Authors and Editors discuss topics, themes, and trends explored within the pages of MIT Press books and journals.
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In the first of four episodes in the MITP Open Access series, Travis Rich, PubPub co-founder and project lead, speaks with Edward Finn, founding director of the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University. They discuss Frankenbook—an open access digital version of the print edition of Mary Shelley’s masterpiece Frankenstein published by the MIT Press in 2017.
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Same-Sex Acts and The Origins of The National Security State, 1919–1921
Sherry Zane, Associate Director of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at the University of Connecticut, discusses her recent article, “’I did It for The Uplift of Humanity and The Navy’: Same-Sex Acts and The Origins of The National Security State, 1919–1921”, published in the June 2018 issue of The New England Quarterly.
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Mark Polizzotti translates authors from Patrick Modiano to Gustave Flaubert. In this episode, Polizzotti demystifies the process of translation and demonstrates its capacity for art. Beginning with the first translators, some 2,000 years ago--"traitors" who brought the Bible to the common public via translation--and illuminating the implications of contemporary machine translation, Polizzotti offers a riveting take on language and its elasticity. This conversation about Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto is, in interviewer Chris Gondek's words, much like the book itself a "discussion, a reframing, and a corrective."
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Carla Cevasco, Assistant Professor of American Studies at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, discusses her recent article, "This is My Body: Communion and Cannibalism in Colonial New England and New France." Her article was published in the December 2016 issue of The New England Quarterly.
Abstract:
Analyzing the material culture of English, French, and Native communion ceremonies, and debates over communion and cannibalism, this article argues that peoples in the borderlands between colonial New England and New France refused to recognize their cultural similarities, a cross-cultural failure of communication with violent consequences.
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This episode features an interview with MIT Press author Varun Sivaram about his new book Taming the Sun. Varun Sivaram is the Philip D. Reed Fellow for Science and Technology at the Council on Foreign Relations. He teaches “Clean Energy Innovation” at Georgetown University, is a Fellow at Columbia University's Center for Global Energy Policy, and serves on Stanford University's energy and environment boards. He has advised both the mayor of Los Angeles and the governor of New York on energy and was formerly a consultant at McKinsey & Co. He holds a PhD in condensed matter physics from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. PV Magazine called him “The Hamilton of the Solar Industry,” Forbes named him one of its 30 under 30, and Grist selected him as one of the top 50 leaders in sustainability.
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“…Using VR scent, touch, and sight to alter the subjective experience of taste is going to be very large project; not just an academic project but also for those in the food industry.”
Does feeling and smelling donuts in a Virtual Reality setting contribute to eating less and feeling fuller? In this episode, Jeremy Bailenson, Founding Director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University, discusses a study (recently published in Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments journal) that sought to explore the effects of haptic and olfactory cues through virtual food on human satiation and eating behavior. Bailenson also discusses the benefits and caveats to standalone consumer VR; the trend of high-end, location-based VR; reality-blurring (when a virtual memory gets mistaken for a physical one); and more.
Related Content:
- Presence article: “Exploring the Influence of Haptic and Olfactory Cues of a Virtual Donut on Satiation and Eating Behavior” by Benjamin J. Li and Jeremy N. Bailenson
- Book: Experience on Demand
