Said and Done

May 2019
MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences



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"The Work of the Future Initiative, from J-PAL North America, aims to center workers' voices and identify evidence-based strategies that increase opportunity, reduce disparities, and help all workers navigate the work of the future."


RESEARCH

 

CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
MIT Policy Lab launches MITx course on policy outreach
The new online course aims to help researchers engage with public policymakers.
Story | Policy Lab Course Online


J-PAL NORTH AMERICA 
J-PAL NA launches initiative for a more equitable future of work.
Creating more equitable work requires reliable evidence about what approaches really work. J-PAL NA's new initiative aims to provide rigorous, actionable evidence via an "innovation competition" model.
Story | Apply | Info webinar  | Bi-annual RFP
 


Photo courtesy of J-PAL North America



CENTER FOR ADVANCED VIRTUALITY | CHALLENGING BIAS
Virtual reality game simulates experiences with race | Fox Harrell, Danielle Olson
A novel computational model that considers how users have been conditioned to think about race may facilitate training for teachers and students.
“As video game developers, we have the ability within virtual worlds to challenge the biased ideologies that exist in the physical world,” says PhD student Danielle Olson.
Story
 

POLITICAL SCIENCE | CIVIC TRUST
Caught between criminals and cops
Using virtual reality, doctoral candidate Andrew Miller gauges citizens' faith in law enforcement in the face of gang violence.
Story
 

POLITICAL SCIENCE | IMMIGRATION
Public opinion study in Europe shows drop in anti-immigration sentiment
Surveys spanning recent decades also reveal geographic differences and gender gap in economic views.
Story at MIT News

“There has been a general liberalizing trend on immigration, which is contrary to a lot of rhetoric and commentary. Europeans, on average, when you ask them the same questions over time, have given more pro-immigration answers than they did a generation ago.”

— Devin Caughey, associate professor of Political Science



SECURITY STUDIES
Understanding China | M. Taylor Fravel
In Active Defense, political scientist Taylor Fravel analyzes the modern history of Chinese military strategy, a subject heretofore considered too opaque to interpret.
Story by Peter Dizikes at MIT News | PDF of Introduction | M. Taylor Fravel
 

PHILOSOPHY
On the Brink of Paradox  | Augustín Rayo
An introduction to awe-inspiring ideas at the brink of paradox: infinities of different sizes, time travel, probability and measure theory, and computability theory.
AboutAgustín Rayo | Free MITxCourse by Professor Rayo: Paradox and Infinity (next class starts June 18 2019)


SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY
The road to discovery | Robin Wolfe Scheffler
A Contagious Cause, by historian of science Robin Wolfe Scheffer, examines the century-long American hunt for a cancer viruse, an an effort whose scale exceeded that of the Human Genome Project.
Story by Peter Dizikes at MIT News | Robin Wolfe Sheffler
 



L to R: Active Defense by M. Taylor Fravel (Princeton University Press, 2019); On the Brink of Paradox, by Agustín Rayo (MIT Press, 2019); A Contagious Cause, by Robin Wolfe Sheffler (University of Chicago Press, 2019)

Visit the SHASS Bookshelf for all recent books.
 


FEATURE | CLIMATE MIT
 

Climate MIT
The ClimateMIT website is a major source of research, innovation, and discussion on climate issues — and a global community of people leading research and action for planetary health across all fields.
MIT's Humanities, Arts and Social Science fields contribute to planetary health by informing policy, educating leading science communicators, and addressing economic, social, and political dimensions of climate change.

Learn more and join us!
MIT SHASS Profile on ClimateMIT
 


                                         

IN THE MEDIA + AWARDS
 


COMMUNITY

 

KNIGHT SCIENCE JOURNALISM PROGRAM
Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT announces 2019-20 fellowship class
Join us in welcoming ten top journalists from seven countries will spend an academic year studying at MIT.
Story | Meet the 2019-2020 Fellows


ETHICS, COMPUTING, AND AI
Series: Ethics, Computing, and AI | Perspectives from MIT​
Will the future be humane, just, and livable? Twenty MIT faculty offer practical, inspiring, and clear-eyed views in this series
Browse the Series | Online Booklet: highlights from the series
 

COMMUNITY DISCUSSION
Can we have conversations about race?
In a talk at MIT, Beverly Daniel Tatum, president emeritus of Spelman College, urged more direct discussion about racial issues. “We learn early not to talk about race and racism,” Tatum observed. “And you can’t solve a problem if you can’t talk about it.”
Story + Video
 


Beverly Daniel Tatum, president emerita, Spelman College; Melissa Nobles, Kenan Sahin Dean, MIT SHASS

“When you first start these conversations, they do feel awkward," Tatum said. But "if you stop because you felt awkward, you never get to the place where you can do it well.”


INSIDE THE MIT CLASSROOM


HISTORY
Digital history innovations
“This seminar series is part of our ongoing exploration of computational methods and digital media for research and teaching in the history field," said Professor Jeffrey Ravel, Head of MIT History. "Writ large, the series is a space for us to reflect on our engagement with the new MIT Schwarzman College of Computing."
Story
 

POLITICAL SCIENCE
A stage of their own | Skills workshop
An innovative presentation workshop for political science graduate students serves as a training ground for research and professional skills.
Story
 

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY
The quest to understand human society scientifically
In STS.047, "Quantifying People," taught by Will Deringer, students focus on the quest to understand human society scientifically."
Story
 


Will Deringer, Leo Marx Career Development Assistant Professor, Science, Technology, and Society

"There’s an idea that by working with numbers people aren’t making moral judgments, but that’s a dangerous assumption. This should be a required class.”

— Jordan Browne '19, major in Mathematical Economics


FEATURE | OPEN ACCESS

 

ANTHROPOLOGY
At MIT, anthropologists advance a disciplinary model for Open Access.

Heather Paxson, interim head of MIT Anthropology, explains the vision and challenges for the pilot project plan.
Story

 


Heather Paxson, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Anthropology at MIT; photo by Allegra Boverman

"This historic gathering brought leaders and stakeholders into the same room. We emerged with a plan for a pilot project to move scholarly journals to Open Access publishing, at a disciplinary scale."

— Heather Paxson, interim head, MIT Anthropology


STUDENTS AND ALUMNI
 

MUSIC, PHYSICS, AND MATH
Room for improvisation | Tony Zhang '19
Tony Zhang '19, a double major in physics + math with computer science, thought he would have to give up piano studies while at MIT, until he discovered MIT's conservatory-level Music program. At MIT, "Piano became an even larger part of my life!" Zhang says.



COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES
Cultural curator | DJ Rekha Malhotra
Malhotra, a CMS graduate student and NYC DJ, draws inspiration from the intersection of art and activism.
Story
 

MISTI | MIT-ISRAEL
Cornerstone gift for MISTI's MIT-Israel
In the first major step toward solidifying a future for MISTI’s MIT-Israel program, Arthur J. Samberg SB ‘62 has made a 1 million dollar gift to the program.
Story
 


Seji Engelkemier in Ein Avdat; photo courtesy of MIT-Israel



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Published by SHASS Communications
Office of the Dean, MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Editor and Designer: Emily Hiestand
Publication Associate: Alison Lanier
Published 19 May 2019