Said and Done


Communications Digest | July 2010
Office of the Dean
MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

 

 

 



KUDOS


New York Times calls Evan Ziporyn and Bang On A Can "exhilarating" 
Evan Ziporyn, Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music, is a founding member of the acclaimed "Bang on a Can All Stars," which recently performed a 13-Hour music festival at Winter Garden in New York City. The New York Times reviews, calling Ziporyn's contribution, "Tire Fire," "a flamboyant fusion of Balinese gamelan and rock guitars into something new, personal and exhilarating."  
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Child's "Song of Liberty" reviewed in Boston Musical Intelligencer
"Peter Child, composer and professor at MIT,...has given us a fine new choral work, "Song of Liberty: A Blake Cantata," for soloists, chorus, strings and percussion."
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Faculty Promotions | Effective July 1, 2010 
Photographs and biographical notes for the twelve recently promoted members of the School faculty
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RESEARCH PORTFOLIO
 

ANTHROPOLOGY
Democratic Insecurities
In Democratic Insecurities, (University of California Press, 2010), Associate Professor of Anthropology Erica James examines the ethics of military and humanitarian intervention in Haiti, during and after Haiti's 1991 coup. Using vivid first-person accounts, James raises important new questions about humanitarian aid, structural violence, and political insecurity. 
Story by Peter Dizikes at MIT News 

 

 



NEWS AND FEATURES 
 

David Deveau inaugurates new hall for Rockport Music
David Deveau is a pianist, Senior Lecturer in Music and Theater Arts, and since 1995, Artistic Director of the Rockport Chamber Music Festival (now Rockport Music). He has been a key force behind the acclaimed Shalin Liu Performance Center, which opened in Rockport, Massachusetts in June 2010.
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DeGraff cites vital role for Creole in rebuilding Haiti 
In a June 16, 2010 Op-Ed in The Boston Globe, Associate Professor of Linguistics, Michel DeGraff, writes that after the devastating earthquake Haitians now have "a rare opportunity to build a new and vibrant school system." DeGraff explains why providing educational instruction in the Creole language that is spoken by the majority of the Haitian people is crucial if the billions in international aid for schools is to be successful.
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Emeritus: Sound reasoning
MIT emeritus linguist Morris Halle sees his influence live on—and take some unexpected directions.
Story by Peter Dizikes at MIT News


Starting with Silence
Composer Keeril Makan, Associate Professor, uses classical and non-Western instruments—and silence itself as an instrument—to compose critically acclaimed music. In his classes, Makan teaches both skilled and novice musicians how to hear sound anew.
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Continuum
Michael Cuthbert, Assistant Professor, is engaged with the future and the past: using leading-edge informatics to devise new tools for unprecedented forms of musical analysis in his music21 lab; and steeping himself in Medieval scores and manuscripts to illuminate the music and the musicians of Europe’s Plague Years. We caught up with him in Florence, where he is spending a year at Villa I Tatti.
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Global Drumbeat
Ethnomusicologist Patricia Tang, Associate Professor, draws on her extensive research on Senegalese sabar drummers to bring world music—and more expansive global perspectives—alive in her classes and in the Rambax drumming group.
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Daron Acemoglu of Economics cited in Bloomsberg about Botswana
“Botswana’s post-colonial leadership, particularly Seretse Khama and Quett Masire, and also its major economic elites were committed to democracy, economic development, secure property rights and fairly orthodox macroeconomic policies,” says Daron Acemoglu, the economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who first called attention to Botswana’s achievement."
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MAGAZINE
 

Soundings Magazine | Spring 2010
Fresh ideas from the School's expansive research portfolio
Contents

       



MULTIMEDIA

 

Dudamel on El Sistema, Music and Social Change 
In conversation with two MIT music luminaries, John Harbison and Tod Machover, and moderator Maria Hinojosa, Gustavo Dudamel describes the remarkable music education system in Venezuela that set him on his path, and that continues to inspire his work in the U.S. and around the world. Dudamel is MIT's 2010 McDermott Award in the Arts recipient.
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Misery's Fiend Frankenstein | Perfomance + Discussion 
Adapted from the Mary Shelley novel by Ricardo Pitts-Wiley with Bill Pett and Jim Brown. Directed by Visiting MLK Artist Ricardo Pitts-Wiley and cast with MIT students. Following the performance, a panel of MIT scholars discussed the novel, addressing questions such as what it is about Frankenstein that fascinates us.   
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Personalized Energy: Nocera speaks to Knight Science Fellows 
Listen to what Daniel Nocera, The Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy and Professor of Chemistry, had to say to the Knight Science Fellows. While many scientists work on how to scale up wind, geothermal, or biomass systems, Nocera focuses on “personalized” energy" units that can be manufactured, distributed and installed economically.
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