Kiku Adatto

Kiku Adatto

Lecturer on Social Studies
Scholar in Residence, Harvard's Mahindra Humanities Center
Kiku Adatto profile picture

Kiku Adatto is a Scholar in Residence at the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard and a Lecturer on Social Studies.  She has taught as an Assistant Professor in Harvard’s Department of Sociology and as a faculty member and fellow at the Kennedy School of Government.  She also served as Director of Children’s Studies at Harvard, an interfaculty initiative. Her scholarly publications focus on the interplay of art, political culture, and civic life.  Her current book project explores exile, return, and citizenship. Adatto’s writings on the media helped spark a national debate on presidential campaign coverage. Her book, Picture Perfect: Life in the Age of the Photo Op (Princeton Press, 2008), explores the use and abuse of images in photography, television, movies and on the Internet, and has been published in multiple languages.

Beyond her scholarly publications, her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the New RepublicTime magazine and other national publications.  She has appeared on public television and radio and has lectured on changing trends in American culture at a range of university and public forums in the United States and internationally. She received the Distinguished Teaching Award from the Department of Sociology at Harvard University, the Barrington Moore Prize for Excellence in Advising and numerous Certificates of Distinction in Teaching in Social Studies at Harvard University.  Adatto received a B.A. in literature, theater arts, and film at the University of Washington, attended film school at Brandeis University and received her Ph.D. in Sociology from SUNY at Stony Brook.

This year she will be teaching the junior tutorial “Art, Political Culture, and Civic Life” in the spring.
 

2023-24 Courses
Social Studies 98eo: Art, Political Culture, and Civic Life (Fall)

Contact Information