PAINFUL QUESTIONS FROM INDIGENOUS LEADERS
A Harvard conference on historic injustice goes awry.
Harvard Magazine, November 9, 2023
GETTING HIS REPS IN
The wildly profuse artwork of a Milwaukee-based painter and puppeteer
Harvard Magazine, September-October 2023
ATTUNED TO PIANOS
An instrument restorer’s beautiful obsession
Harvard Magazine, March-April 2023
APOLLO 17 TURNS 50
The story behind a remarkable photograph from the space age
Harvard Magazine, November-December 2022
AIRBORNE
For acrobat Anna Soltys Morse, sometimes it really feels like flying.
Harvard Magazine, May-June 2022
FANTASTIC BEASTS
Wildlife painter Bradley Scott Davis’s frogs—and lions, and wolves, and birds, and bears.
Harvard Magazine, March-April 2022
DAMAGE AND REPAIR
Textile artist Celia Pym knits meaning into mended clothes.
Harvard Magazine, January-February 2022
NOTES ON “DOCTORING”
Neurology resident Michael Stanley and the covenant of medicine
Harvard Magazine, January-February 2022
THE ART OF THE PORTRAIT PAINTER
Mississippi painter Jason Bouldin makes the intangible tangible.
Harvard Magazine, November-December 2021
ENCOUNTERS AT THE BORDER
Morgan Smith’s photographs and stories from the US-Mexico border
Harvard Magazine, February 2021
COMEDY IS MAGIC
Funnyman Harrison Greenbaum picks a card.
Harvard Magazine, November-December 2019
THE WORK OF ART
An extraordinary two-day conversation on race, justice, and the arts.
Harvard Magazine, May 1, 2019
BEARING WITNESS
An essay about the last friend my father ever made.
Harvard Magazine, April 19, 2019
REBEL LAWYER
Gerald Lopez’s radical theory—and practice
Harvard Magazine, September-October 2018
BRYAN STEVENSON ON THE EVOLUTION OF WHITE SUPREMACY
A stirring visit from the civil rights attorney and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative
Harvard Magazine, December 13, 2017
THE ART OF PROTEST
Clint Smith and poetry in the age of Black Lives Matter.
Harvard Magazine, January-February 2017
THE BUDDIES IN THE BOAT
At the Head of the Charles, a redemption 50 years in the making.
Harvard Magazine, October 27, 2016
JOHN STILGOE’S “ACUTE OBSERVATION”
The historian teaches students about the beauty of tools and knowing how to use them.
Harvard Magazine, August 15, 2016
UNMISTAKABLY MINE
Mark Strand was always my winter poet. An essay after his death.
University of Chicago Magazine, January 30, 2015
FAITHFUL TO THE TUNE
Unexpectedly poignant moments at a Rockefeller Chapel concert seeking harmony in diversity.
University of Chicago Magazine, December 11, 2014
GRACE NOTE
Matthew Dean inhabits Rockefeller Chapel’s world of song.
University of Chicago Magazine, November-December 2014
WORKING OVER TIME
The past persists in such small and ordinary ways.
University of Chicago Magazine, January-February 2014
KUDZU
A perverse affection for the plant that ate the South.
Our State Magazine, August 2013
CREATIVE ENERGY
A composer and an astrophysicist embrace feeling lost in space.
University of Chicago Magazine, November-December 2012
FOUND POETRY
For Srikanth Reddy, every poem is an act of excavation.
University of Chicago Magazine, March-April 2009
BARBERSHOP DUET
An afternoon with the hair guys at UChicago.
University of Chicago Magazine, November-December 2008
THE LIVES OF OBJECTS
The Holocaust has never lacked for evocative, inanimate emblems.
University of Chicago Magazine, May-June 2007
THE WORKINGEST MAN I EVER KNEW
For James Williams, who taught me what work meant.
The Sampson Independent, March 2007
STREET FIGHTING MEN
The no-holds-barred battle to save Chicago’s landmark buildings.
Chicago magazine, March 2005
Since 2017, I have covered Harvard’s ongoing examination of its history with slavery for Harvard Magazine. Here are a few highlights:
FINDING THE DESCENDANTS OF ENSLAVEMENT
April 27, 2023
ACTING ON SLAVERY’S LEGACY
May-June 2023
TEACHING THE HARVARD SLAVERY REPORT
February 9, 2023
AFTER THE SLAVERY REPORT, WHAT NEXT?
May 5, 2022
HARVARD’S SLAVE LEGACY
April 26, 2022
HARVARD LAW SCHOOL UNVEILS A MONUMENT TO SLAVES
September 6, 2017
“A VAST SLAVE SOCIETY”
March 6, 2017