Fall
2001
Behavioral economist Sendhil Mullainathan adds psychological quirks and foibles to rational economic models
Spotlight on the Center for International Studies
World theater takes center stage at the MIT Theater Arts Program
Kudos to exemplary SHASS staff
The Shakespeare Project leads the humanities into the digital universe
Soundings is published by the Dean's Office of the
School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at MIT
Comments and questions to shass-www@mit.edu
Introducing new faculty
George-Marios Angeletos
Roger Petersen
Edward S. Steinfeld
Noel Jackson
Susan Silbey
Jonathan Zatlin
George-Marios Angeletos, who joins the Economics Department as assistant professor, received a BA (1996) and an MSc (1997), both in economics, from Athens University of Economics and Business. Last June he earned his PhD in economics from Harvard University. His dissertation developed a theory for the optimal maturity structure of public debt and explored how the government can insure itself against the need to raise more taxes when it has to spend more on fiscal expenditure. Another part of his dissertation considered the effect of uninsurable entrepreneurial risk on investment choices and the consequences for economic growth and aggregate volatility. Angeletos' primary field of research is macroeconomics.
Photo: Graham G. Ramsay.
Roger Petersen, a new associate professor in the Political Science Department, specializes in the study of violence and war. He received his BA (1984), MA (1988), and PhD (1992) from the University of Chicago. After a post-doctoral fellowship at Columbia University, he served as an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis and as a Research Fellow at the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago. He is the author of two books, Resistance and Rebellion: Lessons from Eastern Europe and Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, and Resentment in Twentieth Century Eastern Europe (forthcoming). He also co-edited a volume on comparative method, entitled Critical Comparisons in Politics and Culture. Petersen has just returned from Yugoslavia and Kosovo, where he began fieldwork on a new project.
Photo: Graham G. Ramsay.
Edward S. Steinfeld, a new assistant professor in the Political Science Department, specializes in Chinese politics and political economy. He obtained a BA in government from Harvard University in 1988 and PhD in political science from Harvard in 1996. Steinfeld's research focuses broadly on issues of industrial and financial restructuring in China and other transitional economies. His book on the subject, Forging Reform in China, was published in 1998 by Cambridge University Press. Steinfeld's current project examines the impact of ideology on the evolution of market institutions in post-socialist systems. Prior to joining the Political Science Department, Steinfeld was an assistant professor in the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Photo: Graham G. Ramsay.
Noel Jackson, a new assistant professor in the Literature Faculty, specializes in British Romanticism. He earned a BA in English from Vassar College in 1993, and received his PhD in English from the University of Chicago this year. His dissertation, "Sensation: British Romanticism, Human Science, and the Invention of the Aesthetic," examined the "sensuousness" of Romantic poetry in relation to late 18th-century human sciences such as physiology and the science of mind, and in the context of momentous social transformations in the period of the French Revolution. His research interests include topics in poetry and poetics, the relation of literature to science, and the history and structure of aesthetic experience.
Photo: Bo-Mi Choi.
Susan Silbey joins the MIT Anthropology Program as professor of sociology and anthropology. Formerly chair of the department of sociology at Wellesley College, where she also directed the Programs in American Studies and Technology Studies, Silbey has written on the ways law is taken for granted as part of everyday American life. She obtained her BA in political science in 1962 from CUNY Brooklyn College and her MA (1968) and PhD (1978) in political science from the University of Chicago. Recent publications include "Subversive Stories and Hegemonic Tales: Toward a Sociology of Narrative," "Common Knowledge and Ideological Critique: The Importance of Knowing Why the 'Haves Come Out Ahead'," and The Common Place of Law: Stories From Everyday Life. Silbey has served as president of the Law & Society Association and is a fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
Photo: Graham G. Ramsay.
Jonathan Zatlin, a new assistant professor in the History Faculty, specializes in German cultural and economic history. He received a BA in English Literature from Yale University in 1985 and an MPhil in European history from the University of Oxford in 1990. In 2000, he completed his PhD in modern European history, with a concentration in intellectual and economic history, at the University of California at Berkeley. His dissertation, "The Currency of Socialism: Money in the GDR and German Unification, 1971-1990," which was nominated for the Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize, explores how economic structures helped determine political culture in East Germany. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation and the Social Science Research Council, and was a UC Berkeley Chancellor's Dissertation-Year Fellow in 1997–1998.
Photo: Graham G. Ramsay.
Copyright © 2001 Massachusetts Institute of Technology