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Said and Done for January 2012

The humanities, arts and social sciences monthly digest.

Said and Done is the monthly, photo-rich publication from MIT's School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, integrating feature articles with news, research and events to give you a distilled overview of the school's endeavors. For the complete edition, visit Said and Done. A few of this month's highlights include:

The Snowfield | GAMBIT-produced game wins in Independent Games Festival
In The Snowfield, you are a lone soldier wandering the aftermath of a great battle. It is winter and you won't last long in the cold. But you are not alone. Developed at the SHASS-based GAMBIT Game Lab, The Snowfield explores how to make rich narrative games without complex artificial intelligence. The game has been named one of eight student showcase winners at the Independent Games Festival; the MIT team is also a finalist for the Best Student Game Prize, to be announced in March.
Visit + Play Snowfield

Jonathan Gruber | illuminating U.S. health reform legislation
MIT economist Jonathan Gruber calls health care reform the “biggest social policy legislation since Medicare.” In his new book, Gruber uses visual narrative to make the case for the national health law. Neera Tanden writes "Gruber has brought the epic struggle of health reform to life. By explaining the challenges in the U.S. health care system, as well as the benefits of reform with imagination and verve, he makes the case for health reform as an important achievement for the American people.”
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Alan Lightman | Mr. g
In his new novel, Mr. g, and in two related essays, physicist/author Alan Lightman, adjunct professor in the MIT-SHASS Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies, engages with questions of ultimate reality. Of his novel, a reviewer writes, "With echoes of Calvino and Saramago, Mr. g celebrates the tragic and joyous nature of existence on the grandest possible scale." 
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Stephen Tapscott | New translations of Georg Trakl
"Tapscott’s translations and eloquent preface will bring a new generation of readers to the world of an essential poet. Trakl’s work bridges Romanticism and Expressionism and ... stands in tandem at the gate of European modernism with Apollinaire. Tapscott’s translations are themselves haunting poems in English, recreating Trakl’s signature landscapes and landslides." Stephen Tapscott is a poet and a professor of literature. 
Field Poetry series

Jay Scheib | World of Wires premieres in New York City
"Six or seven years ago I asked a group of students what they expected to be doing in 10 years and one student said she’d probably be the first woman on Mars. Then a month later I had a conversation with Joe Gavin, the guy who directed the moon lander. He was the lunar lander brain. He said he wouldn’t go to Mars unless it’s a one-way trip ... So that’s the seed that started the human simulation trilogy."
Photographs and Reviews

Winter Events | MIT Music and Theater Arts
The school's Music and Theater Arts program provides MIT students the opportunity to experience the language and process of the arts, to learn artistic rigor, risk-taking and discipline, and to develop discernment about the standards of excellence in the arts. Each term, events organized by the Concert Office play a major role in the life of the campus, and in the creative development of MIT students. 
Calendar and information

Research Portfolio
Research is the engine for the school's capacity to help meet the world's great challenges. To name just a few areas of impact, the school's research helps alleviate poverty, safeguard elections, steer economies, understand the past and present, improve health policy, articulate morality, assess the impact of new technologies, understand human language and create new forms at the juncture of art and science.
Research Portfolio

Said and Done | January 2012 | complete edition



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