MIT Press Live! Virtual Book Talk Series

The MIT Press is pleased to announce the launch of a new virtual book talk series, MIT Press Live! Beginning this month, these online events will feature leading researchers and experts from around the globe discussing the important and timely topics we all need to know more about. 

MIT Press Live! will focus on timely topics and offer education and enrichment at a time when our usual sources are unavailable and many of us are confined to our homes. Events will cover topics such as critical thinking during a time of crisis; concentration in times of distraction; and navigating a pandemic-struck world. The series will also include talks and workshops on the great material revolutions of the last two centuries, extraterrestrials, and more.

Coloring Workshop:
Beautiful Symmetry, by Alex Berke
(Suitable for all ages)
Tuesday, March 31st, 12:30 pm ESTCalm yourself with coloring and learn math in the meantime! Join Alex Berke, a creative computer scientist, civic hacker, and MIT Media Lab researcher, to engage with mathematical concepts visually through coloring challenges and puzzles.

Essential Knowledge for a Time of Crisis: Critical Thinking, by Jonathan Haber
(Suitable for Ages 14+)
Tuesday, April 7th, 12:30 pm EST
With so much noise and news all around us, how can we decipher what is accurate and useful to us at this confusing and chaotic time? Educational researcher Jonathan Haber explores how critical thinking techniques can help us outside of the classroom, and keep us calm and considered in the face of conflicting information and voices. 

Virtual Book Launch:
The Alchemy of Us, by Ainissa Ramirez
(Suitable for Ages 12+) 
Tuesday, April 14th, 12:30 pm EST
In a history of invention like no other, science “evangelist” Ainissa Ramirez goes behind the eureka! moments of the last three centuries to show how the materials humans have shaped us in return. In The Alchemy of Us, she explores the little known histories of science: how our pursuit of precision in timepieces changed how we sleep; how the railroad helped commercialize Christmas; how the necessary brevity of the telegram influenced Hemingway’s writing style; and how a young chemist exposed the use of Polaroid’s cameras to create passbooks to track black citizens in apartheid, South Africa. Along the way, Ainissa will introduce us to the “hidden figures” of technological history – the women and minorities whose invaluable contributions time chose to forget. 

Author Talk:
Design Justice, by Sasha Costanza-Chock
Tuesday, April 21st, 12:30 pm 
Co-Sponsored by AIGA
Join MIT Civic Media professor Sasha Costanza-Chock to explore how design might be led by marginalized communities, dismantle structural inequality, and advance collective liberation and ecological survival. 

Concentration in a Time of Crisis
Concentration, by Stefan Van Der Stigchel  
Tuesday, April 28th, 12:30 pm
Never in recent history has the news been so distracting, or have so many of us been forced to work under unexpected stress and in unideal conditions. This talk from Stefan Van Der Stigchel, Professor of Cognitive Psychology at Utrecht University, will explain what makes it hard for us to concentrate and show you how to concentrate under the most distracting or circumstance. 

Author Talk
#Hashtag Activism, by Sarah J. Jackson, Moya Bailey, and Brooke Foucault Welles
Tuesday, May 5th, 12:30 pm
Join authors Sarah J. Jackson, Moya Bailey, and Brooke Foucault Welles to look at how marginalized groups use Twitter to advance counter-narratives, preempt political spin, and build diverse networks of dissent.

Author Talk
Technologies of the Human Corpse, by John Troyer
Tuesday, May 12th, 12:30 pm
John Troyer grew up as the son of a small-town undertaker and went on to become the Director of the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath. His book explores the relationship of the dead body with technology through history, from nineteenth-century embalming machines to the death-prevention technologies of today. Beyond that, it hopes to make us more aware of death, and to consider death, dying, and dead bodies in radically different ways.

Essential Knowledge for Future Living
Extraterrestrials, by Wade Roush
Tuesday, May 19th, 12:30 pm 
Are we alone in the universe? If not, where is everybody? In this engaging exploration of one of the most important unsolved problems in science, science and technology writer Wade Roush helps us to explore the question of life, intelligent or otherwise, beyond our planet.