Soap Box: The Political Life of Cheese

Tue, 14 May 2013 17:30:52 GMT

Heather Paxson, an associate professor in MIT's Anthropology Program, studies the people and culture behind the renaissance of artisanal cheese making in the United States.

Heather Paxson Lectures on Interview Techniques for DLab Students

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 08:05:58 GMT

Assoc. Prof. Heather Paxson from Anthropology provides DLab students a background on interviewing and other qualitative research techniques.

Recorded December 7, 2012.

John Crespi, Picturing the Purge: Chinese Cartoon Imagery from the 1930s to the 1950s, Part Four

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 07:11:22 GMT

MIT Visualizing Cultures

Picturing the Purge: Chinese Cartoon Imagery from the 1930s to the 1950s

Presented by John Crespi, Luce Associate Professor of Chinese; Director of Asian Studies, Colgate University

Visualizing Cultures was launched at MIT in 2002 to explore the potential of the Web for developing innovative image-driven scholarship and learning. The VC mission is to use new technology and hitherto inaccessible visual materials to reconstruct the past as people of the time visualized the world (or imagined it to be).

John Crespi, Picturing the Purge: Chinese Cartoon Imagery from the 1930s to the 1950s, Part One

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 07:10:14 GMT

John Crespi, Picturing the Purge: Chinese Cartoon Imagery from the 1930s to the 1950s, Part Two

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 07:10:14 GMT

John Crespi, Picturing the Purge: Chinese Cartoon Imagery from the 1930s to the 1950s, Part Three

Sun, 26 Aug 2012 20:30:16 GMT

MIT 21A.453 Anthropology of the Middle East - The Merchant of Art

Sat, 16 Jun 2012 07:03:00 GMT

MIT 21A.453 Anthropology of the Middle East, Spring 2004
View the complete course: http://ocw.mit.edu/21A-453S04
Instructor: Susan Slyomovics

Directed and produced by: Susan Slyomovics

Awadallah Abd al-Jalil Ali is the "merchant of art," a professional epic singer. The son and grandson of itinerant illiterate poets who have for generations recited the cycle of Arabic heroic tales called Sirat Bani Hilal. Awadallah narrates the epic and other tales in his repertoire in the marketplace, local small cafes, and at saints’ pilgrimage sites. He is also commissioned to perform at certain festive occasions, such as weddings, circumcisions, Ramadan breaking the fasts, and welcome parties to celebrate the return of pilgrims from the hajj to Mecca. Accompanying himself on the tar, the large Nubian frame drum, he sings rhymed quatrains in Sa’idi Arabic dialect. Filmed in 1986 in Awadallah’s home village of Mahamid, Aswan Governorate, Egypt.

MIT 21A.453 Anthropology of the Middle East - Wedding Song

Sat, 16 Jun 2012 07:03:00 GMT

MIT 21A.453 Anthropology of the Middle East, Spring 2004
View the complete course: http://ocw.mit.edu/21A-453S04
Instructor: Susan Slyomovics

Directed and produced by: Susan Slyomovics, Amanda Dargan

This film brings the viewer into a Pakistani living room in Queens, New York, where Shenaz Hooda uses henna dye to paint intricate patterns and designs on the hands and feet of a bride-to-be, while the bride’s friends sing humorous wedding songs mocking her future in-laws. The film explores the exquisite mehendi body painting tradition as it is found in India and Pakistan and provides insight into new immigrant traditions.

Engaging Neighborhoods - Berliner sehen

Thu, 10 May 2012 07:03:29 GMT

The contemporary video core of Berliner sehen consists of 18 hours of natural conversations with Berlin residents from different social backgrounds. Spoken in authentic German, they acquaint students with the many facets of individual lives. Together with the extensive archive of texts, images, historical audio and video, these conversations form an expansive narrative network that engages students in exploring key cultural issues from diverse points of view. The footage for Berliner sehen was filmed during Summer 1995 by the Berlin-based German documentary video artists INTERACT, who worked in close collaboration with project directors Crocker and Fendt to create a video expressly designed for the hypermedia format of this project.

Read more about Berliner sehen: http://web.mit.edu/fll/www/projects/BerlinerSehen.shtml

Eugene McDermott Science Festival Panel

Tue, 01 May 2012 17:30:09 GMT

Panel Discussion: The Science of Illusion
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Produced in partnership with the Cambridge Science Festival

Can you imagine the science behind an invisibility cloak? What about a hovering hologram? The Science of Illusion pushes beyond the boundaries of the real and provides insights into how magical thinking drives technological innovation and the human imagination.

Multidisciplinary media and performance artist Robert Lepage, recipient of the 2012 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT, has spent his distinguished career exploring technology that enhances storytelling and stagecraft, circus performance and architectural illuminations, filmmaking, urban projections, and more. Join him along with a group of MIT researchers for an evening of discussion and demonstrations about the art and science of illusion.

Panel: MIT Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts recipient Robert Lepage; Professor George Barbastathis, Singapore Research Professor of Optics and Professor of Mechanical Engineering; Assistant Professor Graham Jones, MIT Anthropology; Seth Riskin, Manager, Emerging Technologies and Holography/Spatial Imaging Initiative at the MIT Museum; and moderator, John Durant, Director of the MIT Museum and Adjunct Professor in the Science, Technology and Society Program.

About Visualizing Cultures, Part 2

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:02:52 GMT

Visualizing Cultures was launched at MIT in 2002 to explore the potential of the Web for developing innovative image-driven scholarship and learning. The VC mission is to use new technology and hitherto inaccessible visual materials to reconstruct the past as people of the time visualized the world (or imagined it to be).

About Visualizing Cultures, Part 3

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:02:52 GMT

About Visualizing Cultures, Part 4

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:02:52 GMT

About Visualizing Cultures, Part 1

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:30:05 GMT

6.370 Battlecode: Jan. 20

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:52:54 GMT

Final lecture of Battlecode: Differential Equations for Strategy.

Heather Paxson - The anthropologist and the person

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 20:26:31 GMT

Associate professor of anthropology Heather Paxson, shares a little bit about herself in this short video.

MIT's Stefan Helmreich on his book "Alien Ocean"

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 14:15:25 GMT

When anthropologist Stefan Helmreich decided to study scientists who chase some of the world's smallest creatures in some of the world's most forbidding places, his research took an unexpected twist. An interview with Helmreich on why the ocean can be so "alien."

View the full story at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/alien-ocean-0205.html

The Good Side of Nightmares

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 17:52:10 GMT

The average person dreams several hundred times a week. Most are about relatives, friends, colleagues and loved ones. Most of the time, nothing special happens - and we tend to forget most dreams. However, once in a while people wake up screaming or sweating from dreams so frightening that they can't be forgotten. While no one likes such nightmares, reporter Wojciech (Voytek) Mikoluszko reports on why it they aren't necessarily a bad thing. The songs are performed by Irena Mikoluszko.

David Harvey

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 18:17:01 GMT

David Harvey March 4, 2011 The Enigma of Capital

Humanities in the Digital Age

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 04:00:00 GMT

Reports of the demise of the humanities are exaggerated, suggest these panelists, but there may be reason to fear its loss of relevance.

DV Lab: Documenting Science Through Video and New Media

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:26:40 GMT

21A.339J DV Lab: Documenting Science through Video and New Media (Same subject as STS.064J) 3-3-6 HASS Lec: T2-5, Lab: R2-5. An introductory exploration of documentary film theory and production, focusing on documentaries about science, engineering, and related fields. Students engage in digital video production as well as social and media analysis of science documentaries. Readings drawn from social studies of science as well as from documentary film theory. Uses documentary video making as a tool to explore the worlds of science and engineering, as well as a tool for thinking analytically about media itself and the social worlds in which science is embedded. Class includes a lab component devoted to digital video production in addition to class time. Enrollment limited. Video by Chris Boebel. Footage: AMPS/MIT Libraries, Prelinger Archives, Harold E. Edgerton Collection, Debbie Douglas, MIT Museum. Audio: molecular code, http://www.myspace.com/molecularcode

Thought for food

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:02:23 GMT

Video: Melanie Gonick; still images: Heather Paxon

Heather Paxson, an associate professor in MIT's Department of Anthropology, discusses what makes an artisan cheese.

Thought for food

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:25:36 GMT

The cheese aisle of your local supermarket is an unlikely place to study a classic political problem: How do we balance state power with individual freedom? But for those with a trained eye, the variety, flavors, and textures of the products available have much to tell us. Cheese, says Heather Paxson, an associate professor in MIT's Department of Anthropology, is "a window into broader issues of politics and ethics." In this case, it reveals a conflict between the federal government and local producers that has been aging for two decades.

MIT's Stefan Helmreich on his book "Alien Ocean"

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:01:37 GMT

When anthropologist Stefan Helmreich decided to study scientists who chase some of the world's smallest creatures in some of the world's most forbidding places, his research took an unexpected twist.

Doing Anthropology: Thoughts on Fieldwork From Three Research Sites

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 21:49:31 GMT

Thoughts on Fieldwork From Three Research Sites

Cultural Anthropology is a social science that explores how people understand - and act in - the world. But what, exactly, is it that Cultural Anthropologists do? How do they approach their research? In this short film, three members of MIT's Anthropology Department, Stefan Helmreich, Erica James, and Heather Paxson, talk about their current work and the process of doing fieldwork.

Recent Videos tagged 'Anthropology' on MIT Video

Soap Box: The Political Life of Cheese

Heather Paxson Lectures on Interview Techniques for DLab Students

John Crespi, Picturing the Purge: Chinese Cartoon Imagery from the 1930s to the 1950s, Part Four

John Crespi, Picturing the Purge: Chinese Cartoon Imagery from the 1930s to the 1950s, Part One

John Crespi, Picturing the Purge: Chinese Cartoon Imagery from the 1930s to the 1950s, Part Two

John Crespi, Picturing the Purge: Chinese Cartoon Imagery from the 1930s to the 1950s, Part Three

MIT 21A.453 Anthropology of the Middle East - The Merchant of Art

MIT 21A.453 Anthropology of the Middle East - Wedding Song

Engaging Neighborhoods - Berliner sehen

Eugene McDermott Science Festival Panel

About Visualizing Cultures, Part 2

About Visualizing Cultures, Part 3

About Visualizing Cultures, Part 4

About Visualizing Cultures, Part 1

6.370 Battlecode: Jan. 20

Heather Paxson - The anthropologist and the person

MIT's Stefan Helmreich on his book "Alien Ocean"

The Good Side of Nightmares

David Harvey

Humanities in the Digital Age

DV Lab: Documenting Science Through Video and New Media

Thought for food

Thought for food

MIT's Stefan Helmreich on his book "Alien Ocean"

Doing Anthropology: Thoughts on Fieldwork From Three Research Sites