On view October 1 -- December 11, 2025This exhibition draws on archival materials from the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT (AKDC) to explore a century of cultural heritage preservation in Aleppo, Syria. It takes as its point of departure the work of Kamil al-Ghazzi (1853–1933), the pioneering Aleppine historian whose influential three-volume chronicle, Nahr al-Dhahab fī Tārīkh Ḥalab (The River of Gold in the History of Aleppo), was published between 1924 and 1926.Ink, Stone, and Silver Light presents three modes of documentation—manuscript, built form, and photography—through which Aleppo’s urban memory has been recorded and preserved. Featuring figures such as Michel Écochard and Yasser Tabbaa alongside al-Ghazzi, the exhibition traces overlapping efforts to capture the spirit of a city shaped by commerce, craft, and coexistence. At a time when Syria again confronts upheaval and displacement, these archival fragments offer models for preserving the past while envisioning futures rooted in dignity, knowledge, and place.

An online mini course for the MIT community with Peter Krause (PhD '11). Krause is an associate professor of political science at Boston College and a research affiliate with the MIT Security Studies Program.This webinar is hosted by the MIT-MENA program at the MIT Center for International Studies.Please note that you will need an MIT email address to register for this event.October 27: US, Gaza, and the Future for PalestiniansRegister here for session 2 on October 27.November 24: Past, Present, and Future of Iran-Israel relationsRegister here for session 3 on November 24.December 8: Abraham Accords and Arab-Israeli relationsRegister here for session 4 on December 8.About the speaker: Peter Krause is an associate professor of political science at Boston College. His research and teaching focus on international security, Middle East politics, terrorism and political violence, nationalism, and rebels and revolution. He currently teaches courses on Middle East politics, terrorism and political violence, research methods, and international relations. He is a faculty associate in the International Studies Program and the Islamic Civilization and Societies Program at Boston College, as well as a research affiliate with the MIT Security Studies Program.This is for the MIT community only.Sponsored by MIT-MENA.

Speaker: Matthew J. Kiefer, Lecturer in Real Estate, Harvard GSD / Attorney Goulston&StorrsRespondent: Sarah Williams, Associate Professor, MIT / Director Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism and Civic Data Design LabThis is part of the CDD / LCAU lunchtime lecture series. Lunch will be served

Ten minutes for your mind@2:50 every day at 2:50 pm in multiple time zones:Europa@2:50, EET, Athens, Helsinki (UTC+2) (7:50 am EST) https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88298032734Atlantica@2:50, EST, New York, Toronto (UTC-4) https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85349851047Pacifica@2:50, PST, Los Angeles, Vancouver (UTC=7) (5:50 pm EST) https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85743543699Almost everything works better again if you unplug it for a bit, including your mind. Stop by and unplug. Get the benefits of mindfulness without the fuss.@2:50 meets at the same time every single day for ten minutes of quiet together.No pre-requisite, no registration needed.Visit the website to view all @2:50 time zones each day.at250.org or at250.mit.edu

Paul Niehaus (UC San Diego)

The Program in Science, Technology, and Society invites you to the annual Arthur Miller Lecture in Science and Ethics on Monday, October 27th from 4:00-5:30 pm in the MIT Welcome Center, featuring Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins, anthropologist and associate Professor at Bard University, as she speaks about her research into the intersection of waste, the environment, capitalism, and the concept of home.Landfill, Platform, Diagnosis: How People in Crisis Use Science and Technology to Build New Ethical WorldsDuress—whether it be ecocide, economic collapse, or disability—is usually experienced as a limiting of options. The logic of necessity intensifies the imperative to merely survive, and people’s choices appear to narrow to violence or solidarity. Stamatopoulou-Robbin’s first book on waste and its infrastructures in Palestine, as well as her current book on platform-mediated home-sharing in Greece, challenge these declensionist narratives of crisis. They show how people respond inventively to the material necessities of duress and the material affordances of technology and science. They respond in ways that may not make duress go away, but rather remake how it works in their lives.Science and technology are not in and of themselves solutions to the political problems that generate duress. Yet when people tinker with them, they reshape the ethical contours of their worlds in unexpected ways. This talk tells stories of old technologies (a landfill in Palestine), a newly dominant platform (Airbnb in Athens), and efforts to establish a future diagnosis in the U.S. (an autism profile called “pathological demand avoidance”) to consider the unpredictable place of science and technology in dark times.About Sophia Stamatopoulou-RobbinsSophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins is a New York-based anthropologist and Associate Professor of Anthropology at Bard College with interests in infrastructure, waste, the environment, platform capitalism, the home, and neurodivergence. She is the author of Waste Siege: The Life of Infrastructure in Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2019). Her current book, De/tachment: Airbnb in Athens, is under contract with Duke University Press. She is beginning fieldwork on her next project on the rise of "demand avoidance" as a diagnosis and lived experience for autistic people. She has served on the editorial teams of MERIP, Cultural Anthropology and Critical AI. More on her scholarship and films can be found here:https://sophiastamatopoulourobbins.comPlease RSVP here if you plan to attend in-person, we hope to see you there!

TBA | Kartik Vira (MIT)

Magne Mogstad (UChicago)

Come by for snacks, and tea with Literature Section friends, instructors, students, etc. What are you reading? What 21L classes are you taking or hoping to take? This event is specifically geared towards undergrads; but open to friends of the community that engage in the literary and humanities at MIT.

Speaker: Aaron Landesman (MIT/Harvard University)

MIT-Africa and MIT-MENA invite you to a presentation on the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Moises Saman, focusing on his photography of the conflicts in Syria and Sudan.Saman blends traditional conflict photography with a deeply personal point of view. For more than 10 years, he has been concerned with the humanitarian impact of war in the Middle East, documenting both the front line of daily suffering and the “fleeting moments on the periphery of the more dramatic events.”Join us in the Vannevar Bush Room (MIT Building 10-105) on Monday, October 27th at 4:30pm for a talk by Saman, followed by audience Q&A. Light refreshments will be provided.RSVP for the event here. This event is open to the public.

The Cost of AI (2023), 52 minutes / Marjie Meerman (director)Introduction by Eric Robsky Huntley (DUSP)Topic: AI, Its Social and Environmental ImpactsGenerative AI is the latest buzzword in Silicon Valley. The Big Tech giants all launch chatbots and incorporate AI assistants, based on large-scale language models, into their products. The credo is: we are building the most powerful technology since the invention of electricity, and it is about to change everything. And all this happens in 'The Cloud'.Are we once again blinded by the shine of Silicon Valley and the promise of artificial intelligence? The recent success of AI comes with the use of even more raw materials, even more data, even more computing power and even larger server parks. If you zoom out, AI is a hungry beast that needs to be fed with the fastest chips, huge data sets and poorly paid labour. In the form of silicon mines, endless rows of power-guzzling servers or Syrians labeling data for the next generation of generative AI. AI turns out not to be a divine machine, but an industry that costs blood, sweat and metals. A system of extraction and exploitation on an industrial scale with major consequences for the earth and humanity.Cinema at the Nexus is an institute-wide film series which showcases films/documentaries that grapple with pressing issues of our day aiming to make sense of what we are experiencing today.Other events in the series:Cinema at the Nexus: Citizenfour | Introduction by Mariel Garcia-Montes (HASTS) and Michelle Spektor (SERC), November 4Cinema at the Nexus: Prisoner No. 626710 is Present | Introduction by Sana Aiyar, November 13Supported by the SHASS Dean's grant, hosted by the MIT Libraries.Pizza and light refreshments will be served.

Presented by Subha Xavier Associate Professor of French and African Studies at Emory UniversityAbstract: This talk will consider how China has been imagined by the Western imaginary since the Opium wars of the last century, especially in France, and how Sino-French immigrant writers and artists have responded to this misrepresentation over the years. Examining how empires rise and fall, and the role of fantasy and opioids in political strategy and literary representation, this presentation will argue for a longue durée approach to where China and France collude and collide in the migrant imaginary.Bio: Subha Xavier is Associate Professor of French and African Studies at Emory University. She is author of The Migrant Text: Making and Marketing a Global French Literature and forthcoming work on Sino-French Literary Exchange. She is a specialist of global French, with articles and essays on migrant writing and film in journals in several languages.Global France Seminar Fall 2025 | Website09/24/2025 Mohamed Amer Meziane (Brown University). “How the Fall of Heaven Overturned the Earth: Empire, Capital and the Secularocene” (MIT Hayden Library 14S-110 @ 5:15pm) 10/20/2025 Julien Gelas (Théâtre du Chêne Noir, Avignon, France). Live Performance in France 2025 (MIT 4-253 @ 5:15pm) 10/27/2025 Subha Xavier (Emory University). “From Opium to Fentanyl Wars: China in the Western Imaginary” (MIT 14E-304 @ 5:15pm) 11/19/2025 Tamara Chaplin (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign). Becoming Lesbian (MIT 14N-112 @ 5:15pm) 12/2/2025 Keith Baker (Stanford University). Jean-Paul Marat. Prophet of Terror. (MIT-TBD @ 5pm) 12/3/2025 Judith Miller (New York University). (14E-304 @ 5:15pm)

List Projects 33: Every Ocean Hughes features One Big Bag (2021) is a 40-minute single channel video.The video uses the “mobile corpse kit”—a bag filled with everyday objects doulas use to care for the newly dead—as both the visual structure and narrative driver of the video. With a matter-of-fact demeanor and intense physicality the performer guides the viewer into the largely uncharted waters of corpse care — practical, political and spiritual. The form of the video creates a tension between the subject matter of dying and the forceful liveness of the performance itself. Exhibiting artist Every Ocean Hughes will be joined by Suelin Chen to discuss the complications and complexities of end-of-life care drawn from themes presented in One Big Bag.List Center galleries will be open at 5:00 PM.Speaker BiosEvery Ocean Hughes (b. 1977, lives and works in Stockholm and New York) is a transdisciplinary artist and writer. Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2023); Studio Voltaire, London (2022); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2022); Secession, Vienna (2015); and PARTICIPANT INC., New York (2015). Collaboration has been a central part of her practice: She was editor and cofounder of the queer feminist journal and artist collective LTTR, has written lyrics for several bands (The Knife, Colin Self, JD Samson & MEN), and has done costume design. Hughes’s work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Centre national des arts plastiques, Paris; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; and Kadist, Paris/San Francisco, among others. For over ten years, Hughes has taught art in Europe and the US and works as a coach for artists and creative producers as West Street Coaching.Suelin Chen is an entrepreneur and healthcare executive who was the founder/CEO of the largest website for end-of-life planning in the world (Cake), which has been visited by over 100 million people and was recently acquired by the second largest funeral company in the US. She is now doing corporate and commercial strategy for healthcare companies. She earned her BS and PhD from MIT, where she worked on medical technology and was also a visitor, intern (and, later, an advisory board member) of the List Visual Arts Center.5:00–6:00 PM - MIT List Visual Art Center open 6:00–7:00 PM - Artist Discussion in ACT CubeThis program is in collaboration with MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT).

Join us on Monday evenings for Argentine tango classes with outstanding instructors. Whether you are completely new to tango, or already have some experience, you will find a friendly environment in which to learn new things and improve your technique. You don't have to bring a partner, since the classes involve rotations with all participants.Full Series: Sep 15, 22, 29, October 6, 13, 20, 27, Nov 3, 10, 17, 24, Dec 1, 8, 15.For all info and registration, visit following link.