Spring 1998 Iconoclasm revisited Dean's letter Pathbreakers The China connection Programs and possibilities   New faculty Promotions New books Bullets & bytes Awards & honors Hidden gems   All issues This issue only Help   Soundings is a publication of the School of Humanities and Social Science at MIT Comments and questions to www-shss@mit.edu	Introducing new faculty Michael Glanzberg Christina Klein Guido Kuersteiner Helen Elaine Lee Youngme Moon Jeffrey Ravel
	The faculty roster of the School of Humanities and Social Science is expanding with an infusion of new talent and expertise. In the last issue of soundings we introduced half the new faces in our School. The other half is profiled here. Michael Glanzberg, a new assistant professor in the Linguistics and Philosophy Department, specializes in philosophy of language and logic. He received a BA in philosophy and mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1987, an MA in mathematics from the University of Michigan in 1989, and a PhD in philosophy from Harvard University in 1997. His dissertation, "The Paradox of the Liar and the Problem of Context," applies ideas from natural language semantics and the mathematics of definability to an age-old puzzle about truth. Glanzberg's current research focuses on the nature of linguistic context, truth, and meaning. In logic, he is concerned primarily with paradoxes surrounding the notion of truth, as well as with definability theory and infinitary logic. In philosophy of mathematics, he is interested in the foundations of set theory, the nature of abstract objects, and constructivism.
	Christina Klein is a new assistant professor in the literature faculty, where she teaches courses in American literature and culture, Asian American literature, and film. She earned her BA in film studies from Wesleyan University in 1986 and her PhD in American studies from Yale University in 1997. Her dissertation, entitled "Cold War Orientalism: Musicals, Travel Narratives, and Middlebrow Culture in Postwar America," explored popular representations of Asia in relation to US foreign policy. She has presented her work in conferences throughout the US and in Japan, and is currently revising her dissertation for publication.
	Guido Kuersteiner joined MIT in 1997 as an assistant professor in the Department of Economics. He specializes in time series econometrics and empirical finance. In 1991 he earned his undergraduate degree in economics and computer science from the University of Bern in Switzerland. Two years later he graduated with distinction in econometrics and mathematical economics from the London School of Economics. Kuersteiner received his PhD in economics from Yale University in 1997. His dissertation developed new estimation procedures for linear time series models, which improve the precision of parameter estimates used in forecasting and hypothesis testing. A past recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Dissertation Fellowship, Kuersteiner is currently working on applications of new testing procedures to financial market data.
	Helen Elaine Lee, a new assistant professor, has been with MIT's Program in Writing & Humanistic Studies for three years. Educated at Harvard College (BA, 1981) and Harvard Law School (JD, 1985), she practiced law until her first novel, The Serpent's Gift, was published in 1994. She recently completed her second novel Water Marked to be published by Scribner this year. She writes about how people pull light out of darkness and make art from loss. Lee teaches several creative writing courses, including "Fiction Workshop," "Writing and Experience," and "Writing by Contemporary US Women of Color," which she designed. Her goals are to provoke students to read more sensitively and analytically, and to consider the forces of family, heritage and socio-economics as they craft their fiction. At MIT, Lee is the faculty advisor to Color Creations, one of the African American women students' organizations, and initiator of the Women Writers of Color @ MIT reading series.
	Youngme Moon, assistant professor in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies, conducts research on human-computer interaction and mediated communication. She earned her BA in political science from Yale University in 1987, an MA in international relations from Stanford University in 1989, and a PhD in communication from Stanford University in 1996. Her research has appeared in various edited volumes and academic journals. At MIT, Moon has created the Social Intelligence Research Project, which examines what it means to be "socially intelligent" in the context of mediated environments. The project explores the consequences of giving computers characteristics associated with social intelligence.
	Jeffrey Ravel comes to the history faculty at MIT from the University of Rochester. He earned a BA in history in 1983 from Colgate University and both an MA and a PhD in history from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1987 and 1991 respectively. His book, The Contested Parterre: Public Theater and French Political Culture, 1680-1791, forthcoming from Cornell University Press, examines the politicization of theater audiences in 18th-century France. Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the French government supported this work. Ravel's current research centers on amateur theatricals and identity formation in the 18th-century. His teaching interests include the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and their legacies; theater history in the West, and cultural history. He looks forward to teaching an inter-disciplinary course next fall titled "Erasmus to E-Mail: Technologies of the Word, 1450-2000."
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