar group he’s convened at Eliot. It’s open that the path to success can be a long and modeling for students, she says. to anyone who wants to learn, and unlike winding one.” It’s a point echoed by Nedra Massenburg, most everything else at Harvard, there are no Zhang, who holds an MD from who with her husband, Sorell, is a new tutor high expectations. “We can just come together Dartmouth and an MPH from Harvard, is this year in Eliot House. “We try to model and share what we know, even if that isn’t a clinical fellow in sleep medicine at Brigham balance, because balance is a big issue a lot, without a lot of stress. The thing is, I’m and Women’s Hospital and one of four around here. And we try to be the voice of learning from them, too.” pre-med tutors in Adams. He counsels reason, outside of the Harvard undergradu-

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RECENTLY RECEIVED

alumni books

A History of Islam in support for “one man-one woman” views of Historians view the America (Cambridge marriage — yet also little for those gay rights Constitutional University, 2010) is activists who would read a homosexual relation- Convention — and its vital reading. It tells a vast ship into the story of David and Jonathan. In embrace of federalism — and complex story — analyzing passages in Leviticus commonly seen as the catalyst that recon- from the first Muslims in as prohibiting incest, Coogan concludes that ciled national and state America (who accompa- they had less to do with instilling respect for authority and allowed for nied seventeenth-century boundaries of blood relationship than with a workable American Spanish explorers or keeping men from poaching one another’s government. But in The were part of the African female “property.” Ideological Origins of slave trade) to today’s vibrant Islamic American Federalism (Harvard University, community, the most ethnically diverse in the 2010), author Alison L. LaCroix (PhD ’07, world. Author Kambiz GhaneaBassiri (PhD For the Rock Record: history) draws attention to the underlying ’03, religion) discusses the assimilation of Geologists on Intelligent currents that shaped federalism itself — both Muslims but also their enduring cultural and reli- Design (University of before and after the Convention, a subject gious distinctiveness. Above all, GhaneaBassiri California, 2009) argues that’s received far less attention. Grounding her excels in relating his story to wider currents in that geologists no less argument in a careful analysis of speeches, U.S. history and politics, including the Masons’ than biologists must pamphlets, laws, and legal decisions, LaCroix role in bringing Islamic symbols into American respond to the challenge focuses on political ideas rather than institutional culture, the rise of immigration exclusion, of “intelligent design.” schematics. She thus restores this “new concep- Marcus Garvey’s United Negro Improvement This purported alterna- tion of layered governmental authority” to life as Association, Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, tive to current scientific a dynamic political concept that took shape and the social and political minefield that is post- theory contends that the extreme complexity gradually between the Stamp Act Crisis of the 9/11 America. of the earth offers proof of the existence of an mid-1760s and the early nineteenth century. “intelligent designer” [undefined, but implicitly God]. The essays in this volume, edited by Jill S. It’s an eye-catching title — Schneiderman and Warren D. Allmon (PhD Interpretations of American and God and Sex ’87, geology), discuss the material processes that politics emphasize the (Twelve, 2010) makes good explain the complexities of geology and review centrality of the people’s on its promise. In it, recent fossil discoveries that buttress evolution- voice in decision-making, Michael Coogan (PhD ary theory. The authors critique intelligent but The Eyes of the ’71, Near Eastern lan- design for calling the scientific method into People (Oxford University, guages and civilizations) question and note that proponents of intelligent 2010) argues that today, offers a lively exploration design consistently ignore recent scientific most people experience of two subjects at the discoveries that would undermine their case. politics as a thing to be crosshairs of our contem- watched, a spectator sport. porary “culture wars.” Coogan finds little biblical To bring political theory more into line with

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reality, Jeffrey Edward Green (PhD ’07, images of warfare, she marshals well-known long video, a student in a gorilla suit walks onto government) proposes a recasting of its domi- authors (such as Ambrose Bierce, Herman the court, remaining onscreen for nine seconds. nant metaphors so as to stress the people’s eyes Melville, Mark Twain, and Stephen Crane) and But after viewing the video, half of all partici- — what we see of the political sphere — rather obscure ones (Union officers Allen Fahnestock pants had absolutely no recollection of the than the people’s voice. He advocates a plebisc- of Peoria, Ill., and John William De Forest of New gorilla! This lively, thought-provoking book itarian vision of democracy, but more practically Haven, Conn., and the teenaged poet Mollie examines a wide range of cognitive foibles — argues for greater transparency in political life Moore of Tyler, Texas).Wachtell concludes that from blindness through inattention to manufac- — i.e., through communication that is minimally well before the First World War, antiwar themes tured and appropriated memories — and scripted or orchestrated by political leaders (for that had once been peripheral were increasingly should be required reading for lawyers, journal- example, live presidential press conferences prominent in American literature. ists, historians, law-enforcement officers — rather than the artifice of “town hall meetings” in short, anyone whose work depends on or heartwarming campaign videos). eyewitness testimony. The Logic of Discipline: Global Capitalism and The Two Faces of the Architecture of In a slim but vividly American Freedom Government (Oxford observed volume, Michael (Harvard University, 2010) University, 2010) critiques Kammen (PhD ’64, is a sweeping analysis of the wave of governmental history) recounts the America’s changing political reform that accompanied reburials of various culture. Aziz Rana (PhD economic globalization. prominent figures, includ- ’07, government) explains Author Alasdair Roberts ing Daniel Boone, Jesse that his intent is not (AM ’86, PhD ’94, public James, and Frank Lloyd historical understanding policy) identifies “discipline” as the common Wright. Digging Up the but rather “social criti- thread in these reforms. Discipline invoked two Dead: A History of cism, in which history is presented in the main premises: 1) that politics is irrational, Notable American Reburials (University of service of today’s problems.” Principal among shortsighted, and overly responsive to special Chicago, 2010) reveals that such reburials can these is the projection of American power in the interests; 2) that free markets — being rational, evoke sharp controversy or elaborate public world, which he sees as “unmoored from clear farsighted, and above special interests — work celebrations. They may be byproducts of larger democratic ideals.” Rana argues that the New best when protected from government’s political struggles, as in the case of the early Deal represented a significant shift of authority destabilizing and hindering effects. The result: nineteenth-century reburials of Revolutionary from individuals and communities to the central privatization of government-run industries, War dead that coincided with rising tensions government. But he locates an important alter- Reagan-style deregulation, and worldwide with Great Britain. Or they can reflect changes native vision in what he terms “settler” democ- efforts to shrink government and curtail deficit in an individual’s perceived stature. Thus, at the racy — particularly in political movements of spending. But the financial crisis that began in height of Southern nostalgia for the “lost cause,” outsiders (Shays’ Rebellion, Populism, the Civil 2006 undercut the logic of discipline, as heads of one-time Confederate President Jefferson Davis Rights Movement) that promote ideals quite major financial institutions called on the govern- was moved — with great pomp — from New unlike those of the current imperial America. ment for bailouts (and massive deficit spending) Orleans to Richmond, Va., the former to protect the free market from itself. Confederate capital.

Scholars have studied the Reviews by James Clyde Sellman, literature of the Civil War The gorilla in The Invisible PhD ’93, history and World War I but Gorilla and Other Ways have largely overlooked Our Intuitions Deceive the intervening years. Us (Crown, 2010) is part of Cynthia Wachtell (PhD an experiment by authors ’98, history of American Christopher Chabris (AB Alumni authors: Would you like your book (general civilization) fills that gap ’88, PhD ’99, psychology interest, published within the past year) considered for with War No More: The and social relations) and inclusion? Send it to Colloquy, Harvard Graduate Antiwar Impulse in Daniel Simons. It involved School of Arts and Sciences, Holyoke Center 350, American Literature, 1861–1914 (Louisiana asking participants to watch 1350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138. State University, 2010). Focusing on writings that a video of a basketball game and count the Question? E-mail [email protected]. embrace antiwar views or challenge romantic number of passes. Midway through the minute-

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NEWSSECTION AND TITLE NOTES

LINDQUIST AWARDED NATIONAL MEDAL OF SCIENCE President Barack Obama has named Susan Lindquist, PhD ’76, cellular and developmental biology, as a recipient of the National Medal of Science, the country’s highest scientific honor. Established in 1959, the annual presidential award honors 10 individuals “deserving of special

Donna Coveney recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to knowledge in the physical, biological, mathematical, or engineering sciences.” Lindquist, a 2008 winner of the GSAS Centennial Medal, was honored “for her studies of protein folding, demonstrating that alternative protein conformations and aggregations can have profound and unexpected biological influences, facilitating insights in fields as wide-ranging as human disease, evolution, and biomaterials.” Lindquist is a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “When I started out in science, I thought having a bench in the corner of someone’s lab would be about the best I could hope for,” she says. “It never occurred to me that I could have my own lab, let alone achieve an honor like this.” Susan Lindquist

HIGH MARKS FOR PHD PROGRAMS In core disciplines and across the spectrum, GSAS PhD programs received high marks in the National Research Council’s long-awaited Assessment of Research-Doctoral Programs, released in September. The report, containing both a rating and a ranking of 4,838 programs in 62 fields at

212 institutions, shows that in the fundamental disciplines, “Harvard’s PhD programs are remarkably Harvrad Office News strong, vibrant, and successful,” says Dean Allan Brandt. Especially impressive, though, is the breadth of excellence revealed by the evaluation, Brandt says. Ninety percent of Harvard programs are in the highest tier of the National Research Council (NRC) rankings, and more than half are the very highest ranked in the country. The NRC, an arm of the National Academies, aims to conduct a comprehensive survey of doctoral programs every 10 years or so; the last was in 1995. Unlike many other national rankings, “the NRC report is the result of a considered and serious process that engaged our faculty in the work of assessing their own strengths and ambitions, as well as evaluating peer programs,” Brandt says. This report, like all rankings, is not without marked limitations, Brandt adds. Its data may be out of date in some cases, and its methodology was complex. “But no matter how you slice this data, Allan Brandt our results were exceptionally good,” he says. To learn more, search NRC on the GSAS website, www.gsas.harvard.edu.

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Harvard University 16 GSAS psi47622_magazine.qxd:psi47725_magazine 11/23/10 10:29 PM Page 17

HARVARD IS...

a conversation in the Houses that becomes the foundation for lifelong friendship. I CHOOSE

Martha Stewart HARVARD... John J. Moon, AB ’89, PhD ’94

“…because how I see the world is very much shaped by how I was trained,” says John Moon, who spent eight years at Harvard, including four as a resident tutor in Leverett House. He now serves as a co-chair of the Graduate School Fund.

“Harvard played a formative role in who I am today,” says Moon, who recently gave an immediate-use, fl exible gift and has also endowed a graduate fi nancial aid fund. “It’s my way of making an impact at a higher level.”

His commitment is inspired by the roles graduate students play across Harvard. As an undergraduate economics concentrator, he turned to them for guidance. “Working with graduate teaching fellows was a great way to get help in a relaxed, less intimidating setting,” he says.

Later, as a PhD student in business economics at the Graduate Jessica Scranton Jessica School of Arts and Sciences, Moon had a chance to provide the same kind of support to others. “Mentoring Harvard undergradu- ates was a chance to meet, quite literally, some of the brightest and Cabot House residents Dan Liss ’11 (left) and PhD candidate most interesting people in the world,” he says. in English Richard Johnston, one of the many in GSAS who serve as tutors in the Houses, mentoring students and Those experiences remain with him to this day as a managing direc- building a tight-knit community. tor of private equity at Morgan Stanley and adjunct professor of fi nance at Columbia Business School. Whether on Wall Street or in his travels, Moon makes a point of staying connected with those he mentored. “Many of them have become lifelong friends,” he says.

Choose Harvard today with a gift to the Graduate School Fund. Visit alumni.harvard.edu/gsasgift. ENHANCING THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE Support the

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The graduate school of arts and sciences Nonprofit Organization harvard university US Postage ALUMNI ASSOCIATION PAID Holyoke Center 350 • 1350 Massachusetts Avenue Boston, MA Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138-3846 USA Permit No. 1636

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ALUMNI EVENTS AND NOTICES Questions? Contact the GSAS Office of Alumni Relations at www.gsas.harvard.edu/alumni, [email protected], or 617-495-5591.

GLOBAL GSAS: HONG KONG ARE YOU A FORMER DUDLEY FELLOW? GSAS will be in Hong Kong in FELLOWS REUNION | APRIL 2, 2011 March, as Dean Allan Brandt hosts an evening talk by a distin- guished Harvard faculty member and a daytime event for the local GSAS community. Alums in the region, stay tuned for more information!

ALUMNI WEEKEND | APRIL 1–2, 2011 …featuring a keynote address by Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff, faculty symposia across the disciplines, and an Economics reunion! We hope you’ll plan to attend the Graduate School’s lively and In honor of the 20th anniversary of the dedication of Dudley House as the stimulating Alumni Day celebration on Saturday, April 2. Stay tuned for Graduate Student Center, House Masters Jim and Doreen Hogle invite your invitation. all former fellows to a festive reunion on Saturday, April 2, following A special note to alumni of Harvard’s economics and business Alumni Day. You’ll receive an invitation soon — save the date. economics programs: renew your connections at a reunion on Friday, April 1. Hear from some of the world’s leading economists — who STAY CONNECTED! also happen to be your former professors — on the topics that are GSAS is on Twitter and Facebook! Follow HarvardGSAS commanding the headlines every day. And stick around to attend Alumni for updates from Cambridge about research, people, and Day and the keynote by Professor Rogoff! networking opportunities.