MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing

“Technology” has a long and problematized relationship with progress, efficiency, and efficacy. Sleek trains rushing through the countryside, the blinding reach of the electrical grid, or the instantaneous messages of networked communication are its shiny avatars. Contraptions, by contrast, are technical devices that barely work. They seem too complex, too circuitous, too labor intensive. They are frequently ad hoc—as unrepeatable and unreliable as Rube Goldberg’s fantastical machines. They push the received wisdom about technology’s defining features to the limit. Like the aesthetic “gimmick” theorized by Sianne Ngai, the contraption is a category charged with normative judgment. Contraptions may work, but they don’t work right. While the contraption is commonly associated with vernacular or retrograde alternatives to high technology, many “high tech” devices reveal a contraption-like character on close inspection: AI chatbots, internet protocols, and helicopters come to seem both over- and under-engineered the more attention is paid to them. This session invites STS scholars to think with the figure of the contraption: What alternatives to popular ideas about technology do these complicated and unruly objects offer? What is it about the present moment that pushes the contraption back into public thought? How does the normativity of contraption judgments manifest in everyday life? How do people come to perceive and evaluate technical complexity in social life? Work in this area may draw on theories of gimmicks, hacks, kludges, workarounds, tricks, bricolage, and other complex or informal technical activities.

STS folks, I'm organizing an open panel on CONTRAPTIONS for 4S this year, following up on a lovely panel at last year's AAA meetings. You should submit something if you got it! www.4sonline.org/accepted_ope...

Chimpanzees Are Really Into Crystals

"If you give a chimp a crystal, she might not give it back. Researchers learned this the hard way." 😂

Great new piece in the @nytimes.com by science writing alum @cjgiaimo.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/s...

New from our Writing and Communication Center director Elena Kallestinova: janeway.uncpress.org/ccj/article/...

Les Perelman, expert in writing assessment and champion of writing education, dies at 77 Les Perelman, a longtime MIT faculty member and former dean who established the influential "Writing Across the Curriculum" program and became a fierce critic of automated essay grading, has...

We've missed Les — "the man who killed the killed the SAT essay," NPR once said — ever since his retirement, and we are sad to pass along the news of his death: news.mit.edu/2026/les-per....

Women in the Museum symposium 2026 - Rijksmuseum

In or near Amsterdam next week? You need to join for CMS/W Professor Angela Saini's talk at the Rijksmuseum for the Women in the Museum Symposium, where she'll be discussing the themes of her book "The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule" www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/whats-on/...

Excited to announce our first-in-a-long-while undergraduate alumni panel, coming up on March 13. '91, '15, and '17 to be represented so far, with others to be confirmed soon.

There's a free lunch, and it's open to the whole MIT community. RSVP requested:

cmsw.mit.edu/event/cms-w-...

The feds meddled with Indiana's energy grid. Who's paying for fallout? President Donald Trump's DOE meddled with Indiana's energy grid last year. A legal battle is erupting as utilities decide who will pay for fallout.

The latest from alum Sophie Hartley, '24:

"By flexing legal authority through Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, DOE recently halted the retirement of several coal plants across the country. Environmental advocates say the decision to do so was out of line."

www.indystar.com/story/news/e...

How Teachers Navigate an Podcast Episode · Future Fluent · February 24 · 35m

Professor Justin Reich talks with Future Fluent about his worries that AI is "already slowing down learning". Listen: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...

Visual Game and Media Design | Royal Danish Academy

Join our Visual Game & Media Design two-year master’s program at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen. Deadline March 1st!

Visual Game & Media Design is a cross-disciplinary program open to all creative BA students.

Read more about the program here: royaldanishacademy.com/en/programme...

Cities May Be ‘Evolutionary Training Grounds’ for Spotted Lanternflies

The latest from Grad Program in Science Writing alum Emily Anthes, '06, in the @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/s... Scientists "saw signs that natural selection had been acting on genes involved in pesticide resistance and climate adaptation, including cold tolerance."

Panel Discussion: How AI is Impacting Journalism, Free Speech, and Public Discourse - Knight Science Journalism @MIT Join us for a discussion on how AI is impacting the way news is reported and disseminated, the way we learn and communicate, and how this is impacting free speech […]

This Friday from @ksjatmit.bsky.social (if we've finished digging out): ksj.mit.edu/event/panel-...

yes! we already have things to teach! we have phds in them! they are the whole point of this enterprise!

Seems like an obvious idea, but apparently nobody had done it before. Looking forward to playing this game!

How to Read the Land A lexicon of landscape as word, concept, and path to discoveries.

"Cityscape, townscape, streetscape, brainscape, hairscape, cloudscape, airscape, hardscape, bedscape, and other nonce words exist because 'landscape' is now a promiscuous word indeed." thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/reading-land... #Landscape #Language via @mitpress.bsky.social #writing #words #phrases

A Pox on Fools by Thomas Levenson: 9798217155002 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books An urgent and profound history of vaccine skepticism, seeking to understand how our three most common fears about vaccines hardened into a lethal ideology—from a leading science writer Since the...

Hive mind, publishing cohort:

You may have heard that I have a book coming out soon.* It's a brief polemical history of opposition to vaccines. I'm being asked by my publisher: index or no? Given current reading habits, is one an impediment or a necessity?

Got thoughts?

*Narr: They've heard:

‘Let’s treat writing as shared infrastructure rather than private struggle’ Academic writing is often framed as something faculty should simply manage better; when they struggle, the blame is put on the individual academic. But this explanation doesn’t hold, as Rachel Gabriele explains

Academic #writing is often framed as something faculty should simply manage better; when they struggle, the blame is put on the individual academic. But this explanation doesn’t hold, as Rachel Gabriele explains: https://ow.ly/kFFA50YiI3g #Academia #HigherEd #AcademicSky

Empty front of a classroom with banner image for the event on the screen and a few people on the right side.

Lecture hall in the Stata Center filled with great folks from the local gamedev community

Glad to host @bospostmortem.bsky.social this month and speaker, @annamegill.com talk about Game Writing tonight. (At least one of us at the lab is a huge Threshold Kids fan).

ICYMI: our research scientist Philip Tan had a chance last summer to offer a mini version of his CMS subject "DJ History, Technology, and Technique".

Tan traced the job of a DJ and the tech that evolved around it...reading the room, crate digging, scarcity...

Truly, I know I talk about her a lot here, but whenever I'm feeling down, then get to spend a couple of hours (or more, often more these days) with the local first-gen college student I'm mentoring—now working on scholarship apps—I just...feel better. She totally rocks.

Iowa’s Water Crisis Could Help Tip the Scales for Control of US House - Inside Climate News A new poll finds that 85 percent of Iowans in “toss-up” congressional districts would be more likely to vote for a candidate who prioritizes clean water and cuts to industrial agriculture pollution.

The latest from Science Writing alum Anika Jane Beamer, '25:

"Iowa has the second-highest cancer rate in the U.S., a public health crisis that residents worry is tied to consistently elevated nitrate levels in their drinking water sources." insideclimatenews.org/news/1702202...

A guide to help journal editorial boards introduce ECRs to academic publishing Academic publishing can be a harsh landscape. Here, a partnership model offers language and strategies to support new authors as they navigate early submissions and review

Academic #publishing can be a harsh landscape. Here, a partnership model offers language and strategies to support new authors as they navigate early submissions and review: https://ow.ly/hs6750YhEwc #HigherEd #AcademicSky #EduSky

Are Elections Trusted? What Researchers Are Finding Tuesday, February 24 | 2 pm ET Trust in elections can be divided into two major ideas: whether the public perceives that elections are free and fair, and whether the electoral process provides evidence that elections are conducted according to law.

What can current research tell us about confidence & trust in elections? Join the next "Books & Ballots" webinar on 2/24 at 2pm ET to hear from three leading academics about their ongoing research on this hot topic. More info & registration can be found here: buff.ly/GALSRTz

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Goodman Theatre The official website for Goodman Theatre's 25/26 Season Production of Marco Antonio Rodriguez's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao."

Professor Junot Diaz's acclaimed "Oscar Wao" to have its stage adaptation premiere in Chicago! It runs from February 21 to April 5 at the Goodman: www.goodmantheatre.org/show/the-bri...

CMS/W Professor Ian Condry and the local spatial sound community are ready for a big February, starting with a social gathering at Berklee College of Music next Saturday...join us for one or all! cmsw.mit.edu/events/categ...

It's time for our annual filmmaking workshop!

If you're interested in submitting a short film for the "MIT in 3:00" short film competition, join the MIT in 3:00 staff for the 1-day workshop on Thursday, January 29.

cmsw.mit.edu/event/mit-in...

IAP 2026: Expanding Horizons in Computing - MIT Schwarzman College of Computing

A great opportunity to spend some time with our professor Eric Klopfer and lecturer Michael Trice. Eric plays host and will run a session on AI's effects on learning, and Michael's Friday 11am session is on the use of AI in MIT's writing programs. computing.mit.edu/iap-2026-exp...

Brookline.News Podcast Episode 10: Gerald Alston's legacy, a Verizon arrival, and the sound of mini-forests - Brookline.News On Episode 10 of the Brookline.News Podcast, editor Sam Mintz and Brookline Interactive Group executive director Jessica Smyser talk about the latest news in Brookline, including the death of former f...

Mini-forests!

MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing student Ashley D’Souza reports on the challenges of growing trees in urban neighborhoods like North Brookline, Mass., where they're not tied in to their native ecosystems.

Her story starts at 9:14: brookline.news/brookline-ne...

Thank you to everyone who've followed along with us as we share these wonderful pieces from Angles. We wrap up these shares with "More than Nonsense: Language Acquisition and Identity in Through the Looking Glass" by Carl Osborne, '28:

cmsw.mit.edu/angles/2025/...

In the latest from CMS/W professor Nick Montfort:

"Today’s large language models are very different from both automated reporters and storytelling systems."

cmsw.mit.edu/generating-r...

Boston’s broadcast journalists are departing TV news in droves. Why? - The Boston Globe Big names including WBZ-TV’s Jon Keller and WHDH-TV’s Kim Khazei are just the most recent examples of the accelerating flight of broadcasters from the airwaves.

“I would go to one fire and I would cover it, and it would be the same script that I wrote on another fire a week ago.”

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/18/b...