MITPressLog

Alphabet City Festival

If you are in Toronto this weekend, visit the Alphabet City Festival. This year's theme is water, which coincides with the newly published book. 

The festival will include gallery exhibitions, a book launch and signing, and performances.

Mataric in the New Yorker

This week's New Yorker features a lengthy profile of Maja Matarić, USC computer science professor and author of The Robotics Primer. New Yorker writer Jerome Groopman writes about Matarić's work with stroke and Alzheimer’s patients and autistic children. She and her lab are trying to design machines that can engage directly with such patients and encourage both physical and cognitive rehabilitation.

This excerpt from Groopman's piece shows how human interaction with robots has progressed light years from the Star Wars-Isaac Asimov images that many of us still carry around in our heads:

A woman I will call Mary, a schoolteacher in Los Angeles, suffered a stroke in 2001, when she was forty-six. She spent six months working with a physical therapist at the U.S.C. Medical Center to regain strength in her weakened right arm and leg, before taking part in Matarić’s study. I watched a videotape of her session with Matarić. Mary, who was dressed in a white blouse and dark slacks, shuffled slowly to a desk stacked with magazines. There was a shelf nearby, set above shoulder level. She looked at the robot, several feet away, and waved to it. “Come over here,” she said warmly.

The robot, which was three feet high and looked a little like R2-D2, in “Star Wars,” scooted close to her and stopped. “Very good,” Mary said.

Set on a mobile base with rotary wheels, the robot could turn in any direction and move around the room, guided by sonar. It tracked Mary’s movement with a scanning laser range finder; a pan-tilt-zoom camera allowed it to look at Mary, turn away, or shake its head. A speaker, embedded in the robot’s side, produced prerecorded speech and sound effects.

Glancing at the robot, Mary lifted a magazine from the top of the pile and guided it into a rack on top of the shelf. As soon as the magazine was in place, the robot emitted a beep. During the next few minutes, Mary moved each magazine, one by one, to the rack. Gradually, she increased her pace, and the beeps from the robot came faster. Mary began to laugh.

The whole thing's fascinating - read it here. Dying to know more about the book? Dig the video!

Journalist Amira Hass wins IWMF Lifetime Achievement Award

Israeli journalist Amira Hass (author of Reporting from Ramallah) is best known for her reports on Palestinian affairs in the West Bank and Gaza - and for living in those places while writing about them. She was recently honored with a lifetime achievement award from International Women's Media Foundation:

For almost 20 years, Amira Hass has written critically about both Israeli and Palestinian authorities. A reporter and columnist for Ha’aretz Daily, she has demonstrated her ability to defy boundaries of gender, ethnicity and nationality in her pursuit of the truth in her reporting. In covering the Palestinian Occupied Territories, her goal has been to provide her readers with detailed information about Israeli policies and especially that of restrictions of the freedom of movement. For many years, she made her home first in Gaza City and then in Ramallah.

Watch Hass's acceptance speech here, or read more about her and the award in The Guardian, Huffington Post, or Democracy Now!.

Special Issue of Innovations

In conjunction with the clean energy address that President Obama is delivering at MIT today, MIT Press is releasing essays from the soon to be published fall special issue of Innovations journal on energy and climate solution. The pre-released essays are authored by White House Science Adviser John Holdren, 2005 Nobel Laureate in Economics Thomas Schelling, and the Director of MIT’s Washington office, William Bonvillian.

 

In his introducing to the special issue, Holdren states that the forthcoming publication is “as thorough a survey of energy and climate solutions as has yet been compiled.” Of the climate challenge, he writes:

 

“Without energy, there is no economy. Without climate, there is no environment. Without economy and environment, there is no material well-being, no civil society, no personal or national security. The overriding problem associated with these realities, of course, is that the world has long been getting most of the energy its economies need from fossil fuels whose emissions are imperiling the climate that its environment needs.”

 

Schelling, a leader in the study of climate change for over three decades, advances a new proposal for international coordination. Writing with reference to next month’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, Schelling states,

“Among the ideas that I do not believe will get serious attention in Copenhagen is one I see as critical to addressing the climate challenge: creating a new institutional structure to coordinate assistance from advanced industrialized countries to developing countries with the objective of transforming the way that people in the developing world produce and utilize energy.”

 

Bonvillian’s essay, co-authored with GeorgetownUniversity’s Charles Weiss, summarizes and advances the core arguments presented in the authors’ MIT Press book title Structuring an Energy Technology Revolution. Bonvillian and Weiss argue that the transformation of the energy technology infrastructure represents an unprecedented challenge for policy-makers as well as for technological innovators:

“Where complex technology sectors like energy are involved, we need to have Congress legislate standard packages of incentives and support across common technology launch areas, so that some technology neutrality is preserved and the optimal emerging technology has a chance to prevail.”

 

The Director of the MIT Press, Ellen Faran, states that “The Innovations special issue reflects the commitment of MIT and the MIT Press to promote innovative solutions to global issues and to encourage the widest dissemination of its scholarship.”

 

Sample articles from the issue follow below. Members of the media wishing to see an advance copy of the issue should contact: [email protected].

How Low Can They Go?

Target enters the book price war with Amazon and Walmart. The New York Times reports today that Target matched online prices with Walmart's $8.99 for the top 10 pre-ordered books, which prompted Walmart to lower its price to $8.98.

In the article, Barbara Kingsolver said, “Obviously, authors don’t own our physical books, just the words inside, so we have no control over how they’re sold.” She added, “But we can ask our readers to consider how much they value their local bookstores. If this price war is another way of using volume discounts to put independent booksellers out of business, then every thoughtful reader is going to lose in the long run.”

Any guesses on how low these prices will go?

On the Road: Abdellah Taïa

Best-known as "the only openly gay man in Morocco", the Moroccan writer Abdellah Taïa kicks off his first  US tour today, in support of his autobiographical novel Salvation Army.

Hailed by Edmund White as a "brilliant young writer", Taïa's novel and short stories have earned him recognition in France, where he now resides. Salvation Army was recently translated into English and published by Semiotext(e). It is both naive and cunning, funny and moving, and exposes the complex melange of fear and desire projected onto Arabs by the west.

Tour dates:

Oct 20, New York NY, 12:30-2:00pm:
Lecture in French: La Naïda: Une «Movida» Marocaine
Institute of French Studies at NYU
15 Washington Mews, New York, NY 10003

Oct 21, Brooklyn NY, 7:30-9:30pm:
An evening with Bidoun and Semiotext(e): A screening of outsiders' Visions of Morocco, introduced by Addellah Taïa
Light Industry
220 36th Street, 5th Floor, Brooklyn NY 111232

Oct 22, New York NY, 12:00-2:00pm:
Lecture in English: "Moroccan Literature in French"
Maison Francaise at Columbia University, Buell Hall2960 Broadway, New York, NY 10027

Oct 23, Cambridge MA, 2:00-4:00pm:
Lecture in English: "Moroccan Fiction: Problems of Gender and Translation"
Harvard University, Barker Center, Room 133
Cambridge, MA 02138

Oct 26, Los Angeles CA, 4:30pm:
Lecture in English by Abdellah Taïa
UCLA, Royce Hall 236
340 Royce Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90095

Oct 27, Los Angeles CA, 8:00pm:
Rockypoint Press present a Book Party for Salvation Army: Readings by Abdellah Taïa and Veronica Gonzalez
China Art Objects
933 Chung King Road
Los Angeles, California 90012
213 613 0384

Oct 29, Los Angeles CA, 8:30pm:
Life As We Show It: Writing on Film, with Rebecca Brown, Myriam Gurba, Abdellah Taïa and Masha Tupitsyn
RedCat
631 W 2nd St. Los Angeles, CA 90012

Nov 1, San Francisco CA, 5:00pm:
Abdellah Taia reading from Salvation Army
City Lights Bookstore
261 Columbus Ave., San Francisco, CA, 94133

Nov 2, Berkeley CA, 5:00-7pm:
Lecture in English—"The Invention of the Moroccan "I" and Gay Writing"
Berkeley University, 4229 Dwinelle Hall, French Dept Library
Berkeley, CA 94720

Nov 5, New York NY, 7pm:
Semiotext(e) Party for Penny Arcade's Bad Reputation, Abdellah Taia's Salvation Army, and Jean-Luc Hennig's The Little Black Book of Griselidis Real, translated by Ariana Reines. Arcade, Taia and Reines will read and perform from these books, hosted by Semiotexte co-editor Chris Kraus.
Bluestockings
172 Allen St.
New York, NY 10002

Nov 11, Coral Gables FL, 6:30pm:
Abdellah Taia reading from Salvation Army
Books & Books, Coral Gables
265 Aragon Avenue, Coral Gables, FL 33134

Japanese Aesthetics

The Japanese lunchbox aesthetic is catching on in the US, according to this article in the New York Times. But how did such an aesthetic come about in Japan? The New York Times editors asked four experts, including John Maeda (The Laws of Simplicity), for their theories on why so much value is placed on aesthetics in Japan.

Of course, we have more answers in our book The Aesthetics of the Japanese Lunchbox by Kenji Ekuan, who in 1998 introduced his "lunchbox theory" as the key to understanding Japanese civilization.

Mary Flanagan Talks Radical Game Design

In our newest podcast, Critical Play author, Mary Flanagan talks with Chris Gondek about the history and the future of radical game design. 

To listen to this, or any of our other recent interviews, visit our podcast page. 

Loading Dock Sale

It supposed to be chilly this weekend.  Need a good book to curl up with?  If so, you are in luck!  Great bargains can be found this weekend from 10:00 am to 7:00 pm at the MIT Press Loading Dock Sale at the MIT Press Bookstore.

Literally *tons* of books will be on sale at drastically reduced prices--up to 90% off their original retail price. Come enjoy HUGE SAVINGS on:

• MIT Press overstock
• damaged books (minor scratches and dings)
• out-of-print MIT Press books
• journals back-issues
• other publisher's overstock

Saturday - "no-book-dealers" day
Saturday will be the "no-book-dealers" day that many of you have requested. MIT or other University id will be required for admittance. One additional guest admitted per id. There will be a 40 book per purchaser limit. We reserve the right to refuse admittance to anyone purchasing for resale. Anyone using digital devices to scan books will be presumed a reseller and will be asked to leave.

Sunday - "open-to-all" day
Sunday will be the "open-to-all" day. All are welcome, no purchasing limits. The tables will be fully restocked before the start. We reserve the right to eject any person behaving in an uncivil manner.

If you have any concerns, suggestions, or questions please email us at [email protected]. We're always trying to make the sale a better experience and thus we welcome all feedback.

 

Award News - AIGA 50 Books / 50 Covers

Congratulations are in order once again for our designer Emily Gutheinz, whose design for the book Camps was chosen for this year's "50 Books / 50 Covers" design competition sponsored by the AIGA.

Camps also won a Best of New England (BoNE) Award back in June. And this is not Emily's first AIGA honor - she won a "50 Books / 50 Covers" award last year as well, for the book I am a Beautiful Monster. Nice work, Emily!

This year's winners were recently displayed at the AIGA conference. The show will now travel to AIGA's National Design Center in New York. It will permanently reside in their Archives Vault in Denver and online in the Design Archives.