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MIT Press Podcast March 25, 2023

Science and the Sublime

A Roundtable Discussion

Hosted by MIT Press
Listen as our contributors discuss the connections between science and the arts, especially where the sublime—the unknowable, the incomprehensible—fits within these fields. This conversation was inspired by Leonardo Reviews Quarterly …

Art

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Interviews with artists and scholars of art about their new books.

Archaeology March 24, 2023

Unseen Art

Making, Vision, and Power in Ancient Mesoamerica

Claudia Brittenham

Hosted by Sarah Newman
In Unseen Art: Making, Vision, and Power in Ancient Mesoamerica (U Texas Press, 2023), Claudia Brittenham unravels one of the most puzzling phenomena in Mesoamerican art history: why many of …
MIT Press Podcast March 24, 2023

Arts, Humanities, and Complex Networks

A Discussion with Maximilian Schich, Isabel Meirelles, and Roger Malina

Maximilian Schich, Isabel Meirelles, and Roger Malina

Hosted by MIT Press
Maximilian Schich, Isabel Meirelles, and Roger Malina discuss the contents and creation of the new article collection, Arts, Humanities, and Complex Networks, which explores the application of the science of …
Why We Argue March 23, 2023

Seeing Truth in the Climate Crisis

A Conversation with Artist Alexis Rockman about Art and the Environment

Alexis Rockman

Hosted by Alexis Boylan
Feeling bad about the environment? You should. Artist Alexis Rockman talks about his art, the potential for real change, and his ongoing relationship with the American Museum of Natural History …
Art March 22, 2023

Visual Culture and the Forensic

Culture, Memory, Ethics

David Houston Jones

Hosted by Pierre d'Alancaisez
The relationship between images and truth has a complicated history. In the Western tradition, the Kantian settlement on aesthetic judgment as detached from external interests gave rise to artistic production …
Russian and Eurasian Studies March 20, 2023

Picturing the Page

Illustrated Children’s Literature and Reading under Lenin and Stalin

Megan Swift

Hosted by Polina Popova
Based on sources from rare book libraries in Russia and around the world, Picturing the Page: Illustrated Children’s Literature and Reading under Lenin and Stalin (U Toronto Press, 2020) offers …
Literary Studies March 19, 2023

The Postmodern Representation of Reality in Peter Ackroyd's Chatterton

Arya Aryan

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
Arya Aryan's book The Postmodern Representation of Reality in Peter Ackroyd's Chatterton (Cambridge Scholars, 2022) explores the postmodernist representation of reality and argues that historiographic metafictional texts, such as Peter Ackroyd’s …
Art March 19, 2023

Autonomy

The Social Ontology of Art under Capitalism

Nicholas Brown

Hosted by Kaveh Rafie
In Autonomy: The Social Ontology of Art under Capitalism (Duke University Press, 2019), Nicholas Brown offers a fresh perspective on aesthetic autonomy and its political value, one of the great debates of the twentieth century …
MIT Press Podcast March 18, 2023

The Sharing of Sound Art

A Discussion with Claire MacDonald and Sarah Parry

Claire MacDonald and Sarah Parry

Hosted by MIT Press
In this podcast, Claire MacDonald and Sarah Parry discuss the history of recording, the sharing of sound art between artists, how recording has shaped communities, the impact of technology on …
Scholarly Communication March 17, 2023

To the Collector Belong the Spoils

Modernism and the Art of Appropriation

Annie Pfeifer

Hosted by Jen Hoyer
To the Collector Belong the Spoils: Modernism and the Art of Appropriation (Cornell UP, 2023) rethinks collecting as an artistic, revolutionary, and appropriative modernist practice, which flourishes beyond institutions like …
Literary Studies March 17, 2023

Eliot and Beckett's Low Modernism

Humility and Humiliation

Rick de Villiers

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
Humility and humiliation have an awkward, often unacknowledged intimacy. Humility may be a queenly, cardinal or monkish virtue, while humiliation points to an affective state at the extreme end of …
Anthropology March 17, 2023

The Philosophy of Tattoos

John Miller

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
‘History, it seems, is seldom written by the tattooed.’ The Philosophy of Tattoos (British Library, 2021) by Dr. John Miller presents an impressively broad yet personal account, exploring tattooing as …
MIT Press Podcast March 9, 2023

Animal Tongues

A Conversation with Jan Harrison

Jan Harrison

Hosted by MIT Press
Artist Jan Harrison's work explores the connections between human and animal psyches and takes the form of painting, pastel, sculpture, and performance. Jan's essay in the current (January 2011) issue …
Medieval History March 8, 2023

The Middle Ages in 50 Objects

Elina Gertsman and Barbara H. Rosenwein

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
The extraordinary array of images included in The Middle Ages in 50 Objects (Cambridge UP, 2018) reveals the full and rich history of the Middle Ages. Exploring material objects from …
Italian Studies March 3, 2023

Migrants Shaping Europe, Past and Present

Multilingual Literatures, Arts, and Cultures

Helen Solterer and Vincent Joos

Hosted by Kate Driscoll
Helen Solterer and Vincent Joos edited volume Migrants Shaping Europe, Past and Present: Multilingual Literatures, Arts, and Cultures (Manchester UP, 2022) examines the sustained contribution of migrants to Europe’s literatures, social …
Architecture February 28, 2023

The Building as Screen

A History, Theory, and Practice of Massive Media

Dave Colangelo

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
The Building as Screen: A History, Theory, and Practice of Massive Media (Amsterdam UP, 2019) describes, historicizes, theorizes, and creatively deploys massive media -- a set of techno-social assemblages and …
Critical Theory February 27, 2023

Global Perspectives on Youth Arts Programs

How and Why the Arts Can Make a Difference

Frances Howard

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
How can the arts make the world a better place? In Global Perspectives on Youth Arts Programs: How and Why the Arts Can Make a Difference (Policy Press, 2022), Frances Howard …
On Religion February 25, 2023

Planting Letters and Weaving Lines

Calligraphy, The Song of Songs, and The Saint John’s Bible

Jonathan Homrighausen

Hosted by Gregory Soden
The illuminations of The Saint John’s Bible have delighted many with their imaginative takes on Scripture. But many struggle to appreciate the calligraphy more deeply than merely noting its beauty …
Eastern European Studies February 25, 2023

Performing Modernism

A Jewish Avant-Garde in Bucharest

Alexandra Chiriac

Hosted by Roland Clark
Alexandra Chiriac's book Performing Modernism: A Jewish Avant-Garde in Bucharest (de Gruyter, 2022) examines the reach of modernism in design and performance in interwar Romania. It follows the transnational trajectories of …
Why We Argue February 23, 2023

Seeing Truth in Photographs

A Conversation with Artist Penelope Umbrico about Democracy, Tyranny, and Pinterest

Penelope Umbrico

Hosted by Alexis Boylan
Artist Penelope Umbrico talks about her work, images as currency, and how technology and various platforms herd images. And is photography tyrannical? Umbrico has some thoughts. Learn more about the …