Dynamic partners
When she was a Radcliffe fellow in 2002, Lizabeth Cohen, Harvard’s Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies, needed help. The deadline for her upcoming book “A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America,” was fast approaching, and there were “holes in the work.” “I needed to clone myself,” recalled Cohen, who did the next best thing. She partnered with an enthusiastic Harvard College history concentrator. “We would brainstorm, and then I would send her off to Widener to dig around and see what she could find. It was tremendously helpful, and rewarding for both of us.” Cohen, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, took advantage of the longtime Radcliffe Institute Research Partnership Program, which pairs students with the institute’s fellows: artists, scientists, scholars, and professionals who delve into a dynamic range of subjects during their Cambridge year. Over the past decade, more than 500 students have taken part,...