Theater’s Future • Water Insecurity • Medieval Texts january-february 2012 • $4.95 Caring for Children The Brazelton Touchpoints Center 120116_HUECU.indd 1 11/23/11 12:10 PM JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2012 VOLUME 114, NUMBER 3 KNELL C page 40 NOW BI FEATURES S 27 Early Learning The Brazelton Touchpoints Center trains adults who shape the lives COURTESY OF DOLLY JIM HARRISON JIM of the youngest children page 52 by Elizabeth Gudrais DEPARTMENTS 2 Cambridge 02138 34 The Future of Theater Communications from our readers Keeping the liveliest art alive in a digital, distraction-prone era 9 Right Now by Craig Lambert Talking with the Tea Party, the diabetes link to dining on red meat, biological basis for moral reasoning Vita: Edward Rowe Snow 40 Brief life of a maritime original: 1902-1982 12A New England Regional Section A calendar of seasonal events, soothing by Sara Hoagland Hunter retreats, and sensual Italian fare 13 Montage 42 The Water Tamer Something new in magic (and crosswords), John Briscoe teaches the next generation of experts a poet probes cultures and myths, Stephen Jay Gould reissued, the Chinese “good life,” to tackle pressing water woes around the world staging Shakespeare’s sonnets, power of by Jonathan Shaw place in Chicago, Pieter Bruegel cataloged, and more Mysteries and Masterpieces 69 The Alumni 48 Father Paul O’Brien’s urban ministry in Rediscovering literary treasures of the Middle Ages Lawrence, Massachusetts in the new Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library STU ROSNER 72 The College Pump by Adam Kirsch page 34 Upstairs under the bar, and a magical 35-minute Macbeth IBRARY L John Harvard’s Journal RT 52 A 80 Treasure A spirited (and soaking) 375th anniversary celebration, EMAN The Brontës’ miniature dg RI manuscripts the i-Lab as an innovation “farmers’ market,” multilin- B /THE C gual political theorist—and bibliophile, the University’s 73 Crimson Classifieds On the cover: Sarah McLanahan, $130-million deficit, Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ revenue H REPUBLI C ZE a social worker for Little squeeze, WHRB’s melancholy musical “orgies,” invest- C UE, Sisters of the Assumption G ing to enhance learning and teaching, foreign-policy Family Health Service in East Harlem, plays with Edison pundit for Commencement, Undergraduate discoveries and Julie Librado-Vega during NI GALERIE, PRA off the beaten track in Boston, a record-breaking football D a home visit. Photograph by ARO N Stu Rosner season, and a wrap-up of autumn sports page 48 page 36 www.harvardmagazine.com LETTERS Editor: John S. Rosenberg Senior Editor: Jean Martin Managing Editor: Jonathan S. Shaw Cambridge Deputy Editor: Craig Lambert Associate Editor: Elizabeth Gudrais Keynesian economics, solar costs, education excesses Assistant Editor-Online: Laura Levis Assistant Editor: Nell Porter Brown Art Director: Jennifer Carling Production and New Media Manager: Mark Felton BRANDING HIGHER ED tual life, personified by career scholars, is a WeB Assistant: Stephen Geinosky “Bullish on Private Colleges” (by Rich- cumbersome item to “brand.” Contrary to ard P. Chait and Zachary First, November- what Chait and First conclude, universities Berta Greenwald Ledecky December 2011, page 36) lived up to its title are trying too hard to become businesses, Undergraduate Fellows until the peroration, when the authors rather than simply becoming. Isabel W. Ruane, Katherine Xue Editorial intern: Sasanka Jinadasa bizarrely observed, “Yet more often than Ira Braus, Ph.D. ’88 not, the bees actually build the hive: the West Hartford, Conn. ContriButing Editors percentage of tenured faculty ebbs; the John T. Bethell, John de Cuevas, Adam number of preprofessional programs ris- CREATING COMMUNITY Goodheart, Jim Harrison, Courtney es...schools burnish brands—all without I read with interest Isabel Ruane’s article Humphries, Christopher S. Johnson, presidential pronouncements.” about her experiences at Camp Onaway Adam Kirsch, Colleen Lannon, Huh? If top universities have so far avoid- (The Undergraduate, November-Decem- Christopher Reed, Stu Rosner, ed the fate of the Fortune 500, is it because ber 2011, page 63). Her moving account Deborah Smullyan, Mark Steele tenured faculty percentages have ebbed recalled my experience in the early 1970s Editorial and Business Office and “schools burnish brands”? I think not. of living for a week in the vicarage (no 7 Ware Street Harvard and its sister institutions needn’t refrigerator or central heating) of a work- Cambridge, Mass. 02138-4037 resort to “branding,” since the intellec- ing-class Anglican parish in Plymouth, Tel. 617-495-5746; fax: 617-495-0324 Website: www.harvardmagazine.com Reader services: Explore More 617-495-5746 or 800-648-4499 Harvard Magazine Inc. President: Henry Rosovsky, JF ’57, Visit harvardmagazine.com/extras to find these and other Web Extras from the Ph.D. ’59, LL.D. ’98. Directors: January-February 2012 issue. Suzanne Blier, Robert Giles, NF ’66, Leslie E. Greis ’80, Alex S. Jones, NF ’82, Poet Katrina Roberts ’87 (page } The Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Thomas F. Kelly, Ph.D. ’73, 15): Hear her read her work. Library (page 48): Listen to Randolph C. Lindel ’66, Tamara Elliott scholars read Medieval Latin Rogers ’74, A. Clayton Spencer, A.M. ’82 Red meat consumption and and Byzantine works aloud. 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Address inquiries to Irina Kuksin, publisher, at the address given above. VISIT HARVARDMAGAZINE.COM/EXTRAS Copyright © 2012 Harvard Magazine Inc. 2 January - FeBruary 2012 Every 74 SECONDS a woman DIES of breast cancer. Susan G. Komen™ is working to change this. Last year alone we funded more than 700,000 breast screenings. We helped 100,000 people fi nancially through treatment. We educated millions about breast cancer. We invested $66 million in breast cancer research and related programs. And we did it in more than 50 countries around the world. Susan G. Komen is the only organization fi ghting breast cancer on every front: education, advocacy, research and community support. But we still have far to go to stop the ticking clock. Don’t wait another 74 seconds to save a life. We’re making progress, but there’s much more to do, and we need your help. Learn how to help today. Visit komen.org. ©2012 Susan G. Komen™ The Running Ribbon is a registered trademark of Susan G. Komen. Find us Komen-74SecAd-IvyLeague.indd120123_SusanGKomen_Harvard.indd 1 1 11/18/1111/28/11 4:193:20 PM LETTERS England, and sharing in the life of that thing more fundamental, and probably not community. When I returned home, the susceptible to improvement by education. awareness slowly percolated through me Bruce A. McAllister, LL.B. ’64 of how much more content, calm, and gen- Palm Beach, Fla. erous the people of that community were than the privileged, driven strivers among Jonathan gal’s diatribe against Keynes- PuBlisher: Irina Kuksin whom I’d spent my life at elite schools, ian economics seems misguided. For start- Director of Circulation and Fundraising camps, and places of employment. ers, he conflates Keynesian fiscal policy Felecia Carter The experience ultimately led to my with “central planning.” But the idea is not Director of Advertising own life-changing decision after I began that government will decide how money Robert D. Fitta attending an Episcopal church in New will be spent but that it will adjust its New England Advertising Manager York City and encountered regular reflec- taxing and spending to smooth out the Abigail Williamson tion on concerns I’d always had but never market’s excesses of alternating boom and Designer and Integrated Marketing Manager: Jennifer Beaumont really articulated for myself: how to live, bust. It says that the government should Classified Advertising Manager what to live for, and where to find the save while everyone else lives high, and Gretchen Bostr0m much-needed help to make the ongoing ef- when bad times lead everyone else to hun- Staff Assistant and Gift Manager fort to live a values-guided life.