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The Technology and Culture Forum is a ministry of the Episcopal Chaplain at MIT, and grows out of the church’s commitment to peace, justice, and upholding human dignity. Our programs challenge participants to consider how their work as scientists, engineers, managers, and citizens furthers these ideals. During the academic year, TAC hosted programs on international development, the media and the presidential campaign, nuclear proliferation, the theology of sustainability, politics and popular culture, Chinese reform and US-Chinese relations, food locavorism and global climate change. TAC also began offering, in co-sponsorship with the MIT Philosophy Department, an undergraduate seminar on ethics: Being, Thinking, Doing (or not): Ethics and Your Life. This lively and popular seminar will be offered for the 3rd year in the spring of 2011.
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Past ForumsForums 2010-2011Read our 2010-2011 Annual Report
Youth Summit on Global Climate ChangeSaturday, May 21 5th Annual Youth Summit on Global Warming hosted by T&C and the Boston Latin School's Youth Climate Action Network! The day will be filled with informative and fun workshops, free food and prizes. Last year's summit was a big success and this year's promises to be even better Unstable Platforms: The Promise and Peril of Transition: An International ConferenceMay 13-15 This seventh Media in Transition conference will focus directly the core topic – the experience of transition. The first conference, sponsored by the MIT Communications Forum in 1999, considered this subject. With the development of Facebook, iPhones, BitTorrent, IPTV and many other changes, the discussion will be far-reaching and provocative. Please join us. Sponsored by the MIT Communications Forum with support from the Technology and Culture Forum, Comparative Media Studies, Literature @ MIT and Writing and Humanistic Studies at MIT. Please go to Agenda for a complete listing of programs and speakers. Media in Transition conferences are free and open to the public, but you should register in order to ensure admittance. Putting the Genie Back in the Bottle: MIT Faculty and Nuclear Arms ReductionWednesday, May 4 Aron Bernstein, MIT Professor Emeritus, Physics After the Manhattan Project and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cold War resulted in an enormous proliferation and deployment of nuclear weapons by the US and USSR, and their spread to other nations. In parallel, a robust movement against the development and testing of nuclear weapons also developed. Starting in 1945, many Manhattan Project alumni were active participants in the effort to make sure that these weapons would never be used again, and to warn the general public about their dangers. At MIT this included Phil Morrison, Victor Weisskopf, Bernard Feld, Cyril Stanley Smith and others. As the years went on, and the problem only got larger, many more joined in. At MIT these included Hanry Kendall, Salvador Luria, Jerome Wiesner, Kosta Tsipis, George Rathjens, Vera Kistiakowski, Aron Bernstein, Jonathan King, and others among the faculty as well as many students and postdocs. On March 4, 1968 a day of protest about the development of multi-warhead missiles (MIRV) was held at MIT. This event initiated a worldwide movement and led to the formation of the Union of Concerned Scientists , later led by Henry Kendall. The MIT campus aspects of this concern were aided by the Technology and Culture Forum. As a contribution to the MIT 150 commemorations, the MIT Faculty Newsletter and the T&C Forum have organized this symposium to honor and review this part of MIT's history, and to focus on today's no less urgent need to prevent nuclear war -- the ultimate disaster for the Earth. Continuing urgent concerns include nuclear reactor accidents, nuclear weapons proliferation, and the need to accelerate the global reduction and eventual elimination of nuclear arsenals. Sponsored by the MIT Faculty Newsletter, MIT Technology and Culture Forum, MIT Program in Science, Technology and Society Program and the MIT Physics Department The Internet and Political Conflict in the Middle EastWednesday, May 4, 2011, 8:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. Ethan Zuckerman, Senior Researcher, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University. Speakers from Cairo: • Mr. Abdullah Helmey, Member, RYU* Executive Office Bureau; representative, Reform and Development Party *Revolution Youth Union Click here to watch a TED talk by Ethan Zuckerman Join MIT Museum Director John Durant and international guests for timely discussion about the role – and control – of the Internet during periods of social and political change. This special breakfast-time Soap Box will feature informal café-style conversation with experts in Cambridge and (by live link) in Cairo Egypt, with whom we will discuss the (ab)uses of electronic social networks during the recent “January 25 Revolution”. Co-sponsored by the Technology and Culture Forum with additional support from the National Science Foundation This program is part of the Cambridge Science Festival Women in Religious Leadership TodayTuesday, May 3, 7:15pm Shenila Khoja-Moolji, Research Associate, Harvard Divinity School, The Pluralism Project Co-sponsored with the Addir Fellows program Women in Conflict Zones: A Global PerspectiveTUESDAY, APRIL 26 Produced in 2011, "Impunity or Justice" addresses the problem of impunity for rape and other sexual violence following the 2007 election and today, through interviews with survivors, health workers, legal aid providers, and senior Kenya Police officials. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27 Speakers: Moderator: Fran Froehlich, Executive Director, Community Works Organized and Co-sponsored with CommunityWorks THURSDAY, APRIL 28 Join us for a dinner discussion about gendered violence, paternalism and cultural imperialism in feminist conversations, and power structures. This dinner discussion, led by Dr. Sur, will bring together themes introduced in the programs on Tuesday and Wednesday. and the Boston panel. Co-sponsored with End the Violence Campaign, MIT Women's and Gender Studies and the Program in Violence Prevention and Response, MIT Medical. A Conversation with Sherry TurkleTuesday, April 12
Sherry Turkle, MIT professor and author, most recently of Alone, Together, will discuss her evolving view of our digitized world. Co-Sponsored with the MIT Communications Forum Click here to listen to this program SAAWSexual Assault Awareness Week April 10 April 11-15 *MIT Clothesline Project *MIT Residence Parties *Big Movie Night: Speak *Take Back the Night For help or more info, email VPR at vpradvocate@med.mit.edu. Sponsored by the Program for Violence Prevention and Response, MIT Medical, The Technology and Culture Forum. the MIT Coop, MIT Student Activities Office, Undergraduate Advising and Academic Programming, Residential Life Programs and the MIT Program in Women's and Gender Studies International Development Night @ the MIT MuseumSaturday, April 2 Please join us for a fascinating expo and reception hosted by MIT’s International Development Initiative (IDI).This event is being held in conjunction with the 2011 Harvard International Development Conference. Refreshments will be served. Budrus: A DocumentaryThursday, March 31 It takes a village to unite the most divided people on earth. In an action-filled documentary chronicling this movement from its infancy, Budrus shines a light on people who choose nonviolence to confront a threat. While this film is about one Palestinian village, it tells a much bigger story about what is possible in the Middle East. Discussion with filmmakers and closing reception to follow. Cosponsored with MIT Women's and Gender Studies MIT, The Center for International Studies and Palestine@MIT BULLYING: FROM BLACK EYES to BLACKBERRIES:DINNER AND DISCUSSION This program will examine how bullying presents and effects young children and middleschoolers, how it evolves and intensifies through high school, the role of social media and technology, and ways to address it or prevent it from taking place. SPEAKERS: The Diversity Dinner Series is sponsored by Building Inclusion & Diversity Committee at MIT Medical with support from the Technology and Culture Forum at MIT Iraqi Women in the "New Iraq": Law, Violence & MobilizationTuesday, March 15 Speaker: Professor Nadje Al-Ali, University of London Iraq is not news anymore except during suicide bombings and targeted attacks of religious minorities, politicians and professionals. But what happened to Iraqi women who were promised liberation, greater rights and an important role in the “new Iraq”? In this talk, Prof. Al-Ali will critically reflect on the legal, political and social conditions and developments in post-invasion Iraq. She will pay particular attention to various forms of increasing gender based violence and discuss the mobilization against it. She will address the importance of transnational feminist solidarity that takes an intersectional approach as its basis for mobilization. Nadje Al-Ali is Professor of Gender Studies and Chair of the Centre for Gender Studies, at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Her main research interests revolve around gender theory; feminist activism; women and gender in the Middle East; transnational migration and diaspora mobilization; war, conflict and reconstruction. Her publications include What kind of Liberation? Women and the Occupation of Iraq and Iraqi Women: Untold Stories from 1948 to the Present. Nadje is currently President of the Association of Middle East Women¹s Studies (AMEWS). Sponsored by MIT Women's and Gender Studies. Women Without Men: A Film by Shirin NeshatFriday, March 18 In her feature-film debut, renowned visual artist Shirin Neshat offers an exquisitely crafted view of Iran in 1953, when a British- and American-backed coup removed the democratically elected government. Adapted from the novel by Iranian author Shahrnush Parsipur, the film weaves together the stories of four individual women during those traumatic days, whose experiences are shaped by their faith and the social structures in place. With a camera that floats effortlessly through the lives of the women and the beautiful countryside of Iran, Neshat explores the social, political, and psychological dimensions of her characters as they meet in a metaphorical garden, where they can exist and reflect while the complex intellectual and religious forces shaping their world linger in the air around them. Discussion with author of the novel Women Without Men, Shahrnush Parsipur, to follow. Co-Sponsored with MIT Women's and Gender Studies and MIT Amnesty Security Theater or Serious Security?
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