NOVEMBER 2023
MIT SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES, ARTS, AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
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NIGERIAN FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM AIMS TO TRANSFORM ENGINEERING EDUCATION
Empowering the Teachers spring 2022 cohort with MIT Professor Tayo Akinwande (center) at Killian Court. Photo: Yoav Danenberg
NIGERIAN FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM AIMS TO TRANSFORM ENGINEERING EDUCATION
Empowering the Teachers (ETT), a program launched at MIT in 2011 and coordinated through the Center for International Studies, is helping to change the face of engineering education in Nigerian universities.
RECENT WORKS AND RESEARCH
The secret to good schools: try, try again
Justin Reich's new book, "Iterate," explains how education gets better through incremental improvements.
Story at MIT News
Finding solidarity in the teachers' lounge
PhD candidate Elizabeth Parker-Magyar finds close workplace networks among educators drive their activism.
Story at MIT News
Who will benefit from AI?
Daron Acemoglu offers a vision of "machine usefulness" to help workers and spread prosperity.
Story at MIT News
Imagining the opera of the future
Professor Tod Machover's sci-fi opera, "VALIS," reboots at MIT for a new generation.
Story at MIT News
Davóne Tines (Horselover Fat/Philip K. Dick) and Kristin Young (Sophia) perform in “VALIS” at MIT. Photo: Maria Baranova
How to tackle the global deforestation crisis
Vital forest is cleared every day, with major climate effects. What can we do about it?
Story at MIT News
How to keep people out of the emergency room
A new study shows helping immigrants arrange primary care visits can lead to substantial drops in ER visits and costs.
Story at MIT News
Q&A: The BRICS expansion and the global balance of power
MIT political scientist Taylor Fravel examines the potential and limitations of a bigger BRICS group of countries—and what it means for the US.
Story at MIT News
Designing a revolution
MIT professor, students collaborate with Chilean partners for historic exhibition marking 50 years since Allende's presidency
Story at SHASS News
Have you heard about the "whom of which" trend?
An MIT student and linguistics professor spot an emerging English phrase and examine what it tells us about syntax — but questions remain.
Story at MIT News
IN MEMORIAM
MIT Professor Emerita Evelyn Fox Keller, a distinguished and groundbreaking philosopher and historian of science, died on Sept. 22, at age 87. Keller gained acclaim for her powerful critique of the scientific establishment’s conception of objectivity, which she found lacking in its own terms and heavily laden with gendered assumptions.
IN THE CLASSROOM
Left to right: Ishan Ganguly, Sara Modiano, Professor Bruno Perreau, Naomi Kirimi, Abraham Corea Diaz, and Nghi Nguyen.
In new French class, MIT students serve as jury members of US Goncourt Prize
MIT’s French+ Initiative was recently designated as a “Center of Excellence in French Studies” by the Embassy of France, during a 2022 campus visit by Philippe Etienne, then-ambassador of France to the United States.
AWARDS AND HONORS
J-WEL Grant Recipients
MIT researchers win grants to develop and test 14 ideas to improve education
The MIT Jameel World Education Lab has awarded $917,526 in Education Innovation Grants to support 14 research projects exploring a range of topics, including electrical engineering, extended reality, physical movement, and ecological sustainability.
Story at MIT News
MIT scholars awarded seed grants to probe the social implications of generative AI
Co-authored by interdisciplinary teams of faculty and researchers affiliated with all five of the Institute’s schools and the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, the proposals represent a sweeping array of perspectives for exploring the transformative potential of generative AI, in both positive and negative directions for society.
Story at MIT News
Anthropology professor Bettina Stoetzer wins 2023 Diana Forsythe Prize
Stoetzer won the award for her ethnography "Ruderal City: Ecologies of Migration, Race, and Urban Nature in Berlin."
Story at CASTAC
History professor Anne McCants awarded honorary doctorate from the School of Economics at Lund University
Since 2019, McCants has had a diverse collaboration and exchange with Lund University and the School of Economics.
Story at MIT History
SHASS STUDENT PROFILE: NICOLE WILSON
PhD student and political scientist Nicole Wilson examines the political behavior of an emerging middle class in Nigeria as it increasingly moves inside private enclaves. “Given these changes in where and how the middle class lives, I’m asking what the implications are on their engagement with the state, focusing on tax compliance and political participation,” says Wilson.
SHASS AROUND CAMPUS
Participants in the “Comedy & Embodiment” symposium held at MIT last month. Photo by Andrew Okyere.
Comedy & Embodiment: A Symposium
The two-day event took place at MIT’s Theater Building in September, and placed cutting-edge comedy scholarship and practice in a theatre and performance studies context. The event was organized by Maria De Simone, associate postdoctoral fellow with Music and Theater Arts. It was named a co-sponsored event by the American Society for Theatre Research.
IN THE MEDIA
Men on a motorcycle drive past burning tires during a demonstration a day after a gang attack on a police station that left six officers dead in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Jan. 26. Photo: Richard Perrin/AFP via Getty Images
The real intervention Haiti needs
History professor Malick Ghachem argues that smart monetary policy may get to the root of the country's crisis.
Story in Foreign Policy
The myth of Chinese diversionary war
Political Science professor M. Taylor Fravel reports that domestic turmoil won’t make Beijing launch an attack—but will make it more likely to react to external threats
Story in Foreign Affairs
How to wage war on conspiracy theories
Adam Berinsky, director of MIT's Political Experiments Research Lab, says we should be paying much more attention to people who answer that they’re “not sure” about a topic in surveys during this political season.
Story in Politico
War in Israel: Military and diplomatic analysis
Jim Walsh, senior research associate in the Security Studies Program, speaks with NPR's Here and Now about the Hamas attacks on Israel and the war's diplomatic implications.
Story in WBUR
UPCOMING EVENTS
- Music and Theater Arts Welcomes Steinway & Sons Residency
- Struggle Overcome: MIT Symphony Orchestra Concert
- Cuban Privilege: The Making of Immigrant Inequality in America
- Brian Jacobson, “Pipeline Media”
- Keith Jones and Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno: The William Corbett Poetry Series
- Beyond the Wire: US Military Deployments and Host Country Public Opinion
- Centering the Margins: Fight for Reproductive Justice and Body Sovereignty
- The People’s Poetry Archive: A poetry reading with John Murillo
- Climate Change: ‘Existential Threat’ or ‘Bump in the Road’?
- Dialogues Across Difference: Malick Ghachem
RESOURCES
We each face our own, ever-changing set of personal and work-related challenges and opportunities. These interactive webinars from MIT Human Resources can inform, inspire, and support you in this process, with research-based strategies, tips, and information to help you be better prepared for whatever life presents next.
We welcome your feedback! Contact Communications Officer Benjamin Daniel with your thoughts and input on Said & Done.
Published by SHASS Communications
Office of the Dean, MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
November 9, 2023
Benjamin Daniel, Communications Officer