Stories from the School—
in 02139 and around the globe.
Stories from the School—
in 02139 and around the globe.
Ethnomusicologist and Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow Wayne Marshall, appeared in a special four-part series for PBS on Latin Music in the USA. Click below to watch the special and a bonus clip of Wayne on the connection between Panama and Jamaica.
Latin Music USA: It's gonna move you!
Bonus clip (Second segment)
Marshall explores the rhythm of Reggaetón
Explore the Music
Learn about the many genres, styles, and instruments in the Latin music world
Wayne and Wax
Marshall's site + blog
Samuel Jay Keyser, Editor-in-Chief of Linguistic Inquiry, has shared a campus with Noam Chomsky for 40+ years via the School's renowned Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. The two colleagues recently sat down to discuss ideas on language evolution and the human capacity for understanding the universe.
Listen to the conversation.
Seamus Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. He has resided in Dublin since 1976 and, every two years, visits Cambridge where he teaches at Harvard University. Heaney's recent books include selected poems Opened Ground: Poems 1966-1996) (1998), an acclaimed translation of Beowulf (2000) and his selected prose Finders Keepers (2002). All are published in America by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Watch
Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, and Special Assistant to the Chancellor, Jay Keyser, believes that the MIT hacker is to be admired for pulling off the collegiate world's cleverest and most elegant pranks. In this video, Keyser describes some of his favorite hacks, and burrows into the psychology of hack culture at MIT. Watch
Wyn Kelley, Senior Lecturer of Literature, discusses the juxtaposition found in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. Watch
In an energetic talk delivered prior to the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Jonathan Gruber provides a useful breakdown of the two candidates’ remedies for the nation’s troubled health care system. His detailed analysis of the key issues around health care is invaluable as the health care debate continues. Watch
This preview of a 2009 documentary presents J-PAL’s investigation of health problems of India's rural poor, and the programs J-PAL and local NGO partners are creating to bring relief. Watch
This panel discussion at the Starr Forum of May 5, 2009 is an unusually clear guide to current U.S.-Iranian relations, presented by moderator Barry Posen (Director of the School's Security Studies Program), and panelists Suzanne DiMaggio, Jim Walsh, and Stephen Heintz. Under the Obama administration, the U.S. is moving toward a better relationship with Iran, but panelists explain that the two countries are still far from fruitful relations, and that achieving real diplomacy will paradoxically require both patience and a sense of urgency. Watch
The MIT Center for International Studies undertakes research, teaching, international education, and public and policy engagement on a broad range of global issues. Major programs include: MISTI, which sends 300 students annually to internships in labs in 10 countries; the Security Studies Program, which emphasizes U.S. strategy; the Program on Emerging Technologies, which researches the effects of globalization; the Jerusalem 2050 project; and the Persian Gulf Initiative, which focuses on Iran and Iraq. Watch
What is the legacy of the Apollo program, and how can it help us meet the challenges of our own time? This short, beautiful film, produced by the MIT AMPS team, kicked off MIT’s "Giant Leaps" event, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing, and envision the future of spaceflight. Watch
Stephen Colbert interviews Junot Díaz, Professor of Writing, and Pulitzer Prize winning author of "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao"
Watch
Institute Professor of Music John Harbison talks about composing music, finding a balance between the inner and outer ear, and creating art at MIT. Watch
Structural engineer John Ochsendorf fell in love with archaeology during college at Cornell where his senior thesis involved a 600-year-old Incan suspension bridge made entirely out of grass. In the course of his research, Ochsendorf discovered that historical structures hold important lessons for modern building technology. Watch
The Comparative Media Studies Program presents a group of vintage television commercials. Watch
Moby-Dick lives! Go behind the scenes to see how four master teachers and artists are connecting young people with Melville's great novel through exciting stage productions. Insights and tales from Wyn Kelley, Senior Lecturer in Literature, and Henry Jenkins, former director of Comparative Media Studies, along with Ricardo Pitt-Wiley and Rudy Cabrera. Watch
Pulitzer Prize winning author and Professor of Writing, Junot Díaz, sits down with CBC Q TV host Jian Ghomeshi to discuss his book, "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao." Watch
President Susan Hockfield states that science journalism “is absolutely indispensable.” As we confront global warming and health pandemics, science reporting must be sustained, Hockfield says, “in its rightful place, at the top of the profession and in the thick of the national conversation.” Dismal economic times are a challenge to this aspiration, as journalists on the panel attest. Watch
A production for the Class, Learning from the Past: Drama, Science, Performance (21L.016/21M.616) Watch
European archivists grapple with the legal obligations, civic responsibilities and future prospects of their collections, which, thanks to the Internet and other new technologies, are increasingly awash in image and sound. As William Urichhio notes, “tradition-bound institutions know what we should be gathering: feature films, books, newspapers, political documents, but it’s much harder to know what to do with things like social media…say, networks of interactions.” Different organizations are evolving diverse strategies. Watch
MIT Institute Professor of Music John Harbison sits down with MIT TechTV to discuss music studies at MIT, subjectivity, and the metamorphosis of MIT students over the years. Watch
Cultural Anthropology is a social science that explores how people understand, and act in, the world. But what, exactly, is it that Cultural Anthropologists do? How do they approach their research? In this short film, three members of the School's Anthropology Department, Stefan Helmreich, Erica James, and Heather Paxson, talk about their current fieldwork. Watch
Esther Duflo and her colleagues and students are taking the measure of a wide range of anti-poverty programs. Applying scientific methodology, the School's Poverty Action Lab team is approaching the projects of well-intended governments and NGO's (non-government organizations) with a fresh eye. Watch
Two "sisters"—both university chiefs—celebrate the victory of the first African-American U.S. President, but remind listeners that American institutions have not yet achieved the full measure of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream. Watch
Many writers long to see their work appear in The New Yorker. Miraculously, Jamaica Kincaid got her start in print generating “Talk of the Town” pieces for the magazine, back in the (good old) days when those pieces ran without bylines. Kincaid, who celebrates times “when the sheer doing of something was enough,” reads some of her “TOT” pieces and other examples of her early work, offering tips and asides to aspiring writers in her audience. Watch
In a talk that weaves philosophy, history, religion and some classic rabbinic banter, Sir Jonathan Sacks calls for a “paradigm shift in understanding of religion” in the face of globalization, which threatens to pull the world apart in tribal and religious strife. Says Sachs: The “three great institutions of modernity — science, economics and politics — cannot answer the key questions... which are 'Who am I' and 'Why am I here.'" Watch
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