Robert Paul Wolff is most famous as the author of
In Defense of Anarchism and as the "
only person on the face of the earth who has read, cover to cover, Immanuel Kant's Inaugural Dissertation, Karl Marx's doctoral dissertation, and Newt Gingrich's doctoral dissertation."
His memoir has also drawn considerable
interest. But as a part of his
blogging he has habitually offered "micro-tutorials" to encourage his readers to re-acquaint themselves with the classics of what might be called the Heroic Age in the study of society -- the writings of
Marx,
Freud,
Weber,
Ricardo,
Mannheim, and
others. His newest micro-tutorial, on Durkheim's
Suicide,
begins today.
posted by anotherpanacea
on Dec 8, 2011 -
25 comments
Soft robotics are inspired by animals which don't have hard internal skeletons, like squid, worms, and starfish. Developed at Harvard, with funding from DARPA,
this particular soft robot, "not only walks, it knows several different gaits and can deflate to stuff itself through tiny little gaps."
Another design here,
and another (
also),
and another. In addition to movement, soft robotics can also be used
for grip. More information about the Harvard lab is available
here (
with a student describing the research here).
posted by codacorolla
on Nov 29, 2011 -
26 comments
The Harvard Study of Adult Development is the longest prospective study of mental and physical well-being ever conducted. For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been following 824 individuals through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. Designer
Laura Javier took ten of those cases and visualized them in the
Elements of Happiness.
[via flowingdata]
posted by anifinder
on Jun 27, 2011 -
13 comments
openculture.com is offering hundreds of links to free online courses from the top universities in the United States (and Oxford).
posted by gman
on Jan 12, 2011 -
16 comments
Approximately 40 books dealing with LGBT issues were vandalized with what appeared to be urine in Lamont Library on the Harvard campus on November 24, according to a report filed Friday by the library security staff to the Harvard University Police Department. Something similar (minus the peepee) happen in
San Francisco, where they took the books and made
Art!
posted by Blake
on Dec 13, 2010 -
69 comments
On September 18th,
Mitchell Heisman posted his
1904 page long suicide note online, and then shot himself in the head on Harvard square.
The note, according to wikipedia, "discusses sociobiology, transhumanism, history, religion, death, nihilism and other philosophical issues at some length".
posted by DZack
on Sep 26, 2010 -
145 comments
"
DateHarvardSQ is a unique online dating platform matching discerning women with Harvard University educated men determined to make a difference in the world as foremost doctors, lawyers, businessmen, academics and professionals. DateHarvard
SQ is owned and operated by a dedicated team of Harvard University graduates, whose goal is to help their community of peers find meaningful relationships across the globe." Ladies, be sure to check out to
Preview the Harvard Men waiting for your Smile.
posted by grouse
on Sep 2, 2010 -
90 comments
Scandal brewing at Harvard.
Marc Hauser, evolutionary biologist/psychologist who is an authority on how
animals think, is taking a year's leave of absence because a university review has concluded that there were "
irregularities" in the conduct of his research. One
article is being withdrawn. Others under suspicion. Hauser is well-known for his studies of cotton-top
tamarin monkeys. Not clear if he will be required to give up his edge.org
page. His most recent book is about
morality (
previously).
posted by cogneuro
on Aug 10, 2010 -
117 comments
"Former Harvard student Adam Wheeler
was indicted [yesterday] on multiple counts of identity fraud and larceny. According to the
Boston Globe, Wheeler allegedly built a 'fraudulent life history that led to his admission to Harvard, and for using forged academic materials from Harvard when he applied for the prestigious Rhodes and Fulbright scholarships.'"
* In his transfer student application to Harvard "...Wheeler claimed he got a perfect score on the SAT, straight A's at prestigious prep school Phillips Academy Andover and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...In reality, he had never attended either school..."
* He
has plead not guilty to the charges.
[more inside]
posted by ericb
on May 18, 2010 -
164 comments
Harvard University finished in 1986 construction of the
Harvard Depository, a mysterious storage facility in a publicly undisclosed location 30 miles from campus where large tracts of land are less expensive than in Cambridge. While the facility was originally intended to store Harvard's least-used volumes, it is now home to 45 percent of Harvard's collections. David Lamberth, chair of the Library Implementation Work Group, calls it a "precise warehouse" for which the term "library" would prove inaccurate.
posted by stbalbach
on Apr 2, 2010 -
45 comments
Do you feel disappointed in government? Does Obama seem a little too meek for the Presidency? Do you wish he'd make larger structural reforms? Maybe, suggests Matt Taibbi, there's
an answer.
[more inside]
posted by jock@law
on Oct 23, 2009 -
43 comments
Test My Brain was set up by Harvard's Vision Lab and Social Neuroscience and Psychopathology Lab. There are five tests online at the time of this post; take one and maybe you'll learn something about yourself that you may not have known (other than your special ability to slack off on MetaFilter when you should be working). At the same time, you'll be helping researchers collect data from a wide range of subjects. One of the collaborators, Professor Ken Nakayama, is also responsible for creating
these online tests for
faceblindness. [previously] [more inside]
posted by not_on_display
on May 21, 2009 -
69 comments
Is there a formula—some mix of love, work, and psychological adaptation—for a good life? For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been examining this question, following 268 men who entered college in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. Here, for the first time, a journalist gains access to the archive of one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies in history. What Makes Us Happy?
posted by allkindsoftime
on May 12, 2009 -
57 comments
Academic Earth collects lectures on a wide variety of
subjects from
UC Berkely,
Harvard,
MIT,
Princeton,
Stanford and
Yale that the universities have
released under Creative Commons. The site is
still in beta so it doesn't quite have the thousands of lectures its frontpage promises. It has many full courses, for example Benjamin Polak teaching
game theory, Amy Hungerford on
the American novel since 1945, Charles Bailyn's
introduction to astrophysics, John Merriman on the history of
France since 1871, Shelly Kagan on
death and Oussama Khatib's
introduction to robotics.
posted by Kattullus
on Feb 4, 2009 -
10 comments
The economic mess is squeezing everyone but many college students are really feeling it.
Syracuse University has made an emergency appeal for aid for 400 current students who may not be able to return for the spring semester without an infusion of cash;
Harvard University lost an incredible 22 percent of its very fat endowment but is trying to raise money through a
$600 million bond issue.
[more inside]
posted by etaoin
on Dec 7, 2008 -
39 comments
Pickering and the Female Computers. In 1881,
Edward Pickering, the director of the Harvard College Observatory, became so impatient with a male lab assistant’s work that he famously declared his maid could do a better job. Rather than take offense, his 24-year-old maid,
Williamina Fleming, instead took him up on the offer. She ended up working at the Observatory for the next 30 years, supervising the tedious work of cataloging photographic plates, but also discovering variable stars and novae, helping to develop a classification system—and,
perhaps even more importantly, hiring nearly 40
female assistants, many of whom went on to have
distinguished scientific careers.
[more inside]
posted by mothershock
on Sep 20, 2008 -
27 comments
Pay to play. The children of big-donor
Harvard alums are systematically
given preference over legacy offspring of lesser means. Additionally David Karen, now a professor at Bryn Mawr, concluded that alumni children at Harvard lose most of their admissions advantage if they apply for financial aid.
posted by The Jesse Helms
on Apr 7, 2008 -
95 comments
The Harvard University Worklife Wizard , created by an international team of journalists, economists, and statisticians, is Barbara Ehrenreich's wet dream. It's also a fantastic resource that has flown pretty much under everyone's radar.
The Worklife Survey drives the constantly-revised, constantly-refined
Salary Comparison Tool, which is always hungry for more data about employment from around the world. And when they say they want data from everyone, they mean it-- there's even a
VIP Salary Checker that pits the wages of the Yankees against those of the Red Sox. (Plus if you take the survey, you can apparently earn a chance to win a trip to South Africa). Personally, I love the
Workplace Horror Stories (and there's a competition there too). I can't look at a nail clipper the same way now.
posted by yellowcandy
on Nov 20, 2006 -
26 comments
Check out this map of
The Simpson's hometown of Springfield. We may never know what state the town is located in, and yes, the show has sucked for at least six years now (if not more) but this map was considered to be so good, it was, apparently, added to the
Harvard Map collection. Comic Book Guy would be proud.
posted by Effigy2000
on Jul 20, 2006 -
53 comments
