Harvard Observed

Harvard Observed

Author: John T. Bethell

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 9780674377332

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Depicting the evolution of 20th-century Harvard in the broader context of national and world events, this text shows how changes in the structure and aspirations of American society led the University to remake itself after World War II, and to do so again after the social upheavals of the Vietnam era.


Fugitive Pedagogy

Fugitive Pedagogy

Author: Jarvis R. Givens

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2021-04-13

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0674983688

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A fresh portrayal of one of the architects of the African American intellectual tradition, whose faith in the subversive power of education will inspire teachers and learners today. Black education was a subversive act from its inception. African Americans pursued education through clandestine means, often in defiance of law and custom, even under threat of violence. They developed what Jarvis Givens calls a tradition of “fugitive pedagogy”—a theory and practice of Black education in America. The enslaved learned to read in spite of widespread prohibitions; newly emancipated people braved the dangers of integrating all-White schools and the hardships of building Black schools. Teachers developed covert instructional strategies, creative responses to the persistence of White opposition. From slavery through the Jim Crow era, Black people passed down this educational heritage. There is perhaps no better exemplar of this heritage than Carter G. Woodson—groundbreaking historian, founder of Black History Month, and legendary educator under Jim Crow. Givens shows that Woodson succeeded because of the world of Black teachers to which he belonged: Woodson’s first teachers were his formerly enslaved uncles; he himself taught for nearly thirty years; and he spent his life partnering with educators to transform the lives of Black students. Fugitive Pedagogy chronicles Woodson’s efforts to fight against the “mis-education of the Negro” by helping teachers and students to see themselves and their mission as set apart from an anti-Black world. Teachers, students, families, and communities worked together, using Woodson’s materials and methods as they fought for power in schools and continued the work of fugitive pedagogy. Forged in slavery, embodied by Woodson, this tradition of escape remains essential for teachers and students today.


The Book That Changed Europe

The Book That Changed Europe

Author: Lynn Hunt

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2010-03-31

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 9780674049284

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Two French Protestant refugees in eighteenth-century Amsterdam gave the world an extraordinary work that intrigued and outraged readers across Europe. In this captivating account, Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob, and Wijnand Mijnhardt take us to the vibrant Dutch Republic and its flourishing book trade to explore the work that sowed the radical idea that religions could be considered on equal terms. Famed engraver Bernard Picart and author and publisher Jean Frederic Bernard produced The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of All the Peoples of the World, which appeared in the first of seven folio volumes in 1723. They put religion in comparative perspective, offering images and analysis of Jews, Catholics, Muslims, the peoples of the Orient and the Americas, Protestants, deists, freemasons, and assorted sects. Despite condemnation by the Catholic Church, the work was a resounding success. For the next century it was copied or adapted, but without the context of its original radicalism and its debt to clandestine literature, English deists, and the philosophy of Spinoza. Ceremonies and Customs prepared the ground for religious toleration amid seemingly unending religious conflict, and demonstrated the impact of the global on Western consciousness. In this beautifully illustrated book, Hunt, Jacob, and Mijnhardt cast new light on the profound insight found in one book as it shaped the development of a modern, secular understanding of religion.


Unflattening

Unflattening

Author: Nick Sousanis

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2015-04-20

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0674744438

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The primacy of words over images has deep roots in Western culture. But what if the two are inextricably linked, equal partners in meaning-making? Written and drawn entirely as comics, Unflattening is an experiment in visual thinking. Nick Sousanis defies conventional forms of scholarly discourse to offer readers both a stunning work of graphic art and a serious inquiry into the ways humans construct knowledge. Unflattening is an insurrection against the fixed viewpoint. Weaving together diverse ways of seeing drawn from science, philosophy, art, literature, and mythology, it uses the collage-like capacity of comics to show that perception is always an active process of incorporating and reevaluating different vantage points. While its vibrant, constantly morphing images occasionally serve as illustrations of text, they more often connect in nonlinear fashion to other visual references throughout the book. They become allusions, allegories, and motifs, pitting realism against abstraction and making us aware that more meets the eye than is presented on the page. In its graphic innovations and restless shape-shifting, Unflattening is meant to counteract the type of narrow, rigid thinking that Sousanis calls “flatness.” Just as the two-dimensional inhabitants of Edwin A. Abbott’s novella Flatland could not fathom the concept of “upwards,” Sousanis says, we are often unable to see past the boundaries of our current frame of mind. Fusing words and images to produce new forms of knowledge, Unflattening teaches us how to access modes of understanding beyond what we normally apprehend.


Hemlock

Hemlock

Author: Anthony D'Amato

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2014-04-29

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0300179383

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An appreciation of the beautiful, iconic, and endangered Eastern Hemlock and what it means to nature and society The Eastern Hemlock, massive and majestic, has played a unique role in structuring northeastern forest environments, from Nova Scotia to Wisconsin and through the Appalachian Mountains to North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama. A “foundation species” influencing all the species in the ecosystem surrounding it, this iconic North American tree has long inspired poets and artists as well as naturalists and scientists. Five thousand years ago, the hemlock collapsed as a result of abrupt global climate change. Now this iconic tree faces extinction once again because of an invasive insect, the hemlock woolly adelgid. Drawing from a century of studies at Harvard University’s Harvard Forest, one of the most well-regarded long-term ecological research programs in North America, the authors explore what hemlock’s modern decline can tell us about the challenges facing nature and society in an era of habitat changes and fragmentation, as well as global change.


A Reason to Read

A Reason to Read

Author: Eileen Landay

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781612504605

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A Reason to Read is the culminating work of the ArtsLiteracy Project, an ambitious and wide-ranging collaborative that aims to promote literacy through rich and sustained instruction in the arts. At the heart of the book is the "Performance Cycle," a flexible framework for curriculum and lesson planning that can be adapted to all content areas and age groups. Each of the book's main chapters delineates and explores a particular component of the cycle. A practical, readable, and inspiring book, A Reason to Read will be of immeasurable help to school teachers, education leaders, and all who have a stake in promoting literacy and the arts in today's schools. "This is both a profound and wonderfully practical book. In clear and helpful chapters, the authors show how teachers can use multiple art forms to help students probe and comprehend classic literary texts and create personally meaningful works of their own. The 'For the Classroom' sections at the end of each chapter are superb." -- Richard J. Deasy, former director, Arts Education Partnership "This shining book reminds us that the 'reason to read'--truly, the desire to learn anything well--springs from the same ineffable emotions summoned by the arts. Those who seek the key to academic motivation and mastery can do no better than to study the secrets Landay and Wootton unlock here with simplicity, practicality, and wisdom." -- Kathleen Cushman, author, Fires in the Mind "For over a decade, Landay, Wootton, and their many colleagues at the ArtsLiteracy Project have been exploring the rich possibilities at the intersection of arts and literacy development for deep learning and teaching. It has been visionary work, and this book provides vivid pictures of how to bring those possibilities into any classroom." -- Steve Seidel, faculty director, Arts in Education Program, Harvard Graduate School of Education Eileen Landay is cofounder and codirector of the ArtsLiteracy Project. She is the former Clinical Professor of English Education at Brown University and director of Brown's MAT Program in English Education. Kurt Wootton is cofounder and codirector of the ArtsLiteracy Project. He leads ArtsLiteracy initiatives in the United States, Brazil, and Mexico, and is the director of Habla, a lab school in Merida, Mexico.