Retrospection


HUPSF Bicycle Club (1). Harvard University Archives.

The men of the Harvard Bicycle Club pose for an 1885 photo with their high-wheelers — precursors to the modern-day bicycle. The oldest collegiate cycling club in the country, the HBC was both an athletic organization and a semi-exclusive social club during its relatively brief existence. HUPSF Bicycle Club (1).


The Harvard Bicycle Club

From organizing intercollegiate bicycle races to hosting nine-course dinners, the HBC aimed to make a then-new pastime a central athletic activity at Harvard — and foster a campus bicycling culture to boot.


h bomb

In 2004, some Harvard students started publishing H Bomb, a student-run magazine about sex that included writings, art, and nude pictures of Harvard undergraduates.


Did Harvard’s Sex Magazine Come Too Soon?

Along with nudity, the first issue of H Bomb promised art and text galore. The editors also had a vision for the future of the magazine: “longer, smarter, and definitely hotter.” But this projection for H Bomb’s future did not survive the test of time.


Warren House 9

Annexed in the rear of the building is a stylistically unique rear porch. Constructed in 1897, this red brick portion of the house stands two stories tall and is adorned with glazed tile balustrades.


Susan Sontag

But for Sontag, no word went unqualified, no word was left without its own definition to her, not “Camp,” not “illness,” not even “I,” and certainly not “writer.”


Astronomical Imperialism: Harvard In the Peruvian Skies

The data collected by Harvard College Observatory in Arequipa in the late 19th to early 20th century, is foundational in the study of astronomy and has furthered our understanding of the cosmos. But this type of cross-continental scientific undertaking cannot be separated from its impact on its workers — both the Indigenous people building Harvard facilities in Peru and the low-paid women astronomers in Cambridge.


The Ghost of Susan Sontag

“The Self as a Project.” That’s what Sontag told Charlie Rose she was working on when she wasn’t writing. The grand irony is that she took that noble aspiration of the liberal arts colleges she swore off and made it hers: teaching people how to think.


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