History

Prof. Emily Richmond Pollock speaks with Isaac Chotiner of The New Yorker about how some Western institutions have cancelled performances by Russian artists following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Some of the discussion of these issues has fallen into some old patterns of thinking that we as musicologists are alert to,” says Pollock, “and want to warn against, which includes reacting to these kinds of bans by insisting that music is apolitical, or that there’s something fundamentally and inherently apolitical about music, which is a really problematic and untrue statement, and a knee-jerk response.”

Prof. Emeritus Leo Marx, “a cultural historian whose landmark book exploring the pervasive intrusion of technology on nature helped define the field of American studies,” has died at age 102, reports John Motyka for The New York Times. Motyka writes that Marx was a “pioneer in an eclectic and still evolving quest to determine an American national identity.”

ABC News reporter Mary Kekatos speaks with Prof. Kate Brown about concerns surrounding Russian troops’ recent seizure of the Chernobyl nuclear plant. “Conventional war and nuclear power are not a good combination,” says Brown. “Nuclear power requires security, stability and peace. It’s a tall order.”

Carol R. Saivetz, a senior advisor for MIT’s Security Studies Program, speaks with NBC Boston about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “The claims that this was all about NATO expansion are really false,” says Saivetz. “I think it’s much more about Putin’s imperial ambitions and this whole idea that unless he can put back together the Soviet Union that somehow Russia is not a great power.”

Prof. Kate Brown speaks with Verge reporter Justine Calma about the potential implications of fighting in the containment zone around Chernobyl. “It’s a continuing problem,” Brown says. “It’s supposed to be contained. It’s supposed to be left untouched. And that’s the problem with any kind of nuclear site. It demands stability and peace.”

Robert C. Hayden, a former MIT postdoc and staff member and a prolific author who “wanted people to learn about everyone who contributed to Black history, not just the celebrated figures,” died on Jan. 23, reports Bryan Marquard for The Boston Globe. “Mr. Hayden wrote more than 20 publications about Black history and culture, often highlighting previously overlooked achievements in scientific research, technology, and medicine,” writes Marquard.

An international team of scholars, including MIT researchers, has published a new study exploring the history and use of letterlocking, reports William J. Broad for The New York Times. The researchers note that they hope their work prompts “novel kinds of archival research, and allows even very well-known artefacts to be examined anew.”

Researchers from MIT and other institutions have successfully uncovered the letterlocking technique that Mary, Queen of Scots, used to seal her final letter, reports NPR’s Tien Le. “The spiral lock requires more than 30 steps and involves cutting out a ‘lock,’ often resembling a dagger or sword, out of the blank margin of the letter,” writes Le. “The lock acts as a needle and is sewn through the letter after folding it.”

An international team of researchers has found that Mary, Queen of Scots, used a complicated paper-folding technique called letterlocking to conceal the contents of her final letter, reports Alison Flood for The Guardian. MIT Libraries Conservator Jana Dambrogio explains that working on Mary's last letter “and figuring out its unique spiral lock was thrilling as a researcher – and a real a-ha! moment in the study of letterlocking.”

Prof. Malick Ghachem speaks with NBC News reporter Corky Siemaszko about the assassination of Jovenel Moïse, the president of Haiti. “The question to ask at this time of tragedy for the Moïse family is not whether Jovenel Moïse was a true statesman or would-be despot,” says Ghachem. “Haiti has been locked in a worsening spiral of political instability since the 2010 earthquake that deteriorated drastically under the Martelly and Moïse governments.”

Writing for The Washington Post, Prof. Christopher Capozzola investigates how for the Philippines, independence from the U.S. did not mean national sovereignty. “On this Fourth of July, as Americans celebrate our own independence, it’s worth recalling the moments in our past when we have failed to support the independence of others,” Capozzola writes.

Prof. Christopher Capozzola speaks with Bob DeCastro of Good Day LA about the campaign to name a U.S. Navy Warship after Fireman 2nd Class Telesforo Trinidad, the only American national of Asian and Filipino descent to have received a Congressional Medal of Honor. “I think in some ways, there’s no better tribute to the century of work that Filipinos sailors did to keep the ship going than to name one of our ships after one of the most heroic Filipino sailors that we know,” says Capozzola.

The Economist spotlights how MIT researchers created a virtual technique to decipher the contents of a letter that was sealed 300 years ago. The letter was originally sealed by its sender using the historical practice of securing correspondence called letterlocking. The new virtual technique “seems to hold plenty of promise for future research into a fascinating historical practice.”

A new imaging technique created by researchers from MIT and other institutions has been used to shed light on the contents of an unopened letter from 1697, writes Matt Simon for Wired. “With fancy letterlocking techniques, you will forcibly rip some part of the paper, and then that will become detectable,” says Prof. Erik Demaine, of the method used to seal the letter.

Guardian reporter Alison Flood explores the new technique created by MIT researchers to virtually unseal an unopened letter written in 1697. The researchers, “worked with X-ray microtomography scans of the letter, which use X-rays to see inside the document, slice by slice, and create a 3D image,” writes Flood.