File 025511
Email Proposal for Poetry in America Course at Harvard (File 025511)
Email from Elisa New, Harvard literature professor, to Jeffrey Epstein proposing a $500,000 funded course combining poetry study with science and environmental education, featuring prominent academics and media figures.
Summary
Elisa New proposes a course titled "Poetry in America for Teachers II: The Poetry of Earth, Sea, and Sky" to Jeffrey Epstein, requesting $500,000 in funding to launch the initiative as a second HGSE course beginning January 1st. The course would combine poetry with science, environment, and visual arts, featuring taped sessions with notable figures including Richard Dawkins, Walter Isaacson, Al Gore, and other Harvard academics and scientists. New indicates the project is largely ready for production, with footage already shot in multiple locations and prominent scholars having committed to participation.
From: Lisa New [Sent: 12/2/2014 6:29:16 PMTo: Jeffrey Epstein [jeeyacation@gmail.com]Subject: poetry and scienceImportance: HighDear Jeffrey,Apropos of our conversation of a few minutes ago, This proposal went to someone I thought wasinterested in the environment and science but who seems, in fact, far more interested in supporting TVon a broad range of topics.500,000 would fund this initiative as the second HGSE course (after Poetry of the City) and could beginimmediately, Jan 1.. I'd be thrilled to include other scientists you name, perhaps taping the group in asession on metaphor at the edges of fields.INote that taped sessions already include economics, marine biology, astronomy, evolutionary biology,zoology, physics and computer science. Richard Dawkins, Walter Isaacson, David Mossberg and DavidMalan have all said yes to tapings. Footage for all the others is already shot and ready for postproduction.I am having a drink with Dean of Ed School today and can explore this with him among other topicsLisaPoetry in America for Teachers II: The Poetry of Earth, Sea, and SkyCombining study of poetry with study of science, environment and the visual arts. Materials includehundreds archival images and live footage shot inCape Cod, Nantucket, Vermont, New York, Connecticut, Jamaica, Aspen, California, Papua New Guineaincluding oceans, ponds, marshes, birds, fish mountains, coral reefs, forests as well in some major collections(HMNH etc)with author Michael Pollan on Joel Barlow (and colonial agriculture)HOUSE OVERSIGHT 025511with economist Lawrence Summers on Oliver Wendell Holmes, (and technology and "one hoss shay"depreciation)with Harvard students at the Nantucket Whaling Museum and with , John Steele, editor of the sciencemagazine, Nautlilus, on Lowell and Melvillewith Vice President Al Gore on Ralph Waldo Emerson ,and, with eco-critic Lawrence Buell (with footage tapedon the Concord River as well as in Harvard's Houghton Rare Book Library )with a dozen Harvard students and Boston area school teachers on Emily Dickinson's "skies" (shot at EmilyDickinson's home in Amherst Massachusetts) and with ED 's original mss. at Harvard Universitywith Jane Pickering In Harvard's Museum of Natural History on Marianne Moore, zoology and sciencemuseumswith Martin Espada and other New Yorkers (footage shot on the East River) on Whitman and urbangreenspace and with Susan Howe on Stevens and parkswith Richard Dawkins on Frost, evolution and probability and with Jay Parini, Frost biographer, in Frost's cabinon "The Road not Taken".with Director of the College Board (and writer of the Common Core Standards) , David Coleman on RobertFrost's "Birches" (filmed in a birch grove)with Peter Galison on Einstein and Modernism (taped in the Harvard Scientific Instruments collection in theHarvard Science Center) and with author Walter Isaacson on Einstein and Modernism (Fogg Museum)with Ray Dalio on Marianne Moore( in Rajah Ampat with Conservation International); and with JanePickering, Head of the Harvard Natural History Museum, ( filmed in the Harvard Museum of Natural History)with Stefan Weiss, Walt Mossberg and David Malan on coding, computer language and L-A-N-G-U-A-G-EpoetryElisa NewPowell M. Cabot Professor of American LiteratureHarvard University148 Barker Center12 Quincy StreetHOUSE OVERSIGHT 025512Cambridge, MA02138HOUSE OVERSIGHT 025513