Go Viral! – Cultural Agents Contests

A general principle we have learned from exemplary Cultural Agents, especially from Antanas Mockus, is that pleasure enables change. Without pleasure, nothing good happens. So our contributions to surviving the current lockdown should include opportunities for sociability, art-making, and humor, as we have already seen in many initiatives online. The pleasures of learning and art-making keep us focused over long periods of time, and prepare us with skills for living well during and after the plague.

We want to hear about your ideas and innovations for teaching and learning during the coronavirus pandemic and are excited to announce two contests (and one extra fun contest) that are now open for submissions!
Science Art Project Contest and Literature Art Project Contest 
Share how you turned a virtual science or literature lesson into an art project. How did you use a difficult text to make art? How does your lesson encourage higher-order literacy skills, innovation and citizenship?

Best Joke Contest 
These are challenging times and humor can help get us through feelings of depression, uncertainty and fear. Share the best joke you can come up with or one you’ve seen that gave you a great laugh.

Please send all submissions to culturalagents@gmail.com by Friday, May 8th. Submissions can include photos and videos along with written descriptions. There is no set format and we encourage you to be creative. The winners will be featured in the Cultural Agents May newsletter.

Pre-Texts News

Pre-Texts at the Bok Center

A Pre-Texts workshop led by Doris Sommer, Ira and Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American Studies, and Thomas Wisniewski, Bok Pedagogy Fellow, Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning Lecturer on Comparative Literature, was held over 3 sessions on March 4th, 5th and 6th from 3-6pm at the Bok Center for Teaching and Learning.

Read reports on this workshop by Giulia Pellizzato, Timothy Johnson, and Matheus Batalha.

New Website Coming Soon

We are developing a new user-friendly Pre-Texts website and invite our collaborators to send reports and/or photos of Pre-Texts activities to add to online information.

Cultural Agents News

Football Gone Viral

With Alexandre Colli, a Brazilian football star, we will soon launch a network of men’s chat groups to provide fellowship and contact with other men about issues they already follow passionately. This is an interactive art project to reduce domestic violence during the coronavirus pandemic.

COVID-19 Resources

• Harvard Global Health Initiative: www.globalepidemics.org
• MGH’s Center for COVID Innovation: https://covidinnovation.partners.org/
• HBS Resources on Managing Through Crisis: https://www.alumni.hbs.edu/Pages/managing-through-crisis.aspx
• MBAs Fight COVID-19 — HBS students have created a platform to match volunteer MBAs to short-term, COVID-related projects: https://www.mbasfightcovid19.com/
• Resources from HGSE about distant learning and online learning: https://www.gse.harvard.edu/uk/coronavirus#teachers
• How to get involved with Planned Parenthood: https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/
• First-Generation Harvard Alumni shared interest group is supporting the needs of first-gen, low-income students at the College through a grassroots alumni fundraising campaign: https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/support-for-first-generation-low-income-harvard-students
• From the Social Innovation and Change Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School: https://www.covid19taskforcedv.org/
• Harvard Law School’s Office of Public Interest Advising is working with the student-led People’s Parity program to provide assistance to indigent families, refugees, asylum seekers, and folks who are unemployed: www.peoplesparity.org

• HMS has been using LeadChange to great effect in order to source community questions that the administration can answer with regular meetings: http://leadchange.herokuapp.com/c267?tab=activity#