"Much of science as we conceptualize it now was built on top of the framings of Verne’s era. Revisiting the exuberance, obliviousness, chauvinism, and optimism of Verne’s science-related worldview offers a useful reminder of where some of our own narratives come from." @mitpress.bsky.social

Jules Verne’s Empty Dream of Spaceflight

In “From the Earth to the Moon,” scientific advancement is treated as destiny — but no one quite asks why.

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu

"True World Skate" (out 10/6) traces the interconnected network of skaters, makers, and innovators—and the diverse landscapes and subcultures, from suburban parks & urban playgrounds to war zones & wilderness—that embody the creative spirit of skateboarding. mitpress.mit.edu/978026205775...

New this week from the MIT Press. Congratulations authors! 📚👇

Excited to get my hands on a copy of the catalogue for "Shimmer Artists Dream a Posthuman World" opening at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville USA on 14th September and featuring "ArchaeaBot" made in collaboration with @alexmayarts.bsky.social. Published by @mitpress.bsky.social

The @mitpress.bsky.social Reader has (a very slightly edited version of) my essay from the new, annotated version of FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON, about the assumptions built in to scientific initiatives and what we've inherited from Verne's era 🚀🌕

Jules Verne’s Empty Dream of Spaceflight

In “From the Earth to the Moon,” scientific advancement is treated as destiny — but no one quite asks why.

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu

In "Why We Cooperate," Michael Tomasello draws on groundbreaking studies of children and apes to reveal the origins of human cooperation. Scholars Carol Dweck, Joan Silk, Brian Skyrms, & Elizabeth Spelke respond to his findings and explore the implications. mitpress.mit.edu/978026201359...

Thrilled to be on the board of this new OA journal that fills a critical niche! Kudos to the co-Editors-in-Chief (@lisik.bsky.social,KendrickKay,ElliePavlick) and a big TY to @mitpress.bsky.social for supporting this important effort! JIT for @cogcompneuro.bsky.social :) Send us your stuff (soon!)

Minds, Machines, and Brains (MMB)@mmb-journal.bsky.social · 3d ago

Hello world! 👋 We’re Minds, Machines, and Brains (MMB) 👤🤖🧠 a new open access journal from @mitpress.bsky.social exploring the principles of intelligence and cognition across natural and artificial minds. Submissions open this Fall! 🔗 direct.mit.edu/mmb

Hello world! 👋 We’re Minds, Machines, and Brains (MMB) 👤🤖🧠 a new open access journal from @mitpress.bsky.social exploring the principles of intelligence and cognition across natural and artificial minds. Submissions open this Fall! 🔗 direct.mit.edu/mmb

If you've been jamming to the #DH2026 feed all week and are now, like me, very sad to see it end, I have something for you: a book on the history of data visualization called DATA BY DESIGN! Bonus: a signed riso bookplate if you preorder and send us your address! mitpress.mit.edu/978026205618...

Data by Design

From maps of colonial empires to charts of national trade, data visualization has long been used to consolidate knowledge and power. But just as often, it ha...

mitpress.mit.edu

Lauren Klein@laurenfklein.bsky.social · last mo.

Riso-printed! Hand-signed! An actual physical thing you can get in the mail! We're sending these bookplates to everyone who preorders DATA BY DESIGN. Drop your address here and we'll send one to you: forms.gle/tK4Dyx1DFvte...

The first students who were given these teaching machines were like, “Wow, this is cool. This is amazing.” And then after three weeks, they’re like, “Wow, this sucks.” — @audreywatters.bsky.social thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/can-the-clas... via @mitpress.bsky.social

Can the Classroom Ever Be Automated?

Long before AI, teaching machines promised to make education more efficient. Their forgotten history reveals why that dream keeps falling short.

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu

Computerized rooms, telework stations, and child-soothing technologies sold a seductive illusion that automation could solve the problems of maternal care.

The False Promise of the First ‘Smart’ Homes

Computerized rooms, telework stations, and child-soothing technologies sold a seductive illusion that automation could solve the problems of maternal care.

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu

Mark your calendars: @leahstokes.bsky.social in convo with former White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy, cofounder and former director of Sunrise Varshini Prakash, and moderator @davabel.bsky.social on SEPT 4 at 7 PM. www.eventbrite.com/e/leah-c-sto...

Love to see an MITP book (Aaron Schuster's "How to Research Like a Dog") make @theatlantic.com's Books Briefing: www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/... You can read an excerpt from the book here if you're interested: thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/kafkas-screw...

Congrats to longtime EIC, Roger Malina, of the @mitpress.bsky.social and ISAST journal Leonardo on his award from the Before Columbus Society for his decades of work building Leonardo into the premier home for work at the intersection of art, science and tech. www.beforecolumbusfoundation.com

As of today our book, The Society that Learns: Constructionism and Lifelong Learning in Thailand, is freely available open access via The MIT Press Direct to Open initiative. @pauloblikstein.bsky.social @mitpress.bsky.social @luismn.bsky.social #constructionism direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...

The Society That Learns: Constructionism and Lifelong Learning in Thailand

How Thai farmers, teachers, and workers created new approaches to lifelong learning through constructionism—and transformed communities across the country

direct.mit.edu

“Mysterious and free-wheeling. We were charmed by the novel’s meditation on friendship and grief, and its suggestion that the most meaningful truths can be found in the shadows.” —The Booker Prize 2026 judges Semiotext(e) edition out in February 2027! mitpress.mit.edu/978163590302...

The Shadow of the Object

Before publishing her first novel Book of Clouds in 2009, Chloe Aridjis studied and wrote on poetry, magic shows, and the literature of the fantastic in nine...

mitpress.mit.edu

The Booker Prizes@thebookerprizes.com · last wk.

The Shadow of the Object by Chloe Aridjis is a magnificent meditation on desire, metamorphosis and mortality. Find out more about this Booker Prize 2026-longlisted book: thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-l... @vintagebooks.bsky.social

Before Netflix, Hulu, and recommendation algorithms, video stores served as “third places” where clerks and customers traded jokes and knowledge — a civic experience that has largely disappeared, writes Joshua M. Greenberg: thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-lost-civ...

The Lost Civic Life of Movie Rental Stores

Decades before recommendation algorithms, video stores served as social hubs where conversation and camaraderie became a form of taste-making.

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu

July 29 #OA spotlight: STINKING PHILOSOPHY! by Benjamin Young @cogscisociety.bsky.social @cogcompneuro.bsky.social @mitpress.bsky.social mitpress.mit.edu/978026254888...

Stinking Philosophy!

What are smells? Despite the best efforts of philosophy and the chemosciences, the question remains vexing—but no more perplexing than the historical lapse...

mitpress.mit.edu

Philip Laughlin@philiplaughlin.bsky.social · last wk.

July 29 #OA spotlight: "People Are STRANGE" by Lambros Malafouris. @cogscisociety.bsky.social @cogcompneuro.bsky.social @mitpress.bsky.social direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...

Alright #GenCon2026! We’re all set up at the @mitpress.bsky.social booth #169 in the Exhibits Hall! Come on by and buy us out of books!

NEW: Is publication, not truth, now the driving pursuit of science? The Credibility Crisis in Science: Tweakers, Fraudsters, & the Manipulation of Empirical Results. Thomas Plümper @wuvienna.bsky.social & Eric Neumayer @lsegeography.bsky.social @mitpress.bsky.social Review by L. Magaldi Sardella

Is publication, not truth, now the driving pursuit of science? - LSE Review of Books

The Credibility Crisis in Science by Thomas Plümper and Eric Neumayer explores how researcher incentives and publication bias distort scientific knowledge

blogs.lse.ac.uk

The latest issue of the @mitpress.bsky.social journal Daedalus explores the future of scientific discovery in the AI age. Essays/interviews from @demishassabis.bsky.social @yann-lecun.bsky.social @erictopol.bsky.social @alondra.bsky.social and more. Free to read: direct.mit.edu/daed/issue/1...

Volume 155 Issue 1-2 | Daedalus | MIT Press

direct.mit.edu

Here's the @intsecurity.bsky.social article it's based on. @reidpauly.bsky.social @mitpress.bsky.social @belfercenter.bsky.social @pearson-edits.bsky.social direct.mit.edu/isec/article...

Damned If They Do, Damned If They Don't: The Assurance Dilemma in International Coercion

Abstract. Why do some coercive demands succeed but others fail? A dominant paradigm explains coercive outcomes by pointing to the credibility and severity of threats. The concept of coercive assurance...

direct.mit.edu

Jacqueline L. Hazelton@drjlhazelton.bsky.social · last wk.

Important work from @reidpauly.bsky.social on US-Iran @mitpress.bsky.social @belfercenter.bsky.social @pearson-edits.bsky.social @intsecurity.bsky.social www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

July 29 #OA spotlight: "People Are STRANGE" by Lambros Malafouris. @cogscisociety.bsky.social @cogcompneuro.bsky.social @mitpress.bsky.social direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...

People Are STRANGE: Material Engagement and the Creation of Self-Consciousness

A groundbreaking exploration of self-consciousness through material engagement theory, redefining what it means to be human in a constantly changing world.

direct.mit.edu

Philip Laughlin@philiplaughlin.bsky.social · last wk.

July 28 #OA spotlight: Kate Nave's A DRIVE TO SURVIVE @mitpress.bsky.social @cogscisociety.bsky.social @cogcompneuro.bsky.social direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...

"Research isn’t knowledge until it’s effectively communicated.” A thoughtful conversation with our director Amy Brand on the future of scholarly publishing, AI, open access, and the changing ways knowledge is communicated:

EXCLUSIVE – Amy Brand: Publishing for a new era - Research Information

EXCLUSIVE: The director and publisher of MIT Press reflects on risk-taking, leadership, innovation and human judgement

researchinformation.info

Four philosophers on social change and why our personal choices still matter in the face of intractable, global, wickedly complex problems @madva.bsky.social @dryan149.bsky.social @mitpress.bsky.social

Episode 72: Michael Brownstein, Alex Madva, and Daniel Kelly on Social Change — The UnMute Podcast

Myisha Cherry chats with philosophers Michael Brownstein (John Jay College/CUNY), Alex Madva (Cal Poly Pomona), and Daniel Kelly (Purdue) about structural change, either/or thinking, why individual ch...

unmutepodcast.com

We interviewed Amy Brand, director at @mitpress.bsky.social, to hear her reflections on risk-taking, leadership, innovation and human judgement. This was the second in our Women in Scholarly Communications series, supported by @cactusglobal.bsky.social www.researchinformation.info/analysis-opi...

EXCLUSIVE – Amy Brand: Publishing for a new era - Research Information

EXCLUSIVE: The director and publisher of MIT Press reflects on risk-taking, leadership, innovation and human judgement

researchinformation.info

In "The Language of the Face," a marvelously comprehensive exploration of the pseudoscience of physiognomy, Frank Gonzalez-Crussi considers over a millennium's worth of primary sources to paint a splendid portrait of the face's cultural symbology: mitpress.mit.edu/978026204753...

A beautiful segment on @pbsnews.org, featuring comments from Dan Roche, author of "Eyes by Hand," which traces the long history of prosthetic eyes. “The message that I got was, 'Can you paint a portrait of my wife, because I’d like her to see everything I’m seeing?'” 😢

Ocular artistry: Eye prosthetics become canvases for self-expression

Prosthetics designed to blend in as replacements for missing body parts are becoming tools for creative expression. This is especially true in the community of ocular prosthetics, or artificial eyes.…

youtube.com

It's that time of the year again! #GenCon2026 is here and we'll be hawking and talking @mitpress.bsky.social books at booth 169 for four days in a row. Stop on by for some sweet swag and some great books!

Anders Holm: What's Up Wit All Deez Books

ALT: Anders Holm: What's Up Wit All Deez Books

static.klipy.com

Dave Ryman@d-ryman.bsky.social · last wk.

#GenCon2026 is nigh. Visit @mitpress.bsky.social booth 169. We have plenty of custom D20 dice, and pencils for you, as well as books of course. Hope to see you there.

@cogscisociety.bsky.social is officially over, but #OA July continues this week and into next week's meeting of @cogcompneuro.bsky.social on the campus of NYU. Here is the July 26 spotlight: THE COGNITIVE LIFE OF MAPS by Roberto Casati. direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...

The Cognitive Life of Maps

The “mapness of maps”—how maps live in interaction with their users, and what this tells us about what they are and how they work.In a sense, maps are temp

direct.mit.edu

Philip Laughlin@philiplaughlin.bsky.social · 2w ago

The @cogscisociety.bsky.social meeting is drawing to a close today, but my #OA spotlight series on @mitpress.bsky.social books continues on. Today's entry: "From Geometry to Behavior: An Introduction to Spatial Cognition" By Hanspeter A. Mallot direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...