The MIT Press @mitpress.bsky.social

Western thought has often cast curiosity as a solitary pursuit of hidden knowledge. But Perry Zurn and Dani S. Bassett propose something more relational: “Imagine a curiosity that aims less to know and more to make connections.” thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/curiosity-is-n…

On this week's "It Turns Out," I talk with @davidautor @MIT about how - a generation after millions of manufacturing jobs went to China - a slew of white-collar jobs may be headed in the same direction. How did this happen? Autor argues, in part: "The American political system has the attention span of a squirrel on cocaine." youtu.be/ZGgY_n5KLWI podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why… @MITshapingwork @mitpress

Read @joelfbrenner 's new piece in @lawfare about AI and the degree to which it can make predictive judgments in complex environments. The International Security article is now *free to access* @mitpress : doi.org/10.1162/ISEC.a… @DrJLHazelton

Book recs from our crew at the MIT Press bookstore! cambridgeday.com/2026/04/02/wha…

New open access release from @MITPress How does the concept of a "pattern" bridge the gap between information science, biological evolution, and the deep questions of philosophy? Real Patterns—the first book dedicated to the roadmap laid out by Daniel Dennett—is out now. Read it for free here: direct.mit.edu/books/oa-edite… #OpenAccess #AI #Philosophy #DanielDennett #PhilosophyOfScience #InformationTheory #CognitiveScience #MachineLearning #MITPress h/t @PhilipLaughlin

The first China shock hit the factory floor. The second one is hitting cubicles (and labs and executive suites). Great interview with MIT Press author David Autor: youtube.com/watch?v=ZGgY_n…

A goodie from the not-so-distant past — Nicholas de Monchaux, author of the book "Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo," talks with Ira Flatow about the surprising history and iconic design of the Apollo 11 spacesuit: npr.org/2011/03/25/134…

Surprisingly beautiful weather today! Chilling in the backyard, sending out good gamer vibes to the universe! #ttrpg #ttrpgcommunity #appendixn #goodvibes

And an excerpt here! thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/an-illustrated…

ICYMI: An illustrated guide to more than 850 gestures and their meanings around the world, from a nod of the head to a click of the heels: mitpress.mit.edu/9780262547994/…

Some really insightful words by Shira Chess, arguing how the cultural phenomenon of "backrooms" and "liminal spaces" come from our growing sense of dread in corporate America and it has essentially become the modern version of the Gothic genre.

'Building SimCity: How to Put the World in a Machine' by @cgingold is a mind-blowing book. I cannot recommend it strongly enough. Find it here: mitpress.mit.edu/9780262547482/…

The notion of “ethical” capitalism, this piece contends, is an illusion used to obscure capitalism’s allegiance to profit over the planet, with clarifying moments laying bare the fiction of corporate social responsibility. By Brad Swanson in @mitpress buff.ly/K80fFjo

Out next month: The first in-depth study of American artist Alan Dunn, whose incisive cartoons mocked twentieth-century architecture and urban environments, expanding the field of architectural criticism. mitpress.mit.edu/9780262052597/…

ICYMI: "Paper Graveyards" (2021) is a generously illustrated training manual for reading images, discussing work by Félix Nadar, Roland Barthes, Fazal Sheikh, Susan Meiselas, and others. mitpress.mit.edu/9780262046046/…

"The key point here is that there is no deep connection between high investment parenting and high vigilance parenting, and it is therefore counter-productive to combine them into the term 'intensive parenting'" kiddingaround.substack.com/p/stop-saying-…

How did “The Backrooms” go from an obscure creepypasta to an @A24 film? For Shira Chess, its rise reflects the “liminal aesthetic” and a new Institutional Gothic of corporate dread. thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/backrooms-and-…

Not long to go: *Sleep and Its Meanings: Sociocultural Investigations from Critical Sleep Studies* edited by @tedilta is out with @mitpress in May '26 (print and OA). Featuring essays by a range of brilliant critical sleep studies scholars! mitpress.mit.edu/9780262052306/…

"We all say we have certain values, but then there is an asterisk: It doesn’t apply to the majority of humans, certainly not those who do not have the right color of passport, which our society has chosen." A timely Q&A with @ProfKochenov: thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/is-citizenship…

In his new #openaccess book, "Biologists Unite," Daniel Chiu Suarez traces the meteoric rise and fall of a pragmatic but ultimately doomed approach to conservation. newscientist.com/article/251327…