APRIL 2022 DIGEST
 MIT SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES, ARTS, AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
 A SECTION OF SAID & DONE | SUBSCRIBE
 

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KUDOS
 

Vipin Narang, Frank Stanton Professor of Nuclear Security and Political Science; photo by Stuart Darsch

POLITICAL SCIENCE + SECURITY STUDIES PROGRAM
Narang named Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy
Vipin Narang, the Frank Stanton Professor of Nuclear Security and Political Science, and "the country’s leading scholar of nuclear strategy and proliferation, will work on a team responsible for interagency coordination and international engagement on space policy and strategy, which includes nuclear, cyber, and missile defense policy.
Story

TRUMAN SCHOLARSHIP | POLITICAL SCIENCE + MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
Liberty R. Ladd '22, Courses 17 and 2, receives 2022 Truman Scholarship
Truman Scholarships provide funding for graduate school and recognize future public service leaders. Ladd, who worked to improve the equity of US elections with the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project, plans to pursue an MS in political science with a focus on American elections. Bhav Jain, a Computation and Cognition major has also received a 2022 Truman Scholarship. Warmest congratulations, both! 
Story at MIT News | MIT SHASS Gallery of Bilinguals

MIT SHASS
Tracie Jones named to Every Learner Equity Advisory Board
Jones is the Assistant Dean for DEI in MIT SHASS. The Every Learner organization believes that digital learning can serve as a catalyst for removing the structural barriers in classrooms — and that meaningful change and progress must be built in community and led by those who have been impacted most by these barriers. 
Every Learner Equity Advisory Board | MIT SHASS DEI
 

Tracie Jones, Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, MIT SHASS; photo by Allegra Boverman

U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT
MIT Graduate Economics ranked No.1 nationwide; Political Science ranks in the top 10
MIT’s PhD Economics program earned a No.1 ranking overall. MIT Economics also earned first- or second-place rankings for six economics specialties. MIT’s PhD program in Political Science placed among the top 10 in the nation.
Story and rankings at U.S. News and World Report

QS WORLD UNIVERSITY RANKINGS
QS Rankings rates MIT Linguistics No.1 worldwide; MIT Economics No.2 worldwide
The Institute also received No.1 ranking in 11 other subject areas.
Story

ANTHROPOLOGY
Anthropologist Amy Moran-Thomas receives the Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award
Moran-Thomas, the Alfred Henry and Jean Morrison Hayes Career Development Associate Professor of Anthropology, has received the 2021-22 Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award in recognition of her “exceptional commitment to innovative and collaborative interdisciplinary approaches to resolving inequitable impacts on human health.”
Story
 

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MEDIA DIGEST

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PASSAGES
 

Leo Marx, c. 1960s; 25th anniversary edition cover of The Machine in the Garden"

THE BOSTON GLOBE
Leo Marx, pioneering scholar/writer in American studies, dies at 102
Marx had taught for many years at Amherst College before switching to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he finished his career as the William R. Kenan Jr. professor emeritus of American cultural history. In the late 1970s, he joined MIT’s faculty, initially as part of larger plans to create a College of Science, Technology, and Society.
Obituary at The Boston Globe  | Related: In Memoriam, via MIT SHASS
 

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MEDICINE & HEALTH

Robin Wolfe-Sheffler, Associate Professor of Science, Technology, and Society
 

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
Molecular medicine in the war on cancer: success or failure? | Robin Wolfe Sheffler
Sheffler, author of A Contagious Cause: The American Hunt for Cancer Viruses and the Rise of Molecular Medicine (UChicago Press, 2019), gives an outstanding presentation in this NIH history program.  
Videocast

THE NEW YORK TIMES
On masks and mask mandates | comments by Emma Teng
In East Asia, long before the pandemic, wearing a mask in public if a person had a cold or flu was standard etiquette, noted Dr. Teng, who believes the pandemic could have a lasting effect on how Americans approach masks.
Story at The New York Times

WGBH
Improving health coverage in the United States | Jonathan Gruber
Gruber reflects on his experiences working on the Affordable Care Act 12 years ago, and what he thinks should be done to improve health coverage in the U.S. Gruber was instrumental in creating both the Massachusetts healthcare reform plan and the Federal Affordable Care Act.
Conversation at WGBH
 

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SCIENCE WRITING

Agricultural workers in CA were 40% more likely to die than the general population in 2020. Photo: Brian L. Frank

KNIGHT SCIENCE JOURNALISM AT MIT
How poverty and discrimination drive disease | KSJ alumna Amy Maxmen '21
Maxmen addresses the role of social inequalities in fueling the Covid-19 pandemic. Will the pandemic push science and medicine to fully recognize these ‘social determinants of health'?
Story at Nature + The Latest: All of Undark's journalism in one place

JON STEWART PODCAST
Kendra Pierre-Louis SM'16 discusses climate with Jon Stewart 
Leading climate reporter and MIT SHASS alumna Kendra Pierre-Louis SM‘16 spoke with Stewart on his podcast about the realities of divesting from fossil fuels and other options for combatting and mitigating climate change. 
Listen to the podcast | Follow Kendra Pierre-Louis on Twitter

CBC LIVE RADIO
Alan Lightman discusses his new book: Probable Impossibilities
"Lightman probes the biggest, most difficult questions to answer — is there a purpose to life and the universe? Where did we come from?”
Clip at CBC live radio | About Probable Impossibilities

BUZZFEED NEWS
Dozens sickened during training exercise at nuclear site | Zahra Hirji
"The fact that the Department of Energy had its guys go play a war game at a Superfund site that has a long, long history of heavy metals in the soil, the water table, and everything else, I just shake my head," said former courier Jim Bailey, who had trouble breathing and got a rash during the Scenario 5 exercise.
Story at BuzzFeed
 

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WAR IN UKRAINE

Cityview of Kyiv; photo via Unsplash
 

THE NEW YORK TIMES
Defying Putin’s nuclear threat—responsibly | Steven Simon
MIT Security Studies Fellow Simon writes that the U.S. should continue to send Ukraine military equipment, especially antiaircraft systems and antitank munitions. At the same time, the U.S. and its allies should continue to firm up NATO’s conventional readiness to respond to Russian aggression against a NATO member or on NATO territory.
Opinion at The New York Times

THE WASHINGTON POST
Nuclear power plants aren't built to survive war | Kate Brown, Susan Solomon
Military strategists commonly target the enemy’s electrical grid. That’s a problem when combat is in a nuclearized country like Ukraine. Brown is Professor of Science, Technology at MIT, and the author of Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future. Solomon is the Martin Professor of Environmental Studies at MIT.
Commentary at the Washington Post | Related: Forest fires near Chernobyl

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
How Ukraine joined Europe's power grid with record speed | Anna Blaustein SM'21
Ukraine’s energy connection to Europe — long planned for 2023 — became urgent after the Russian invasion, and engineers began work to safely synchronize the systems in just weeks. Paul Deane, an energy policy researcher at the University College Cork in Ireland, said, “No power system has ever synchronized this quickly before.”
Story at Scientific American

THE NEW YORK TIMES
North Korea launches a powerful new ICBM | Vipin Narang cited
North Korea is the first U.S. adversary since the Cold War to test both an ICBM and a claimed hydrogen bomb, according to Narang.
Story at The New York Times

THE WASHINGTON POST
China and Russia's military relationship may deepen with war | M. Taylor Fravel cited
Military analysts say China could aid Russia’s invasion substantially by providing basic supplies, ammunition, communications equipment and weaponry such as drones, but is unlikely to send anything beyond basic provisions.
Story at The Washington Post
Related: How the Russian war against Ukraine will change China (Lizzi Lee PhD'19)
 

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THE ARTS AND POLITICS 

Bombed concert halls in formerly Nazi territories were potent symbols of destruction; Getty photo

THE NEW YORK TIMES
When classical music was an alibi | Emily Richmond Pollock and Kira Thurman
“In moments of war and violence, it can be tempting to either downplay classical music’s involvement in global events or emphasize music’s power only when it is used as a force for what a given observer perceives as good,” write MIT Professor Emily Richmond Pollock and University of Michigan Professor Kira Thurman. “Insisting on a utopian, apolitical status for this art form renders us unable to see how even high culture is implicated in the messy realities of political and social life.”
Commentary at The New York Times | Related: NYTs: Ukrainians fill the streets with music

THE NEW YORKER
Classical music's iron curtain | Emily Richmond Pollock and Kira Thurman
The two musicologist/historians discuss national identity in the performing arts; the politics of blacklisting sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; the different ways that art and politics can mix; and the dangers of associating musical traditions with specific nationalities.
Interview at The New Yorker
 

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ECONOMICS
 

FREAKONOMICS RADIO
You make me feel like a natural experiment | Podcast with Nobel laureate Joshua Angrist
Angrist speaks about natural experiments, the Talmud, and his path to winning the 2021 Nobel Prize in Economics. “Natural experiments started to attract people like me, partly because it was interesting and fun," he reflects, "and we had the opportunity to actually say something concrete about the world.”
Listen to the episode

QUARTZ + FORBES
Study finds B-schools teach managers to keep wages low | Daron Acemoglu cited
A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research released March 28 revealed that managers with a business degree (in both the U.S. and Denmark) are not significantly better at running a company than those without one. They were, however, less prone to raise wages.
Story at Quartz | Story at Forbes

WGBH
Increasing health care access to immigrants | Jonathan Gruber
Gruber discusses his latest research on a program to increase health care access to immigrants in New York and how it could translate to Massachusetts.
Conversation at WGBH

WGBH
On the state of inflation | Jonathan Gruber
MIT economist Gruber weighs in on the state of inflation and how costs got so high in the first place.
Conversation at WGBH
 

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SOLVING CLIMATE

The CREWSnet project will initially be demonstrated in southwestern Bangladesh, serving as a model for similarly threatened regions around the world. The project team, which includes members of the SHASS-based J-PAL program, will develop forecasting technology to boost climate resilience by empowering underserved communities to minimize loss and plan for their futures.
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BOSTON BUSINESS JOURNAL
MIT to boost five projects in first Climate Grand Challenges competition | J-PAL
The Climate Grand Challenges kicked off in 2020 with a barrage of ideas. Almost 400 faculty members and senior researchers across 90% of MIT’s departments sent the university a combined 100 letters of interest. The SHASS-based J-PAL program is a member of the CREWSnet project selected as one of the five CGC Flagship teams.  
Story at Boston Business Journal

CLIMATE GRAND CHALLENGES
MIT announces five flagship Climate Grand Challenges projects
The portfolio of multiyear projects focuses on delivering breakthrough solutions. SHASS engagement on finalist and flagship teams includes faculty from Comparative Media Studies, Economics/J-PAL, Philosophy, and Political Science.
Learn more: CGC flagships, finalists, and SHASS engagement
 

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HISTORY

Cmdr. Manny Sanchez pins the Meritorious Service Medal on Chief Warrant Officer Jules Amores

STARS AND STRIPES
The last sailor retires | comments by Chris Capozzola
A Navy warrant officer retires with 30 years of service that began in the last class of Filipino recruits. Capozzola, head of MIT History, and author of Bound by War, provides historical background: “This program was a pipeline for ambitious, young, usually super-talented sailors to enlist directly into the U.S. Navy,” he said.
Story in Stars and Stripes | Bound by War, by Chris Capozzola
 

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CULTURE & COMMUNICATION

Illustration via The Atlantic

THE ATLANTIC
America is staring down its first "so what?" wave | comments by Stefan Helmreich
The United States could be in for a double whammy: a surge it cares to neither measure nor respond to. Nearly two years ago, David S. Jones, a science historian at Harvard and Helmreich, an anthropologist at MIT, warned that speaking of epidemics as waves casts them “as natural phenomena” — disasters that blow through us, in ways beyond our control. But the trajectory of an epidemic is actually “deeply shaped by human action, both before such disasters hit and as they are managed.”
Story at The Atlantic

THE NEW YORKER
What happens when 12,000 game developers converge? | comments by Ira Fay
As part of the Game Developers Conference, in San Francisco, Fay, an educational-game designer at MIT, gave a talk on teaching escape-room design. 
Story at The New Yorker

THE ATLANTIC
TikTok has a problem | comments by Michael Trice
Trice, a lecturer at MIT who is interested in the ways that platforms generate “amorality,” told me that the dogpiling on TikTok is a good example of what he calls the “bait and switch” of social media, where users feel as though they’re having one experience on an app but are actually creating a very different one for someone else.
Story at The Atlantic

THE WASHINGTON POST
Opinion: When will we stop failing our students? | Suzanne Flynn quoted
Flynn, a professor of linguistics and language acquisition in MIT Linguistics, has studied multilingualism for more than 30 years. She recently published a study in the journal Scientific Reports, and tells us that in the right setting, “There is no limit to the number of languages one can learn."
Story at The Washington Post | Suzanne Flynn
 

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SECURITY STUDIES


Destroyed theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, used as a bomb shelter; photo via Donetsk Regional Civil-Military Admn

THE WASHINGTON POST
Five books illuminate agony and uncertainty of civilians caught in wars | John Tirman
Tirman, the executive director and a principal research scientist for the MIT Center for International Studies, writes: "These authors reveal the anger and sadness of victims whose lives are forever changed by national leaders and political forces beyond their control." Tirman is the author of numerous books, including The Deaths of Others.
Commentary at The Washington Post | John Tirman

THE ECONOMIST
A debate about nuclear weapons resurfaces in East Asia | Richard Samuels
Soon after Putin’s invasion began, a former prime minister of Japan, Abe Shinzo, suggested that Japan should discuss hosting American nukes, as some countries do in Europe. Past attempts by Japanese politicians to raise the topic have been slapped down by establishment security experts. This time, notes Richard Samuels, the debate is more substantive. Samuels is the Ford Professor of Political Science, and director of the MIT Center for International Studies. 
Story at The Economist | Richard Samuels

THE WASHINGTON POST
U.S., U.K. and Australia expand cooperation on hypersonics | M. Taylor Fravel
“It demonstrates in no uncertain terms that AUKUS [defense alliance] is as much about advanced capabilities, as it is about submarines,” said Fravel, the Sloan Professor of Political Science and director of the MIT Security Studies Program. “In fact, cooperation in these advanced capabilities are going to be more important in the short to medium term.”
Story at The Washington Post  | M. Taylor Fravel
 

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PUBLICATIONS DIRECTORY 


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21 April 2022