Multimedia Archive 2005

Stories from the School—
in 02139 and around the globe.

"firetruck" on top of MIT dome, prank

There Hack They

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

Leo Marx

Jay Gatsby and the Myth of American Origins

America’s supreme economic, political and military power in the world is matched, says Leo Marx, by “correspondingly ardent, patriotic, nationalistic …thinking of a large number of Americans, dedicated to the idea of America’s unique, divinely ordained role in the world." But this “amalgam of Christian fundamentalist religion and dogmatic patriotism is…deeply rooted in our history,” he continues.
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