Justin Casinghino

Stories in Wind: Justin Casinghino will talk about his compositions for wind quintet, including One Hen, which was recently featured on the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2013 Tanglewood Family Concert.

Date: Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Place: Lewis Music Library, Bldg. 14E-109
Time: 5-6 pm
Reception follows
Free and open to the public.

Sponsored by MIT Music and Theater Arts.

Don Byron (Photo: Dave Weiland)

Don Byron has written arrangements of Sondheim’s Broadway musicals and original scores for silent film, television, and dance companies. He has composed music for a variety of media, documentaries, big band, violin, piano and string quartets, etc.

Date: Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Place: Lewis Music Library, Bldg. 14E-109
Time: 5-6 pm
Reception follows
Free and open to the public.

Sponsored by MIT Music and Theater Arts.

Many of us used prefab programs to play games or do word processing, but the tinkerers among us wrote their own code, long and short, to explore what computers could do. Take this one-liner in BASIC language that Associate Professor of Digital Media Nick Montfort found in a magazine from the era: 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10. Run it on a Commodore 64 (or an emulator on your laptop today), and diagonal slashes fill the screen in a random way, building a pleasing maze that continues until interrupted.

Montfort posted 10 PRINT to an online Critical Code Studies conference in winter 2010. A lively discussion ensued among a dozen participants including MIT librarian Patsy Baudoin, who is liaison to the Media Lab and the Foreign Languages and Literatures department. Though the code is short and there’s not much known about its history, “it was obvious that there was plenty to say about it,” says Montfort. “However concise it was, it clearly connected computation to creativity, and to culture, in really intriguing ways.”

A few months after the conference, Montfort asked the 10 PRINT thread contributors to collaborate on a book exploring different aspects of culture—mazes in literature and religion, randomness and chance in games and art, the programming language BASIC, the Commodore 64 computer—through the lens of that one line of code.

The book, whose title is the code, was published in December by MIT Press. Besides Montfort and Baudoin, the authors include John Bell, Ian Bogost, Jeremy Douglass, Mark C. Marino, Michael Mateas, Casey Reas, Mark Sample and Noah Vawter. Though 10 PRINT is freely downloadable under a Creative Commons license, its first print run nearly sold out within a month. (This is another example of increased sales accompanying open access.) Royalties go to the Electronic Literature Organization, a nonprofit that promotes writing, reading, and teaching digital fiction and poetry.

Baudoin, the lone librarian of the group, has a PhD in comparative literature, which she says proved useful during the year-and-a-half collaboration. “I understood implicitly that exploring a concise line of computer code was like reading a short poem,” she says. “[As a graduate student] I wrote a 50-page paper on Catullus’s Odi et amo, a two-line Latin poem. In one sense, this line of code doesn’t appear to do a lot, but analyzed carefully, it speaks loudly.”

10 PRINT has a lot to say about a specific time. Though we can easily edit video, chat online, and play music on our laptops today, “when it comes to allowing people to directly access computation and to use that computing power for creative, expressive, and conceptual purposes, today’s computers, out of the box, are much worse” than those of 30 years ago, says Montfort. “I can type in and run the 10 PRINT program within 15 seconds of turning my Commodore 64 on. I can modify it and explore the program quite extensively within a minute. How long would it take you to produce any program like that after you started up your Windows 8 system?”

Montfort is quick to note that his interest in code like 10 PRINT is not nostalgia for a lost era; this, he says, trivializes important ideas in computer history. 10 PRINT itself is far from trivial, which is why Montfort, Baudoin and their coauthors found it a worthy book topic. “This type of program was written and run by millions in the 1980s on their way to a deeper understanding of computation,” he says.

Find 10 PRINT events under “Upcoming” at http://nickm.com.

See also: MIT News coverage of the book

Peter Whincop

Monday November 5, 2012
Peter Whincop, Lecturer in Music at MIT, teaches Electronic Music Composition. He will provide an exposition of a few of his works involving text, or voice in a more abstract context, based on simple perceptual and algebraic precepts.

Philippe Leroux

Thursday, November 15, 2012
Continuity and Gesture in the Music of Philippe Leroux

Philippe Leroux is an Associate Professor in composition at the Schulich School of Music, McGill University. At the Paris Conservatory he studied with Ivo Malec, Claude Ballif, Pierre Schäeffer and Guy Reibel; he also studied with Olivier Messiaen, Franco Donatoni, Betsy Jolas, Jean-Claude Eloy and Iannis Xénakis. His compositions, about sixty to date, include symphonic, vocal, electronic, acousmatic and chamber music. and have been commissioned and performed internationally. He has received many prizes and awards and has taught at IRCAM, McGill, Universite de Montreal and others.

Sponsored by the Music and Theater Arts Faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Date: Monday, October 29
Place: Lewis Music Library, Bldg. 14E-109
Time: 5-6 pm
Reception follows
Free and open to the public

Roger Reynolds (Photo: Malcom Crowthers)

Composer forum series: Roger Reynolds, Resource and Outcome. An illustrated presentation with performance (Gabriella Diaz, violinist).

Date: Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Place: Lewis Music Library, Bldg. 14E-109
Time: 5-6 pm
Reception follows
Free and open to the public

See more information.

Dr. Harris is music director of the MIT Wind Ensemble and Festival Jazz Ensemble. Listen to a Minnesota Public Radio interview,  see the book’s web site, or read a review.

Monday, February 13, 2012, noon
Lewis Music Library, 14E-109
For more information: 617-253-5636

When: Wednesday, November 16, 6:00 PM
Where: 14N-118, Institute Archives & Special Collections

Samuel Jay Keyser is Professor Emeritus in MIT’s Department of Linguistics and Philosophy and Special Assistant to the Chancellor. Since arriving at MIT in 1977 he has held positions with the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, the Center for Cognitive Science, the Provost, the Chancellor, and was the Housemaster at Senior House. In Mens et Mania Keyser shares experiences from his unique perspective and reflects on the culture and mystique of MIT.

Copies of Mens et Mania will be available for purchase and signing. Reception to follow.

authors@mit presents:
Jim Ottaviani
and his new graphic novel:
FEYNMAN

Please join us as we welcome Jim Ottaviani to the MIT campus to discuss his newest graphic novel.

Written by nonfiction comics mainstay Ottaviani and brilliantly illustrated by Leland Myrick, Feynman tells the story of the great man’s life from his childhood in Long Island to his work on the Manhattan Project and the “Challenger” disaster.

Presented by authors@mit, a lecture series co-sponsored
by the MIT Libraries & the MIT Press Bookstore.
Open to the public and wheelchair accessible. Join us!
Event Info: (617) 253-5249, or web.mit.edu/bookstore/www

It’s Alive!
A series of staged play readings by students
in collaboration with professional actors
curated by Anna Kohler, Senior Lecturer, MIT Music and Theater Arts
presents
Medea’s Nurse by Alan Brody

Bette Warren still lives in her own home although she knows she has the early symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. Her grandson, who has been away for ten years returns and this sets off a series of self discoveries for Betty, her daughter Charlotte, and Adam, her grandson.

Alan Brody is a Professor of Theater Arts at MIT.

Upcoming reading dates in the “It’s Alive” series: Thursdays, October 13 and November 17

Free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Lewis Music Library: 617-253-5636.

Monday, Sept.20 at 3pm in Killian Hall (14W-111)

Join us for a lively discussion and Q&A with Gioia De Cari from “Truth Values: One Girl’s Romp though MIT’s Male Math Maze,” an autobiographical solo show in which she reflects with wit and wisdom on her experience at MIT, the world of elite mathematics and the role of women in science.  The discussion will be followed by refreshments and a chance to win tickets to “Truth Values!”

This event is sponsored by the MIT Libraries in conjunction with “Tell her to go to it” an exhibit on women’s experiences at MIT. For more information about the exhibit see the gallery website, or contact maihaugen-lib@mit.edu.

Saša Stanišic

read from his new book

How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone

Tuesday, March 9th, 6:30pm in Room 32-141

Saša Stanišic is the 2010 Max Kade Writer in Residence in Foreign Languages and Literatures at MIT, co-sponsored by the DAAD and the MIT European Club.

The authors@mit lecture series is co-sponsored by the MIT Libraries and the MIT Press Bookstore. Additional support for this event is provided by Schoenhof’s Books.

Open to the public &  wheelchair accessible.

Event info: call (617) 253-5249 or visit web.mit.edu/bookstore/www/events/

Download: event flyer

In The Dawn of Green, Ritvo reveals how today’s environmental movement can be traced to Thirlmere, a bucolic reservoir in the English Lake District, and the 19th century battle around it that pitted industrial progress against conservation.

Ritvo is also the author of The Platypus and the Mermaid, and Other Figments of Classifying Imagination and The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age.

During her talk she will show materials used in her research and sign copies of her book.  This event is sponsored by the MIT Libraries’ Institute Archives & Special Collections, and the MIT History Faculty.  It is free and open to the public.

Please join authors@mit and the Humanities Library as Nicholas Ashford speaks on his book Environmental Law, Policy and Economics:  Reclaiming the Environmental Agenda.  Professor Ashford will show how environmental law cases have led to important legal, economic, and scientific developments, and how use of the law can stimulate technological change and industrial transformation.

“Ashford and Caldart have produced an extraordinary book sweeping across the scientific complexity, legal underpinnings, economic logic, and policy challenges of environmental protection…this book offers an indispensable foundation for those seeking to understand society¹s approach to environmental challenges.”

—Daniel C. Esty, Yale Law School

“Environmental Law, Policy, and Economics” is published by the MIT Press.

Nicholas Ashford is Professor of Technology and Director of the Technology and Law Program at MIT.

The book is co-authored by Charles C. Caldart, Director of Litigation of the National Environmental Law Center and a Lecturer in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT.

Where: MIT E51-145

When: Friday May 15th, 2009, 12:00-1:00 p.m.

The event is free and wheelchair accessible.

For more information, call call 253-5249, or email authors@mit.edu. See the MIT Press Bookstore’s “Events” page for a list of upcoming events.

German-Turkish poet and essayist Zafer Senocak will read from his book “Tursprachen/Door Languages.” The reading will be in both German and English, with translation provided by his translator Elizabeth Ochlkers Wright.

• When: Thursday April 2nd, 5pm
• Where: the MIT Humanities Library Reading Room (14S-200)

• Date: Sunday, March 15th, 2009
• Exhibit: 2PM – 5PM
• Talk: 3PM
• Where: Hayden Memorial Library (building 14S),
• Food: Light refreshments will be served

Quilt collector Heather Korostoff Murray introduces us to African-American improvisational quilts: the unique qualities of these extraordinary textiles, their possible African connections, and the stories behind their creators. The exhibit will feature twenty-five quilts from her collection, illustrating the key characteristics of the genre. Her slides come from quilt scholar and curator Eli Leon’s extensive collection. Leon has generously provided the slides to edify Murray’s audience about this special province of African-American quilt making. Murray’s talk will focus on the lives and work of eight significant African-American improvisational quilt makers, including striking examples from Leon’s collection.

Murray’s interests include the quilt makers themselves – their stories, inspirations and astonishing talents. Her talk incorporates the technical side of the quilts, as well as anecdotes of their inspiration.

Heather Korostoff Murray, Bio
Heather Korostoff Murray, a native Philadelphian and long-time admirer of traditional Bucks County quilts, stumbled upon her first African-American improvisational quilt while exploring online. This experience launched a passion for the genre that has quickly led to a considerable collection, and a desire to learn more about these spectacular textiles and their makers. She finds these distinctive quilts to have an almost palpable depth and melodic eloquence.

Sponsored by the MIT Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies, MIT Humanities Library and the Program in Women’s and Gender Studies

Please join authors@mit and the Humanities Library in celebrating the publication of Digital Apollo, the newest book by MIT’s David Mindell. “Digital Apollo” tells the story of how human pilots and automated systems worked together to achieve the ultimate in flight—the lunar landings of NASA’s Apollo program.

“Digital Apollo is an excellent and unique historical account of the lengthy and often pitched struggle of designers, engineers, and pilots to successfully integrate man and complex computer systems for the Apollo lunar landings. It brings back fond memories.”
—Edgar Mitchell, Sc.D.; Captain, USN (retired) Lunar Module Pilot, Apollo 14

About the book:
As Apollo 11′s Lunar Module descended toward the moon under automatic control, a program alarm in the guidance computer’s software nearly caused a mission abort. Neil Armstrong responded by switching off the automatic mode and taking direct control. He stopped monitoring the computer and began flying the spacecraft, relying on skill to land it and earning praise for a triumph of human over machine.

In “Digital Apollo”, engineer-historian David Mindell takes this famous moment as a starting point for an exploration of the relationship between humans and computers in the Apollo program. In each of the six Apollo landings, the astronaut in command seized control from the computer and landed with his hand on the stick. Mindell recounts the story of astronauts’ desire to control their spacecraft in parallel with the history of the Apollo Guidance Computer. From the early days of aviation through the birth of spaceflight, test pilots and astronauts sought to be more than “spam in a can” despite the automatic controls, digital computers, and software developed by engineers. Digital Apollo examines the design and execution of each of the six Apollo moon landings, drawing on transcripts and data telemetry from the flights, astronaut interviews, and NASA’s extensive archives.

Mindell’s exploration of how human pilots and automated systems worked together to achieve the ultimate in flight–a lunar landing–traces and reframes the debate over the future of humans and automation in space. The results have implications for any venture in which human roles seem threatened by automated systems, whether it is the work at our desktops or the future of exploration.

“Digital Apollo” is published by the MIT Press, 2008.

Visit the Digital Apollo website for more information about the book!

David A. Mindell is Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing, Professor of Engineering Systems, and Director of the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT. He is the author of “Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics” and “War, Technology, and Experience aboard the USS Monitor.”

Where: MIT 32-155, Stata Center

When: Thursday November 13th, 6:00pm

The event is free and wheelchair accessible.

For more information, call call 253-5249, or email authors@mit.edu. See the MIT Press Bookstore’s “Events” page for a list of upcoming events.

Please join authors@mit and the Humanities Library in welcoming Sherry Turkle as she introduces her newest book, “The Inner History of Devices”

In this volume, the third in a trilogy, Turkle combines memoir, clinical writings, and ethnography to draw new perspectives on the experience of technology. Her  personal stories illuminate how technology enters the inner life.

“What a remarkable book—as if it were a magic toolbox, out of this volume come objects with stories: cell phones, dialysis machines, defibrillators, websites, and much more. Using fieldwork, clinical
work, and memory work, Sherry Turkle and her terrific contributors make the material world a place of living meanings that tell a great deal about who we are—and who we are becoming. Even more: this is a
sophisticated book that is great fun to read.” —Peter Galison, Joseph Pellegrino University Professor, Harvard University

“The Inner History of Devices” is published by The MIT Press.

Sherry Turkle is Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT. Her previous books include “Falling for Science: Objects in Mind”, and “Evocative Objects: Things We Think With.”

Where: MIT 35-225, Sloan Laboratory Building

When: Thursday November 6th, 6:00pm

The event is free and wheelchair accessible.

For more information, call call 253-5249, or email authors@mit.edu. See the MIT Press Bookstore’s “Events” page for a list of upcoming events.

Please join us at The MIT Humanities Library as MIT’s Christopher Capozzola introduces his new book.

“Uncle Sam Wants You” tells the gripping story of the American homefront in World War I, revealing how the tensions of mass mobilization led to a significant increase in power in Washington, and made wartime America the scene of some of the nation’s most serious political violence.

“Uncle Sam Wants You” is published by Oxford University Press.

Christopher Capozzola is an Associate Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

This event is sponsored by authors@mit, a lecture series cosponsored by MIT Libraries and The MIT Press Bookstore.

Where: The MIT Humanities Library Reading Room (14S-200)

When: Wednesday September 24th, 5:30pm

The event is free and wheelchair accessible.

For more information, call call 253-5249, or email authors@mit.edu. See the MIT Press Bookstore’s “Events” page for a list of upcoming events.

In this lecture, Singer discusses how Bergman used philosophical ideas “in an extended sense” — not by including philosophical discussions in his films, but through his masterful use of cinematic technique to examine the particularities of human experience. Singer also describes how Bergman wove aspects of his own life’s story into his films, in intense and vivid ways.

Irving Singer is Professor of Philosophy at MIT. He is the author of Reality Transformed: Film as Meaning and Technique, Three Philosophical Filmmakers: Hitchcock, Welles, Renoir (both published by The MIT Press), and many other books.

This event was sponsored by authors@mit. For more information, call call 253-5249, or email authors@mit.edu. See the MIT Press Bookstore’s “Events” page for a list of upcoming events.

Join The Humanities Library for a discussion of the book that has literary circles buzzing. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Associate Professor in Writing and Humanistic Studies Junot Díaz, has been included on several year-end “best of” lists for fiction published in 2007. The discussion will be moderated by librarian Mark Szarko.

• When: Thursday January 24, 11am-12:00pm
• Where: 14N-417
• Cost: Free
• Contact: Mark Szarko (617-258-8022, szarko@mit.edu) to register, and for further details

The first 8 registrants will receive a free copy of the novel!

Please join authors@mit in welcoming Professor Irving Singer, as he speaks on his new book, Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher, just published by The MIT Press.

Known for their repeating motifs and signature tropes, the films of Ingmar Bergman also contain extensive variation and development. In these reflections on Bergman’s artistry and thought, Irving Singer discerns distinctive themes in Bergman’s filmmaking, from first intimations in the early work to consummate resolutions in the later movies. Singer demonstrates that while Bergman’s output was not philosophy on celluloid, it attains an expressive and purely aesthetic truthfulness that can be considered philosophical in a broader sense.  

Irving Singer is Professor of Philosophy at MIT. He is the author of Reality Transformed: Film as Meaning and Technique, Three Philosophical Filmmakers: Hitchcock, Welles, Renoir (both published by The MIT Press), and many other books. 

Where: The MIT Humanities Library Reading Room (14S-200)

When: Thursday November 15th, 6:00pm

The event is free and wheelchair accessible. 

For more information, call call 253-5249, or email authors@mit.edu.  See the MIT Press Bookstore’s “Events” page for a list of upcoming events.

Please join authors@mit in welcoming former MIT staffer Robin Lippincott back to MIT, as he reads from his 3rd novel, In the Meantime, just published by Toby press. 

Where:  The MIT Humanities Library Reading Room (14S-200)

When:  Tuesday October 16th, 6:00pm 

See the MIT Press Bookstore’s “Events” page for further details. 

Please join us as Professor William J. Mitchell presents his newest book. Imagining MIT is the image rich story of the decade long, billion-dollar building boom at MIT and how it produced major works of architecture by Charles Correa, Frank Gehry, Steven Holl, Fumihiko Maki, and Kevin Roche.

Professor Mitchell is the Alexander W. Dreyfoos Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences and directs the Smart Cities research group at MIT’s Media Lab.

Imagining MIT is published by The MIT Press, 2007.
This event is free and wheelchair accessible.

• Date: Monday April 30, 2007
• Time: 6:30pm
• Where: MIT 32-123, Kirsch Auditorium, Stata Center, 32 Vassar Street. Near the Kendall T Stop, Cambridge
• Cost: FREE!!!
• Parking is available
• Presented by: authors@mit (MIT Press Boostore, MIT Libraries)
• More Information: 617-253-5249, or books@mit.edu

Professor Mitchell is the Alexander W. Dreyfoos Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences and directs the Smart Cities research group at MIT’s Media Lab.

Imagining MIT is published by The MIT Press, 2007.
This event is free and wheelchair accessible.

• Date: Monday April 30, 2007
• Time: 6:30pm
• Where: MIT 32-123, Kirsch Auditorium, Stata Center, 32 Vassar Street. Near the Kendall T Stop, Cambridge
• Cost: FREE!!!
• Parking is available
• Presented by: authors@mit (MIT Press Boostore, MIT Libraries)
• More Information: 617-253-5249, or books@mit.edu

Download the video. (1 hour, 38 minutes) (606.4 Mb)

Placing Words: symbols, space, and the city: William Mitchell, 2005.

Download mp3. (1 hour, 11 minutes) (32.8 Mb)

For more information on this event, see authors@mit presents William Mitchell. To watch a video of this event, see the MIT World page. (streaming video)

Location: MIT 32-155, Stata Center, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge

Time: November 14 (Tuesday), 5:30 pm

This event is free and wheelchair accessible.

Cornell University Press, 2006

Diana E. Henderson is Professor of Literature at MIT. She is the author of
“Passion Made Public: Elizabethan Lyric, Gender, and Performance” and the
editor of “A Concise Companion to Shakespeare on Screen.”

This event is sponsored by authors@mit, a lecture series cosponsored by MIT
Libraries and The MIT Press Bookstore.

For more information call 253-5249, email authors@mit.edu, or check:
http://web.mit.edu/bookstore/www/events/

Read about Abani in the press release from the MIT Office of the Arts.

The Lewis Music Library is located in Bldg. 14E-109 and the event is free and open to the public.