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Said and Done for September 2011

The humanities, arts and social sciences monthly digest
The school welcomes new Mellon Fellows
Caption:
The school welcomes new Mellon Fellows
Dr. Joseph Aoun PhD '82 to give the Muh Alumni Award Lecture
Caption:
Dr. Joseph Aoun PhD '82 to give the Muh Alumni Award Lecture

Said and Done is the monthly, photo-rich publication from MIT's School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, integrating feature articles with news, research and events to give you a distilled overview of the school's endeavors. For the complete edition, visit Said and Done. This month's highlights include:

Audio slideshow: The Kuna Celebrations
James Howe, MIT Professor of Anthropology, has spent more than forty years working and collaborating with the Kuna, an indigenous people of Panama. In this audio slide show Howe tells the story of how a Kuna village prepares for and conducts a great communal celebration—an event that can last up to four days, and embodies the Kuna's important values, beliefs, and ways of life.
View audio slideshow

Does America need manufacturing?
For several decades, many American companies found that "offshoring" their industrial work could raise profits. But the situation is now changing. In a New York Times' article, MIT Professor of Political Science Suzanne Berger says "We’re seeing a wave of new technologies in energy, biotechnology, batteries, where there has to be a closer integration between research, development, design, product definition and production.”
Article in The New York TimesMIT PIE

Video: The Perfect Oyster
A great short piece about restoring natural oyster reefs in coastal waters—and why that matters for healthy oceans. Produced by talented students in the School's Graduate Program in Science Writing.
Watch video

Wheaton proposes a mortgage fix for U.S. lenders and homeowners: shared equity
Bill Wheaton, MIT Professor of Economics, and Kenneth Rogoff, of Harvard University, suggest that the "government facilitate mortgage write-downs in exchange for claims on a percentage of future appreciation–potentially making it a win not only for homeowners who owe more on their homes than their properties are worth, but also a win for lenders and investors who would eventually be repaid for giving borrowers a break."
Read how it could work in Fortune Finance

School welcomes new faculty
The School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences is pleased to present the newest members of the faculty. A warm welcome to these superb scholars: Sasha Costanza-Chock, CMS; Lerna Ekmekcioglu, History; Hiromu Nagahara, History; Lucas Stanczyk, Political Science; Teppei Yamamoto, Political Science
Bio notes and photographs

Two new Mellon Fellows for 2011-2013
With the generous support of the Mellon Foundation, the School awards two fellowships each year to promising young scholars working at the intersection of humanities disciplines, or between humanities and other disciplines. We are delighted to welcome two new Mellon Postdoctoral Fellows for 2011-2013—Hye Jean Chung and Gretchen Henderson—and to welcome back the Mellon Fellows for 2010-2012, Chuong-Dai Vo and Amaranth Borsuk.
Bio notes and photographs

Chomsky to speak in the Boston Review Ideas Matter Forum Series
Thursday, September 22, 4:30-6pm, MIT Tang Center  | Noam Chomsky will discuss “The Responsibility of Intellectuals,” revisiting the controversial topic he first addressed in 1967.  The Chomsky event kicks off the second year of the Ideas Matter lecture series, a joint project of Boston Review and the MIT Political Science Department.
More about the Ideas Matter series

Dr. Joseph Aoun PhD '82 receives the Robert A. Muh Alumni Award
Wednesday, October 26, 2011, 5 pm | Bartos Theater, 20 Ames Street, Building E15  | Dr. Joseph E. Aoun, PhD ' 82 Linguistics, and President of Northeastern University, has received the 2011 Muh Alumni Award in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. President Aoun will give a lecture entitled "The Future of American Higher Education in the Global Knowledge Marketplace." The lecture and a reception, immediately following, are open to the public.
More

Lépinay gives an insider view of investment banking
In Codes of Finance, Vincent Lépinay, MIT Assistant Professor in Science, Technology and Society, gives an insider account of investment banking, and the high-risk trades that can spin out of control. A call for reshaping financial innovation. “It’s an excellent book,” says William Maurer, chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of California at Irvine. “There are few people who’ve had the kind of access he was able to secure, at the moment of formation of a financial instrument that was central to the meltdown in 2008."
Story by Peter Dizikes at MIT News

Bookshelf
The research of MIT's School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences appears principally in the form of books and publications, as well as music and theater productions. These gems of the School provide new knowledge and analysis, innovation and insight, guidance for policy, and nourishment for lives.
Take a look

Said and Done | September 2011 | Complete Edition



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