Researching history in the MIT archives is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, according to junior Jupneet Singh. “You get a name from here, a picture from here” and you begin to piece together stories about people from the past, says Singh, who has been diving into the archives this spring for class 21H.S04 (South […]
Category: History
Auto Added by WPeMatico
Bringing “cultural diplomacy” to the classics
People often put national boundaries around the written word. If you read French poetry or Victorian novels, it is tempting to understand those texts strictly in relation to the history and culture of France or Britain. Yet it often helps to take a wider view about literary production. Consider that for many centuries, Chinese provided […]
Professor Emeritus Leo Marx, influential scholar of American history, dies at 102
Leo Marx, internationally famed scholar of American history and founding member of MIT’s Program in Science, Technology, and Society (STS), died on March 8 at his home in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. He was 102. Respected and beloved as a scholar, teacher, colleague, and friend, Marx provided decisive leadership in giving the humanities […]
Embracing ancient materials and 21st-century challenges
When Sophia Mittman was 10 years old, she wanted to be an artist. But instead of using paint, she preferred the mud in her backyard. She sculpted it into pots and bowls like the ones she had seen at the archaeological museums, transforming the earthly material into something beautiful. Now an MIT senior studying materials […]
With new industry, a new era for cities
Kista Science City, just north of Stockholm, is Sweden’s version of Silicon Valley. Anchored by a few big firms and a university, it has become northern Europe’s main high-tech center, with housing mixed in so that people live and work in the same general area. Around the globe, a similar pattern is visible in many […]
Understanding the war in Ukraine
MIT’s Security Studies Program (SSP) presented a special seminar on March 2 entitled, “Understanding the War in Ukraine.” Over 100 alumni and affiliates in far-flung locations tuned in to hear the seminar during a livestream presentation, which featured commentary by four experts in this realm. Participants in the discussion included two MIT professors of political […]
Q&A: Elizabeth Wood on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
In its first days, Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine in late February has been met with substantial resistance. It has also created civilian casualties, a refugee crisis, a global movement to sanction Russia, and intense concern among observers around the world. MIT News asked Elizabeth Wood, professor of history at MIT and author of the […]
A revolution in learning
To understand a country, it helps to know its schools. To grasp Mexico, MIT historian Tanalís Padilla believes, that means learning about its rural “normales,” teacher-training schools with outsized historical influence on the country’s politics. This might seem surprising. At its height, the system of rural normales consisted of only 35 such boarding schools, scattered […]
Eddie Glaude Jr.: “We must run toward our fears”
At this year’s annual MIT celebration of the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr, keynote speaker Eddie S. Glaude Jr., the James S. Donnell Distinguished University Professor at Princeton University, invoked King’s memory in an impassioned appeal for confronting the realities of the United States’ history and the country’s racist beliefs and actions, […]