Upcoming events

Throughout time and around the world, people have adorned the walls of their homes, palaces, tombs, temples, and government buildings with painted scenes and designs.

Illustrates how images in early modern European books of science (1500-1750) were shaped not only by the needs of scientific communication but also by economic, social, and cultural considerations. Representative examples examine physical evidence both in the images themselves and in the books they illustrated.

Exhibit traces the development of scientific activity at Harvard, and explores how science was promoted or affected by religion, politics, philosophy, art, and commerce in the last 400 years. Featured objects include instruments connected to Galileo, Benjamin Franklin, William James, and Charles Lindbergh. Free and open to the public. Children must be escorted by an adult. (617) 495-2779.

(English) Seamus Heaney, poet, Nobel laureate. 4:30 p.m. Free and open to the public. Free tickets (limit four per person and valid until 4:15 p.m.) available through the Harvard Box Office (617-496-2222) beginning Sept. 16.

The 18th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony honors achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The ten new winners will be revealed on stage. Genuinely bemused Nobel Laureates will hand them their the Prizes. The theme of this year's ceremony: Redundancy. Also featured: the Win-a-Date-with-a-Nobel-Laureate Contest; and the premier of the mini-opera "Redundancy Again." Organized by the Annals of Improbable Research (www.improbable.com)

Within traditional Confucian society, family and family hierarchy were important organizing principles. Woman’s place was in the home under the guidance and protection of the males in her family. Upon immigration to the United States, Chinese women often found it necessary to work outside the home in order to provide economic support for the family. Over time, the role and influence of Chinese women grew incrementally. At first she may have worked as a secretary or cashier, or assumed a position in a family business such as a laundry or restaurant.

As children we learn that birds fly south for the winter, but few of us realize the scope and variety of migratory behaviors in animals. This exhibit will look at the migration of mammals, birds, and insects, with an emphasis on how human behavior and activity impacts the movement of animals through the environment.

For exhibit information, call (617) 496-5534.

Dramatic black and white images of single leaves by New York photographer Amanda Means are a monument to the remarkable diversity and beauty of nature's botanical forms. These detailed blow-ups, some printed as large as 38 x 46 inches, were created by using the leaf itself as a photographic negative. The immediacy of the process gives the images an eerie intensity and adds to their compelling beauty.

For centuries cartographers have wrestled with the difficulties of depicting rivers, and in the process they have devised many ingenious ways of answering the challenge—from streambed profiles to bird's-eye views, ranging in format from portfolio atlases to strip maps, accordion books, and scrolls. This exhibit examines how mapmakers from the 15th century to the early 20th century sought to measure, track, and frame some of the major rivers of the world, including the Tigris and Euphrates, Amazon, Don, Danube, Nile, Congo, Rhine, Volga, and Mississippi.

"Iolanthe, or The Peer and The Peri" features Strephon, a shepherd who hides his half-fairy background, even from his beloved Phyllis. But every Peer in the House of Lords, including her own guardian, the Lord Chancellor, is also in love with her. His only hope is to enlist the fairies' help to win her hand. Hilarity ensues!