Books published by MIT Press Ltd

How xerography became a creative medium and political tool, arming artists and activists on the margins with an accessible means of making their messages public. This is the story of how the xerographic copier, or "Xerox machine,” became a creative medium for artists and activists during the last few decades of the twentieth century. Paper jams, mangled pages, and even fires made early versions of this clunky office machine a source of fear, rage, dread, and disappointment. But eventually, xerography democratized print culture by making it convenient and affordable for renegade publishers, zinesters, artists, punks, anarchists, queers, feminists, street activists, and others to publish their work and to get their messages out on the street. The xerographic copier adjusted the lived and imagined margins of society, Eichhorn argues, by supporting artistic and political expression and mobilizing subcultural movements. Eichhorn describes early efforts to use xerography to create art and the occasional scapegoating of urban copy shops and xerographic technologies following political panics, using the post-9/11 raid on a Toronto copy shop as her central example. She examines New York's downtown art and punk scenes of the 1970s to 1990s, arguing that xerography—including photocopied posters, mail art, and zines—changed what cities looked like and how we experienced them. And she looks at how a generation of activists and artists deployed the copy machine in AIDS and queer activism while simultaneously introducing the copy machine's gritty, DIY aesthetics into international art markets.Xerographic copy machines are now defunct. Office copiers are digital, and activists rely on social media more than photocopied posters. And yet, Eichhorn argues, even though we now live in a post-xerographic era, the grassroots aesthetics and political legacy of xerography persists.

A detailed examination of the GATT regime for international trade, discussing the negotiating record, policy background, economic rationale, and case law.

A concise and accessible examination of sustainability in a range of contemporary contexts, from economic development to government policy.The word "sustainability” has been connected to everything from a certain kind of economic development to corporate promises about improved supply sourcing. But despite the apparent ubiquity of the term, the concept of sustainability has come to mean a number of specific things. In this accessible guide to the meanings of sustainability, Kent Portney describes the evolution of the idea and examines its application in a variety of contemporary contexts—from economic growth and consumption to government policy and urban planning.Portney takes as his starting point the 1987 definition by the World Commission on Environment and Development of sustainability as economic development activity that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” At its heart, Portney explains, sustainability focuses on the use and depletion of natural resources. It is not the same as environmental protection or natural resource conservation; it is more about finding some sort of steady state so that the earth can support both human population and economic growth. Portney looks at political opposition to the promotion of sustainability, which usually questions the need for sustainability or calls its costs unacceptable; collective and individual consumption of material goods and resources and to what extent they must be curtailed to achieve sustainability; the role of the private sector, and the co-opting of sustainability by corporations; government policy on sustainability at the international, national, and subnational levels; and how cities could become models for sustainability action.

Redefining curatorial practice for those working with new kinds of art.As curator Steve Dietz has observed, new media art is like contemporary art—but different. New media art involves interactivity, networks, and computation and is often about process rather than objects. New media artworks are difficult to classify according to the traditional art museum categories determined by medium, geography, and chronology and present the curator with novel challenges involving interpretation, exhibition, and dissemination. This book views these challenges as opportunities to rethink curatorial practice. It helps curators of new media art develop a set of flexible tools for working in this fast-moving field, and it offers useful lessons from curators and artists for those working in such other areas of art as distributive and participatory systems.The authors, both of whom have extensive experience as curators, offer numerous examples of artworks and exhibitions to illustrate how the roles of curators and audiences can be redefined in light of new media art's characteristics. Rethinking Curating offers curators a route through the hype around platforms and autonomous zones by following the lead of current artists' practice.

In this book, ten prominent economists—including Nobel laureates and several likely laureates—offer their ideas about what the future might hold in 100 years.This pithy and engaging volume shows that economists may be better equipped to predict the future than science fiction writers. Economists' ideas, based on both theory and practice, reflect their knowledge of the laws of human interactions as well as years of experimentation and reflection. Although perhaps not as screenplay-ready as a work of fiction, these economists' predictions are ready for their close-ups. In this book, ten prominent economists—including Nobel laureates and several likely laureates—offer their ideas about the world of the twenty-second century.In scenarios that range from the optimistic to the guardedly gloomy, these thinkers consider such topics as the transformation of work and wages, the continuing increase in inequality, the economic rise of China and India, the endlessly repeating cycle of crisis and (projected) recovery, the benefits of technology, the economic consequences of political extremism, and the long-range effects of climate change. For example, 2013 Nobelist Robert Shiller provides an innovative view of future risk management methods using information technology; and Martin Weitzman raises the intriguing but alarming possibility of using geoengineering techniques to mitigate the inevitable effects of climate change.Contributors Daron Acemoglu, Angus Deaton, Avinash K. Dixit, Edward L. Glaeser, Andreu Mas-Colell, John E. Roemer, Alvin E. Roth, Robert J. Shiller, Robert M. Solow, Martin L. Weitzman

An accessible description of modern macroeconomics, and a defense of its policy relevance.