Said and Done
Summer 2018
Published by the Office of the Dean
MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
QUOTABLE
“Innovation is born of openness to futures that are not easily imaginable. History reminds us that many ideas, institutions, and organizational structures that now seem natural and inevitable did not always exist. In doing so, it throws open the door to boundless possibility.”
— Caley Horan, MIT Assistant Professor of History
RESEARCH
HEALTH ECONOMICS
Study by Amy Finkelstein emphasizes the value of late-in-life health care spending
Study debunks notion that large chunks of Medicare go to futile end-of-life care.
Story by Peter Dizikes at MIT News
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY
How Kendall Square became the epicenter of the biotech world | Robin Scheffler
MIT's Phillip Sharp and Robin Scheffler discuss Kendall Square's transformation from abandoned factories and empty parking lots to a bustling center of the biotech industry.
Commentary on WBUR-FM
POLITICAL SCIENCE
Kathleen Thelen brings expertise to MIT's Work of the Future task force
“The task force will be putting the interaction of technology and society at the forefront,” says Thelen.
Story by Leda Zimmerman
“The task force connects directly with my research to understand how new technologies and forms of work organization can be steered in ways that balance generating economic efficiencies with providing some level of social solidarity and equality."
— Kathleen Thelen, Ford Professor of Political Science
J-PAL NORTH AMERICA | EDUCATION, TECHNOLOGY, AND OPPORTUNITY
Inaugural partners for the Innovation Competition announced
The J-PAL NA program supports education leaders in using randomized evaluations to generate evidence on how tech can improve student learning, particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Story
ECONOMICS
Method man | Alberto Abadie
Abadie refines the tools of economics and serves as the associate director of MIT's IDSS, an interdisciplinary center. Of his methodological work he says, "most of it is to estimate the effect of policy interventions" and to determine which ones worked well.
Story by Peter Dizikes on MIT News
RESEARCH FEATURE: THE HUMAN FACTOR SERIES
Historian Caley Horan on the rise of private insurance in the U.S.
Horan is an historian of the U.S. focused on cultural and intellectual transformations of the post-WWII era. Her forthcoming book, Actuarial Age (University of Chicago Press), explores how the insurance industry shifted the American tradition of risk sharing and mutual aid to individual forms of protection.
Interview by SHASS Communications
FEATURE | FROM UNDARK MAGAZINE
Published by the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT
The body as machine?
How does language impact healthcare? Bures writes that thinking of our bodies as machines leads to a militaristic approach to healthcare, which often pushes doctors and patients to over-treatment. By contrast, the metaphor of the body as a terrain, gives rise to medicine "geared to fortifying the terrain, to make it more difficult for illness to thrive."
Article by Frank Bures in Undark magazine | Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT
NEW WORKS
MUSIC
Shanti | MIT composer Peter Child
The works on this new release demonstrate Child's remarkable range and vision. His acclaimed music is performed by ensembles throughout the world, including Lotano (England) and Interensemble (Italy), as well many groups close to home in Boston.
Review | Listen on Apple Music Preview | Peter Child website
MUSIC
Six String Quartets | MIT composer Elena Ruehr
Compelling and absorbing, the connection from Brahms to Schoenberg to Ruehr is easy to trace." Learn more about Ruehr's masterful new release, performed by the Cypress String Quartet and the Borromeo String Quartet.
About | Listen on Soundcloud / Ruehr website
THEATER ARTS
"The Remains" | recent play by Ken Urban
A landmark play that faces forthrightly the fact that gay divorce necessarily accompanies marriage equality. "Faultless understanding of how interpersonal tensions and rhythms shift over minutes and years."
Review in The Washington Post | Review in MetroArts
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY
The Mobile Workshop | new book by Clapperton Mavhunga
About the book at MIT Press
STUDENTS AND ALUMNI
ECONOMICS
Phoebe Cal '18 on studying economics at MIT
Economic innovation turns on the ability to ask the right questions. Phoebe Cai ’18 looks forward to research that tries "to tease some logic out of the glorious mess of human interactions and transactions and behavior."
Commentary at Technology Review
HASTS PhD PROGRAM
Discovering hidden stories in the Flint water crisis | Elena Sobrino
PhD student and Flint, MI native Elena Sobrino studies "the questions the water crisis has raised about science, power, and where to go from here."
Story at MIT News
PHI BETA KAPPA AT MIT
77 MIT Students are inducted into Phi Beta Kappa
The new members of Xi of Massachusetts, the MIT PBK chapter, achieved exceptional excellence in both the humanities and science scholarship.
Story
Michael Feffer '18 and family, at the 2018 induction ceremony for Xi of Massachusetts chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society
THEATER ARTS
New Playwrights Lab gives young writers a professional experience
At the lab, led by Ken Urban, head of playwriting, MIT students workshop their scripts with seasoned actors and directors in a professional setting.
Story by Arts at MIT
MIT OPEN COURSEWARE
CMS'S Data Storytelling Studio: Climate Change
Big data reveals patterns we could never see before, patterns in medical treatments, weather events, just about anything we can think of. But those patterns have to be discerned, and their stories shaped before they can have an impact.
Story by Joe Pickett on OCW
CLASSROOM FEATURES
PHILOSOPHY
The moral calculus of climate change
In a "mathy" philosophy class taught by Professors Kieran Setiya and Caspar Hare, MIT students explore the risks, probable outcomes, and ethical implications of living in a warming world.
Story by SHASS Communications
Human Factor Interview: How philosophy can address climate change
For Saleem Aldajani ’18, the class and its demanding approach has changed how he views the world. "It’s really given me a systematic way of asking the right questions," he says, "kind of like a moral guide towards my obligations and actions."
COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES
Hacking virtual reality
Contributing to a culture of pioneers, MIT students explore the technical, philosophical, and artful dimensions of VR.
Story by SHASS Communications
Video Playlist | Trailers for VR works from the class
Up first: The trailer for "Reveal," a CGI world-exploring VR experience that invites users to a metaphorical pilgrimage on the quest to find one's place in the world. Followed by "Avatar/ChakraScape" and "MITVR."
Hacking VR at MIT | CMS.339 Student Portfolio
NEWS
KNIGHT SCIENCE JOURNALISM PROGRAM
Ashley Smart named associate director of the KSJ program
Smart, who served as a senior editor at Physics Today for eight years, will play a central role in managing KSJ — an elite mid-career fellowship program that brings prominent science journalists from around the world for 10 months of study and intellectual exploration at MIT, Harvard University, and other institutions in the Boston area.
Story
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY
Jill Ker Conway, trailblazing historian, member of the MIT faculty, dies at 83
Conway served as a visiting professor in STS between 1985 and 2011. "Her legacy endures," says Professor Sherry Turkle. "Her scholarship, elegant writing, political commitment, feminism, and care for students are inscribed into the DNA of our program."
The Washington Post | The Boston Globe | The New York Times
MENS ET MANUS AMERICA
At spring events, MMA series explores both fake news and real gender issues
Research by Professor Sinan Aral shows that "false news diffuses farther, faster, and more broadly than truth in all categories — frequently by an order of magnitude." At a second event, the theater work, Her Opponent, re-created scenes from the 2016 presidential debates, inviting an MIT audience to consider the debate performances with the genders reversed.
Story by SHASS Communications
HONORS AND AWARDS
To see more featured awards, visit In the Media + Awards
PHILOSOPHY
Stephen Yablo wins Lebowitz Prize for Philosophical Achievement & Contributions
Story
ECONOMICS
Amy Finkelstein elected to the National Academy of Sciences
Story
MUSIC
Eran Egozy wins $50K grant from Knight Foundation for Concert Cue, an Art/Tech project
Press Release | Story at Fast Company
MUSIC
Jamshied Sharifi ’83, wins Tony Award
Story
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY
Evelyn Fox Keller receives the 2018 Dan David award
Story at Haaretz.com
IN THE MEDIA
To see all featured stories, visit In the Media.
ECONOMICS DEMOCRACY
The Democracy Dividend: Faster Growth | Daron Acemoglu
Countries that democratize — switch from a nondemocratic regime such as a dictatorship, monarchy, or autocracy to a democratic regime — grow more rapidly in the next 20 years or so, and end up with 20 percent higher income per capita.
Bloomberg News
SECURITY STUDIES | NORTH KOREA
Is North Korea giving up its nukes? It's not. | Vipin Narang
MIT's North Korea expert Narang points out that the North Koreans consider “final, fully verified denuclearization” to be the denuclearization of North Korea and the United States.
The Boston Globe
ALLEVIATING POVERTY
How postcards solved the problem of disappearing rice | Abhijit Banerjee and Ben Olken
Banerjee and Olken speak with NPR about their work to improve Indonesia’s Raskin program (Rice for the Poor). "There's a tendency to assume that the solution to a complex problem has to be complex,” says Banerjee. “I don't think that's always true."
Story and Interview on NPR
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Said and Done is published by SHASS Communications
Office of the Dean, MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Editor and Designer: Emily Hiestand, SHASS Communications
Publication Associate: Alison Lanier, SHASS Communiations
Published 18 July 2018