Jeffrey Schnapp

Coming up this week @harvard.edu

The genuine capitals of violent crime in the US; of course, if you don't read books or believe experts, none of this matters.

Opinion | We Are Watching a Scientific Superpower Destroy Itself

We Are Watching a Scientific Superpower Destroy Itself www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/o...

Coming up on Friday, Sept. 12 @ 8 pm at Salotto (84 Withers Street, Brooklyn, NY) a conversation with David Reinfurt and Jason Fulford on the occasion of the publication of the English edition of Design and Visual Communication.

Design and Visual Communication Bruno Munari 5.375 × 8.25 inches, 400 pages, softcover ISBN 978-1-941753-71-2 Design by IN-FO.CO Available for Pre-order Shipping October 2025...

Coming very soon (English translation + critical apparatus and introductory essay on Munari's visiting professorship at Harvard)

www.inventorypress.com/product/brun...

Winner of the 2025 edition of the Premio di saggistica "Città delle rose" (autori stranieri); honored to be in the company of Alberto Manguel, Marc Augé, Michail Chodorkovskji, Edgar Morin, and Tzvetan Todorov, among others.

www.ilsaggiatore.com/libro/storia...

‪The 𝘿𝙖𝙩𝙖 | 𝘼𝙧𝙩 𝙎𝙮𝙢𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙞𝙪𝙢, co-hosted by #BarabasiLab and #metaLAB, gathered a community exploring data as both material and meaning. As @kimay.bsky.social put it: “We design data, & data designs us.” A timely and necessary conversation. 🧮 bit.ly/4eoUPoa
@barabasi.bsky.social @jaytiesse.bsky.social

Historical Performances of Vingegaard and Pogačar on Mont Ventoux | Tour de France 2025 Stage 16 - Lanterne Rouge With a flat stage before Mont Ventoux, it was expected to have some fireworks and huge climbing performances…

Historical Performances of Vingegaard and Pogačar on Mont Ventoux | Tour de France 2025 Stage 16 lanternerouge.com/2025/07/22/h... via @LanterneRougeYT -- 54 minutes to the top of Mount Ventoux (if you've ever climbed it you know just how amazing this is).

From our event from last week

Unknown novel by writer who charted Hitler’s rise becomes German bestseller Sebastian Haffner’s love story set in final days of Weimar Republic published more than nine decades after it was written

A belated best-seller well suited for the times: Sebastian Haffner’s Abschied

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Nowhere in the world to run: The international law ripping children from their mothers The Hague Abduction Convention was meant to reunite mothers and children. Instead, it's often used by allegedly abusive fathers to tear them apart.

Nowhere in the world to run: The international law ripping children from their mothers 19thnews.org/2025/06/hagu... via @19thnews.org

Sad news

ishtip.org/mario-biagio...

The Hidden Provision in the Big Ugly Bill that makes Trump King. Don't let this happen

The Hidden Provision in the Big Ugly Bill that makes Trump King.
open.substack.com/pub/robertre...

That's terrible news. Mario was a truly exceptional person as well as scholar.

A crucial system of ocean currents is slowing. It’s already supercharging sea level rise in the US. | CNN A new study gives alarming glimpse into the future, as some scientists warn these currents could be just decades from collapse.

meanwhile, some real news

edition.cnn.com/2025/05/16/c...

In Harvard’s archives, British scholars find a lost Magna Carta At a moment when Harvard is battling the Trump administration, a scholar who helped discover the charter said it was an “almost providential” find.

Time to draft up a new Magna Carta for Harvard's host nation (given the assault on constitutional law that is underway).

www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

The illusion of conscious AI Neuroscientist Anil Seth explains why people often overestimate how likely it is that AI will become conscious.

An excellent piece by Anil Seth on why sentience and consciousness should be marginal at best in future of AI conversations.

bigthink.com/neuropsych/t...

sprinting out of the gate today...

Revealed: Autopsy suggests South Carolina botched firing squad execution Records obtained by the Guardian indicate shooters missed the target on Mikal Mahdi, which lawyers say caused prolonged suffering

meanwhile, from the City on the Hill

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Some fresh print. The concluding book in the metaLABprojects series at MIT Press. A thoughtful journey into humanistic and humane knowledge and how it can be engaged to help us collaboratively respond in ethical and sustainable ways to global challenges

mitpress.mit.edu/978026254212...

Well deserved.

ProPublica wins the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in the Public Service category

www.pulitzer.org/winners/22659

Piaggio Fast Forward partners with Star Wars on G1T4-M1N1

www.starwars.com/news/piaggio...

NEH Calls for Proposals for Trump’s Bizarre Sculpture Garden After slashing hundreds of grants for cultural institutions, the agency is opening applications for the president’s widely questioned “National Garden of American Heroes.”

Welcome to North Korea.

From the NEH website: the agency is looking for statues of “famous American statesmen, visionaries, and innovators” on a Trump-authored list of 250 individuals inc. Antonin Scalia, Samuel Colt, Vince Lombardi, and Helen Keller.

hyperallergic.com/1006550/neh-...

World’s largest bleaching event on record has harmed 84 percent of coral reefs Bleached coral dies when exposed to heat stress for too long, threatening the bountiful marine ecosystem that depends on it for survival.

World’s largest bleaching event on record has harmed 84 percent of coral reefs

www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Over 150 US university presidents sign letter decrying Trump administration Statement signed by Harvard, Princeton and Brown leaders denounces White House’s ‘undue government intrusion’

About time that such alliances are forged.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

US philanthropists warn against capitulating to Trump: ‘We need to step up’ Foundation leaders say charitable organisations could be next in the firing line – but must ‘stand together’ to resist

The leaders of various leading philanthropic organizations speak out. Among them our friend John Palfrey.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Opinion | Trump is killing one of our strongest exports The president wants to balance U.S. trade deficits? He can’t do it without this industry he hates.

America's most competitive and prestigious export (so, naturally, the genius the in White House wants to kill it).

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

DATA | ART Data | Art explores the entanglements of data and artistic, scientific, and curatorial practices as a critical examination of how data configures aesthetic, social, and epistemic structures.

Registration is now open at the Data|Art conference website data-art.info

The illegal demands being made by the government to control the Harvard community, including requirements to “audit” the views of our student body, faculty, staff, and to “reduc[e] the power” of students, faculty, and administrators targeted because of their views.

www.harvard.edu/research-fun...

PFF kilo - Piaggio Fast Forward kilo is a 4-wheeled robotic flat bed with built-in, hands-free following capabilities, designed for businesses who regularly transport large items.

In case you haven't seen the cool collaborative robots that we build at PFF, have a look at gita's big brother: kilo

piaggiofastforward.com/business/kilo