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A library of interviews with the world’s biggest thinkers.
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Transportation systems have to operate on these dimensions to be effective: economic development, environmental protection and social equity.
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A conversation with the MIT professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
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The creator of “thing theory” suspects his professional curiosity about objects stems from his private inability to attach much importance to them.
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The UChicago critic names the works he loved best as a young reader and the author that excites him most these days.
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Is the nature of “the text” changing in the Web age? Are blogs hurting criticism? And could the growing interest in “thing theory” be a response to an increasingly virtual […]
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The term “thing theory” is a joke, but not a joke about physics.
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By inviting us to pay close attention to the object itself, “thing theory” can tease out new meaning in the simplest artwork—even an apparent prank like Duchamp’s “Fountain.”
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Many modern artists have explored the idea that the material world “might want to be organized other than the way we’ve organized it.”
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From Daisy weeping into Gatsby’s shirts to Tom Hanks chatting with Wilson the volleyball, stories are as much about things as people.
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The critic’s signature “thing theory” is an exploration of how inanimate objects transform us, in art and life.
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Bill Brown first sensed his calling when he realized he read very slowly—a habit he thinks is integral to the critic’s discipline.
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A conversation with the professor of English and visual arts at the University of Chicago.
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His fellow physicist Steven Weinberg says the Nobel committee has “fleeced” Freeman Dyson. But Dyson prefers the infamy of never having won.
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When the physicist expressed reservations about climate change, he stirred heated controversy. “It doesn’t disturb me at all,” he says.
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“We don’t only have to worry about warming,” the physicist argues. “It could very well be the climate gets colder. Nobody knows”—and we waste time arguing when we should be […]
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Last week, Obama signed an ambitious nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia. So why does the “Weapons and Hope” author fear that George Bush, Sr. will go down in history […]
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Freeman Dyson never spoke to Einstein, but revered him from afar. He was a “totally exceptional person”—as was another colleague, Nobelist and “clown” Richard Feynman.
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The sheer unpredictability of atoms exempts them from ordinary rules of causality. The brain may be a “clever device” that turns that freedom into freedom of action.
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Why looking for extraterrestrial life gets more and more efficient—and less and less expensive—each year.
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With NASA’s future in doubt, the physicist recalls designing an ingenious (and sadly, radioactive) rocket that could have had us “scooting all around the solar system” 50 years ago. Will […]