MIT: Colloquia of possible interest

1. Communications Forum | Oct 25th, 5:00 PM |
37-252
Why I Write Poems
Linda Gregerson

Linda Gregerson will discuss her new book of poems,
The Selvage,
and her calling as a poet and professor of Renaissance literature in conversation with Forum Director David Thorburn and members of the audience.

A 2007 National Book Award finalist and a recent Guggenheim Fellow, Linda Gregerson is the Caroline Walker Bynum Distinguished University Professor of English
Language and Literature at the University of Michigan, where she teaches creative writing and Renaissance literature. She is the author of four books of poetry and two books of criticism. Gregerson's poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, Granta, The Paris Review, The Kenyon
Review, The Best American Poetry, and many other journals and anthologies. Among her honors and awards are an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award
in Literature, the Kingsley Tufts Award, four Pushcart Prizes, grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, Mellon, and Bogliasco Foundations,
the National Endowment for the Arts, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Poetry Society of America, and the National Humanities Center.

2. Communications Forum | Nov 1st, 5:00 PM |
E14-633
Digitizing the Culture of Print: The Digital Public Library of America and Other Urgent Projects
Robert Darnton, John Palfrey, and Susan Flannery

3. October 26                "The Stuff of Romance: Lyric Materialities and the Old French Romance Tradition"
                                      Emma Dillon, University of Pennsylvania
Note: not much info, but refer to http://history.mit.edu/content/ancient-and-medieval-studies-speaker-series

4. Colloquium | Nov 8th, 5:30 PM |
32-155
Finer Fruits: Experiment in Life and Play at Walden
Tracy Fullerton
Sponsored by the Purple Blurb series. Note time.

Walden, a game, is an experiment in play being made about an experiment in living. The game simulates Henry David Thoreau's experiment in living a simplified
existence as articulated in his book Walden. It puts Thoreau’s ideas about the essentials of life into a playable form, in which players can take on the role of Thoreau, attending to the “meaner” tasks of life at the Pond—providing themselves with food, fuel, shelter and clothing—while trying not to lose
sight of their relationship to nature, where the Thoreau found the true rewards of his experiment, his "finer fruits" of life. The game is a work in progress,
and this talk will look closely at the design of the underlying system and the cycles of thought that have gone into developing it. It will also detail
the creation of the game world, which is based on close readings of Thoreau’s work, and the projected path forward for the team as we continue our sojourn
in experimental in play.

Tracy Fullerton, M.F.A., is an experimental game designer, professor and director of the Game Innovation Lab at the USC School of Cinematic Arts where she holds the Electronic Arts Endowed Chair in Interactive Entertainment. The Game Innovation Lab is a design research center that has produced several influential independent games, including Cloud, flOw, Darfur is Dying, The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom, and The Night Journey -- a collaboration with media artist Bill Viola. Tracy is also the author of "Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games," a design textbook in use at game programs worldwide.

Reinterpretations

You may have already seen this story about the kid who, after losing a leg to bone cancer, was participating in a race when his prosthetic leg broke, and a nineteen-year-old Marine who was volunterring ran over, picked him up, and carried him tot he finish line
http://abcnews.go.com/US/florida-cancer-survivor-11-broken-prosthetic-crosses-finish/story?id=17446320#.UIG6sqB0Tng

At first, I dismissed this story as just another of the seemingly unending sentimental stories in which an able-bodied person is a hero for helping out a pathetic disabled person.

But then I reconsidered, because this year is all about breaking out of bad habits and improving the way I experience the world. So here are three things I really like about this story.

1. The Marine instinctively knew that, when a buddy falls, you pick him up and complete the mission. Wouldn't it be a cool thing if we all did that for each other?

2. When the kid said "Put me down," the Marine put the kid down. A lot of times, not helping in order that someone else can learn something or do something on his own is harder than quote helping unquote so that you can feel better about yourself.

3. The kid decided that he was going to finish this race and rethought allowing the Marine to assist him in attaining that goal. Sometimes it's difficult to let people help out, especially if you are a person with a disability, because there is this myth that able-bodied people are completely self-reliant and never need help with anything. Riiiiight. From the moment we wake up in the morning and turn on the lights, make coffee, and brush our teeth, we've already relied on about a thousand people for the electricity, the running water, and the waste disposal. We rely on the people who drive the buses and the trains, the kid who sells us coffee and a breakfast pastry, the folks at the factory who bottle our soda or water...how many people do we rely on in a single twenty-four hour period? A hundred, a thousand? Like the guy said, "Dude, no man is an island."

Oh, yeah, the fourth thing

Sometimes your tech completely fails; be ready to improvise a no-tech solution.

For those interested in book history, early geek history, and steampunk

Wednesday, October 24, 5:30 P.M.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Institute Archives Reading Room, Hayden Library
Building 14N-118 MIT. Light refreshments will be served

To find Building 14, go to the campus map at http://whereis.mit.edu/ and type in "14N"


As there are two parts to this event an RSVP will be appreciated.

Email to: Tom Michalak @cruikshank1@comcast.net or phone 781-729-9052

MAGNETIC RESONANCE: Four Centuries of Science from the Vail Collection

Gallery tour in Maihaugen Gallery, led by Stephen Skuce, Rare Books Program Coordinator.

The Vail collection, presented to MIT in 1912 by Theodore Vail, president of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and MIT Corporation member from 1913-1920, contains many early works on magnetism, telecommunications, electricity, ballooning, aeronautics, and animal magnetism. The collection spans the late 15th century to the early 20th, and includes important landmarks in the history of science and technology, as well as popular works and some juvenilia. The collection comprises roughly 13,000 volumes and was assembled by George Edward Dering, a reclusive but prolific British inventor who died in 1911. Mr. Vail purchased Dering's library, and donated it to MIT.

The exhibit features scientific classics, copies inscribed by notable scientists, a selection of late-19th century publisher's bindings, works relating to Franz Anton Mesmer and animal magnetism, and volumes that belonged to Mr. Dering, the collector, as a youth.

The Archives Reading Room, adjacent to the gallery, will be open and the Vail Cataloging team will be showing additional rare books.

The Vail Collection tour will be followed by a visit to the Wunsch Conservation Lab, led by Nancy Schrock, Thomas J. Peterson Jr. Conservator, who will showcase rare books from the Vail Collection and examples of conservation treatments.