{"product_id":"mens-et-mania-isbn-9780262537117","title":"Mens et Mania","description":"\u003cb\u003eA memoir of MIT life, from being Noam Chomsky's boss to negotiating with student protesters.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen Jay Keyser arrived at MIT in 1977 to head the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, he writes, he \"felt like a fish that had been introduced to water for the first time.\" At MIT, a colleague grabbed him by the lapels to discuss dark matter; Noam Chomsky called him \"boss\" (double SOB spelled backward?); and engaging in conflict resolution made him feel like \"a marriage counselor trying to reconcile a union between a Jehovah's witness and a vampire.\" In \u003ci\u003eMens et Mania\u003c\/i\u003e, Keyser recounts his academic and administrative adventures during a career of more than thirty years.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKeyser describes the administrative side of his MIT life, not only as department head but also as Associate Provost and Special Assistant to the Chancellor. Keyser had to run a department (\"budgets were like horoscopes\") and negotiate student grievances—from the legality of showing \u003ci\u003eDeep Throat\u003c\/i\u003e in a dormitory to the uproar caused by the arrests of students for anti-apartheid demonstrations. Keyser also describes a visiting Japanese delegation horrified by the disrepair of the linguistics department offices (Chomsky tells them \"Our motto is: Physically shabby. Intellectually first class.\"); convincing a student not to jump off the roof of the Green Building; and recent attempts to look at MIT through a corporate lens. And he explains the special faculty-student bond at MIT: the faculty sees the students as themselves thirty years earlier. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKeyser observes that MIT is hard to get into and even harder to leave, for faculty as well as for students. Writing about retirement, Keyser quotes the song Groucho Marx sang in \u003ci\u003eAnimal Crackers\u003c\/i\u003e as he was leaving a party—\"Hello, I must be going.\" Students famously say \"Tech is hell.\" Keyser says,\"It's been a helluva party.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis entertaining and thought-provoking memoir will make readers glad that Keyser hasn't quite left.\u003c\/p\u003eKeyser is a great writer and story teller. He captures so much of what I remember clearly, but shows it to me from the administration's, rather than a student's, frame of reference. He does it with humor, even in the most frustrating and maddening moments. And like everyone I've ever encountered at MIT, he continuously teaches throughout.—\u003cb\u003eBrad Feld\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003ci\u003eBusiness Insider\u003c\/i\u003e—Samuel Jay Keyser is Peter de Florez Emeritus Professor in MIT's Department of Linguistics and Philosophy and Special Assistant to the Chancellor. Head of the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy from 1977 to 1998, he also held the positions of Director of the Center for Cognitive Science and Associate Provost.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLawrence Bacow is President of Tufts University and the former Chancellor of MIT.","brand":"The MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301064823013,"sku":"NP9780262537117","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780262537117.jpg?v=1767732559","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/mens-et-mania-isbn-9780262537117","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}