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February 2006
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Radcliffe Institute Fellows’ Presentation Series
“Sixties Activism and the Political Responsibilities of
Universities”
Julie Reuben, Harvard Graduate School of Education
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Schlesinger Library Film Series
Sisters in Cinema, directed by Yvonne Welbon
Followed by a discussion with Lisa Simmons, Color of
Film Collaborative
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Public Discussion
George Chauncey, professor of history, University
of Chicago
Cosponsored by the history department, the Charles
Warren Center for Studies in American History, the
Committee on Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and
the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the
History of Women in America
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Public Lecture
“Conflict and Displacement: Breaking the Cycle”
Dennis McNamara, United Nations Inter-Agency Internal
Displacement Division
Cosponsored by the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy,
the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, and the Radcliffe
Institute for Advanced Study in coordination with its
2005–2006 Voices of Public Intellectuals lecture series,
War and the Displacement of People
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Radcliffe Institute Fellows’ Presentation Series
“Questions in Contemporary Chinese Cinema”
Rey Chow, Brown University
Exploring the Sky and Earth
The Institute’s science programming, led by Barbara J. Grosz, Radcliffe
dean of science and Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences in
the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Division of Engineering and Applied
Sciences at Harvard, featured explorations of the sky and earth: a lecture
series and panel discussion on astronomy and a symposium
about the impact of humans on nature. As in previous years, these
events brought prominent scientists to Harvard, where they shared
their work-in-progress with students and faculty and strengthened or
developed connections with colleagues in their fields.
The first speaker in the astronomy lecture series was Ray Jayawardhana,
an associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the
University of Toronto, whose presentation was also the first Dean’s
Lecture of the year. Jayawardhana described “hot Jupiters” that circle
close to their parent stars, unlike our local Jupiter, which keeps
a certain distance from the Sun. “It came as quite a surprise that
there would be a Jupiter-like gas giant so close in, baked in the heat
of its parent star,” he said. Other phenomena that interest him are
brown dwarfs, which he described as “these strange beasts that are
in between stars and planets.” Though they begin their lives looking
shiny, brown dwarfs end up billions of years later looking like
our oversized, cloud-covered Jupiter.
In her lecture, Debra Fischer, an associate professor of astronomy at
San Francisco State University, suggested that there’s an enormous
range of solar-system architecture and that our solar system, with the
Sun and its nine planets, may not be typical. “Perhaps anything that’s
allowed by mechanics and the laws of gravity ends up as a possibility,”
she said. Scientists have already discovered some 160 planets
around distant stars, and more work remains for planet hunters.
Elizabeth Lada, a professor of astronomy at the University of Florida,
delivered a lecture in which she described how stars form in
clusters. “Most stars form in what we call giant molecular clouds,”
dark bodies filled with cold dust and gas, she said. “These clouds
are the largest objects in the galaxy. They also happen to be the
coldest objects in the universe,” just above absolute zero. She calls
these frozen vapors the “prenatal birth sites of young stars.”
Generations of women astronomers spoke at the panel discussion
titled “The Sky’s Not the Limit: Women in Astronomy.” Five prominent
astronomers in the Science Center and a sixth participating by
audiotape spoke to a standing-room-only crowd about how they
advanced in this male-dominated field. Several of the women emphasized
an early passion for the night sky. E. Margaret Burbidge, a professor
emerita of physics at the University of San Diego, described
crossing the English Channel at night when she was four. “I’d never
seen the stars before,” she said. “And I was sold, right there and
then. Have been since.” Burbidge made important contributions to
the field, including some of the earliest work calculating the masses
of galaxies.
C. Meg Urry, director of the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics,
has used space telescopes to conduct a census of black
holes in the early universe, among other achievements over the past
twenty years. She stressed that the gender barriers women face in
astronomy have not disappeared.
Focusing on the planet we live on, a solemn message was delivered at
a March symposium titled “Biodiversity in the Anthropocene: Perspectives
on the Human Appropriation of the Natural World.” The symposium
featured seven speakers from a range of disciplines, including
agriculture, oceanography, and zoology. During the current “Anthropocene,”
the geologic era dominated by Homo sapiens, we have left
our mark on almost every other species. Between an eighth and a
third of the earth’s five to ten million species are currently threatened
by extinction. Fish stocks are diminishing, and coral reefs are dying.
Big animals are perishing, and wild birds are disappearing. As Jeremy
B. C. Jackson, the William E. and Mary B. Ritter Professor of Oceanography
at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, put it, “Everything
we like is decreasing. Everything we don’t like is increasing.”
To watch the three astronomers delivering their lectures, visit the following
Web addresses: Ray Jayawardhana: www.radcliffe.edu/events/
lectures/2005_jayawardhana.php; Elizabeth Lada: www.radcliffe.edu/
events/lectures/2006_lada.php; Debra Fischer: www.radcliffe.edu/
events/lectures/2006_fischer.php
To watch the biodiversity conference presentation, visit
www.radcliffe.edu/events/conferences/2006_biodiversity.php
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www.radcliffe.edu