Culture Courses

Explore acts of storytelling in Shakespeare’s Othello alongside world-class artists who interpret Othello’s story in new forms and contexts today.

Gain a foundational knowledge of American constitutional democracy while crafting your own civic voice and identity.

Gain an understanding of history, museum studies, and curation by looking at, organizing, and interpreting art, artifacts, scientific curiosities, and the stuff of everyday life.

Learn about Beethoven’s monumental 9th Symphony and forms of orchestral music.

Study Japanese scroll art as text and as "little movies" that immerse the viewer through visual narration. 

Discover Handel’s Messiah in this installment of First Nights, which will explore five masterpieces of western music.

Learn about Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, one of the first operas ever written.

Explore the Maoist period of China, from the Communist Party to the death of Mao and the reopening of China.

Examine how great modern writers capture the intricacies of our globalized world and how their works circulate within that world to find their own audiences.

Traces Albert Einstein’s engagement with relativity, quantum mechanics, Nazism, nuclear weapons, philosophy, the arts, and technology.

Explore the reunification of China under the Tang with a focus on aristocratic culture — from poetry to calligraphy to literature.

Learn how American women created, confronted, and embraced change in the 20th century while exploring ten objects from Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library.

Explore the ethical controversies of financial markets.

Buddhist Literacy for Mental Health and Wellness Professionals

Explore China’s imperial period, with a focus on the Song dynasty and the role of the exam system in government.

Learn about China’s origins, its integral early thinkers, and competing states and schools of thought.

Develop skills in digital research and visualization techniques across subjects and fields within the humanities.

Explore the impact of the conquest dynasties and the world of the Ming.

Learn how the Manchus conquered the Qing and established the last of the imperial dynasties.

Led by Harvard Instructors and historians, you will discover China’s return to power through political, social, and economic growth in relation to other countries.

Examine how cultures of the ancient world defined themselves through literature and how their vision of literature contributes to our understanding of civilization, culture, and literature today.

Use the case study method to study China from the rise of Deng Xiaoping to the present.

Embark on a global journey to explore the past, present, and future of world literature.

Learn about Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, an iconic Romantic symphony that ushered in an era of narrative “program music.”

Learn how to better understand the rich and complex ways that religions function in historic and contemporary contexts.

Learn the fascinating history of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, one of the most challenging and rewarding ballets ever written.

Learn how global warming impacts human health, and the ways we can diminish those impacts.

Explore the birth of modern China with a focus on the time between the fall of the Qing and the end of World War II.

An overview of modern Chinese history, including the fall of the Qing and the end of imperial China.

An exploration of the haunting figure at the heart of one of William Shakespeare’s most famous plays.