MITPressLog

Award News - An Engine Not a Camera wins IPEG Book Prize

An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets is the winner of the IPEG Book Prize for 2007.  Sponsored by the British International Studies Association's International Political Economy Group, the IPEG Book Prize seeks to identify the best book published in political economy.  More information about this prize can be found at http://www.bisa.ac.uk/groups/18/bookprize.htm

Wednesday Blog Watch - Library Architecture

Are you a librophiliac?  The "Bagger" blog recently pointed us to a site which shows interior photographs of many of the world's most beautiful libraries.  Go to "Curious Expeditions" to view these photos and to see if you spy any MIT Press colophons on the book spines.  None of the MIT libraries are on the site, even though we're partial to the Barker Engineering Library under the great dome...
Have you visited your local library lately?  For more stories about library architecture, you might want to read Henry Hobson Richardson and the Small Public Library in America. Richardson was one of the more important architects of the library era in the 19th century.

Award News - Sweet Anticipation wins Berry Award

The Society for Music Theory has recently honored David Huron with the 2007 Wallace Berry Award.  Huron received this prestigious award for his book, Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation. The book explores the psychological theory of expectation proposed by Huron, which grew out of his experimental efforts to understand how music evokes emotions. The Wallace Berry Award is one of three awards presented by the Society for Music Theory for outstanding books or articles in English that constitute significant contributions to the field of music theory.

Award News - Effective Philanthropy wins Hodgkinson Prize

 Effective Philanthropy by Mary Ellen S. Capek and Molly Mead has been awarded the 2007 Virginia A. Hodgkinson Research Prize given by Independent Sector and Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action(ARNOVA).
The Hodgkinson Prize was established to recognize outstanding published research that fosters the understanding of philanthropy, voluntary action, charitable organizations, and civil society in the United States and around the world.

Tuesday at the Kitchen

If you are in New York tomorrow night, be sure to check out the panel discussion at The Kitchen: Re-Take: A Panel on Art and Appropriation with Judith Barry, Sarah Charlesworth, Richard Phillips and Anthony Huberman, moderated by Michael Newman.

This panel discussion examines the use of appropriation in contemporary art, considering the various approaches to appropriation adopted by three different generations of artists spanning the 1970s to today. The panel will be moderated by art historian and writer Michael Newman, the author of Richard Prince: Untitled (couple) recently published by Afterall Books.

Tuesday, November 27, 7pm
The Kitchen
512 West 19th Street (between 10th and 11th aves)
New York, NY 10011
$7

Wednesday Blog Watch - White Towers

Returning home for Thanksgiving can provoke a sense of nostalgia for old childhood places.  The MIT Press recently re-released White Towers, our classic illustrated title that traces the theme and variations in the highly recognizable architecture of the White Tower hamburger chain. 
The first White Tower opened in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921, and spread throughout the United States. More about the history (with photos) can be found here and here.  Read some nostalgic memories of the Camden, NJ White Towers here.  Listen to an audio episode about White Towers on "Engines of our Ingenuity". 
Where are these buildings now?  Many have been demolished, or now house pizza shops or diners.  A satellite image from GoogleMaps captures a perfect overhead shot of this old White Tower building in Baltimore - look at the shadow of the tower and the lights.  Here's another satellite shot of an ex-White Tower (now a falafel joint) in Cambridge, MA - the building looks like this today.
Also this beautiful set of photos taken by "psychorazine" on Flickr includes the old White Tower logo and look to be in this location in Dearborn, Michigan.  And here's another nice Flickr photo showing the distinctive font used by White Tower.
Finally, as Gothamist reports,

All New York locations of nickel hamburger chain White Towers, one-time fierce competitor of White Castle, whose waitresses donned bright starched nurse’s uniforms and caps to project an aura of food safety, have all been closed since the 1970’s. There are rumors that a few old White Towers buildings still exist in the South Bronx, likely repurposed a few generations over by other businesses since the 1970’s, but with their telltale towers intact, ghosts of the restaurant world.

Award News - By Force of Thought

 

"Intellectual autobiographies are rare in economics, and even rarer are autobiographies that show in such an evocative way where the ideas of economists come from. Kornai’s precision and sense for detail give the reader deep insight into the intellectual journey of one of the twentieth century’s most independent minds, and one of its most acute thinkers."

This weekend at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, the Ed A. Hewett Book Prize was awarded to János Kornai for By Force of Thought: Irregular Memoirs of an Intellectual Journey.

The AAASS Ed A. Hewett Book Prize, sponsored by the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research (NCEEER), is awarded annually for an outstanding publication on the political economy of the centrally planned economies of the former Soviet Union and East Central Europe and their transitional successors.  To read more about the prize, see the prize website. 

 

Award News - The New Environmental Regulation

Congratulations to Daniel Fiorino, who yesterday received the Louis Brownlow Award for his book The New Environmental Regulation. The Brownlow Award, described as the “top literary prize in public administration", is given annually by the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA).  The award is for an "outstanding example of a literary work that provides new insights, fresh analysis, and original ideas on a significant development, a government agency's performance, or another public administration or public policy topic."  The award is the namesake of distinguished administrator Louis Brownlow, who, during the Roosevelt era, chaired the Presidential Committee on Administrative Management, which strongly advocated strengthening the presidency and executive branch organizations to provide sufficient support for executive initiatives.

A Double Dose of Authors@MIT

Authors@MIT presesnts:

TONIGHT:

IRVING SINGER, professor of Philosophy at MIT, discusses his new book, Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher: Reflections on His Creativity

Thursday, November 15, 2007, 6:00pm
MIT 14S-200, Humanities Library Reading Room, 2nd floor, Hayden 
Memorial Library, 160 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
MAP

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.

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

TOMORROW:

Robert Barsky discusses his new book, The Chomsky Effect: A Radical Works Beyond the Ivory Tower

Friday, November 16, 2007, 5:30pm
MIT E51, Wong Auditorium, 70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
MAP

MIT Professor Noam Chomsky’s groundbreaking linguistic work and his  outspoken political critique inspire fanatical devotion and fierce vituperation--the contentious “Chomsky Effect.”  Please join us as  Chomsky biographer Robert Barsky, Professor of English, Comparative Literature,  French, and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University, examines his subject's positions on  a number of highly charged issues that illustrate the “Chomsky Effect,” and speaks more broadly about the powers and perils of engagement beyond the ivory tower.

Both events are free and wheelchair accessible.

For more information about either event call (617) 253-5249, email [email protected], or 
visit http://web.mit.edu/bookstore/www/events/

The Simplicity Shoe

Move over Air Jordans, world renowned graphic designer John Maeda has created Reebok's John Maeda custom shoe.  Finding inspiration in the third law (Time) from his book, The Laws of Simplicity, Maeda  collaborated with Reebok to bring us the Timetanium, marking one of the first times Maeda’s graphics have become 3-Dimensional.  Designed through a computer process using Maeda's mathematical alogrithms, the grapic adorns the outside of the shoe, while the original handwritten code is hidden on the shoe's lining.  Though it begins complex at the heel, the graphic evolves into a focused expression of simplicity at the toe creating an attractive visual design. 

The Reebok Timetanium is available now exclusively at the Reebok custom website for $150. But you better hurry, this release is limited to only 100 pairs. VIP samples have already been spotted on the feet of celebreties including Adrian Grenier, Dane Cook, and Zach Braff.

There's also an interesting video on YouTube about the project.