Steven Pinker is Peter de Florez Professor
in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
There is an Unofficial
Web Page about Steven Pinker maintained by Gen Kuroki. It contains
reviews and discussions of The Language Instinct, abstracts of Pinker's
articles in professional journals, and other sources.
“The Game of
the Name,” New York Times, April 3, 1994.
“Grammar Puss,” The
New Republic, January 24, 1994.
“Chasing the Jargon
Jitters,” TIME, November 13, 1995.
“Evolutionary
Psychology: Letter on Stephen Jay Gould’s `Darwinian Fundamentalists’,” New
York Review of Books, October 9, 1997.
“Against Nature,”
Discover, October 1997.
“The Brain’s
Versatile Toolbox,” Natural History, 106, September, 1997.
“Can a Computer Be
Conscious?” US News and World Report, August 18/25, 1997.
“How Much Art Can the
Brain Take?” The Independent on Sunday, February 7, 1998.
“Presidents
Behaving Badly.” The New Yorker,
February 9, 1998.
“Listening Between the Lines,” New York
Times, October 7, 1998.
“Racist Language, Real and Imagined.” New
York Times, February 2, 1999.
“The Seven Wonders of the
World,” Convocation Address, Faculty of Science, McGill University, June 7,
1999.
“His Brain Measured Up,”
New York Times, June 24, 1999.
“Horton Heared a Who!” TIME, Nov. 1, 1999,
“Regular Habits”, Times
Literary Supplement, Oct. 29, 1999,
“There Will Always
be an English,” New York Times, Dec. 24, 1999.
“The Irregular Verbs,”
Landfall, March 2000.
“Will the Mind Figure out
How the Brain Works?” TIME, April 3, 2000.
“Survival of the Clearest,”
Nature, 404, 441-442.
“Life in the Fourth
Millennium,” Technology Review, May/June 2000.
Review
of J. Glover’s “Humanity: A Moral History of the 20th Century,” New York
Times Book Review, Oct. 29, 2000.
Steven Pinker is represented by the David Lavin Agency, Ltd.,
1-800-762-4234.
Sept 6 – 9.. “Words and Rules in the Brain.” Conference
on Architectures of the Mind, Architectures of the Brain. Jubilee Days, Vatican
City.
Oct 6, 1PM. Panel on Human Nature with Noam
Chomsky and Hilary Putnam, 50th Anniversary Celebration, School of
Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences, MIT, Wong Auditorium, E51, MIT.
Oct. 10, 6PM. Panel discussion with Robert
Pinsky and Wendy Kaminer on the English Language, in connection with the publication
of the Fourth Edition of the American Heritage Dictionary. Sackler
Museum, Harvard University.
Oct. 14, 4PM. “The Blank Slate, the Noble
Savage, and the Ghost in the Machine.” Positive Psychology Summit 2000, Gallup
Headquarters, Washington DC.
Oct. 16, 3PM. “Words and Rules.” New Jersey
City University, Jersey City NJ.
Oct 19 – 21. “The Blank Slate, the Noble
Savage, and the Ghost in the Machine” Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories, Cold
Spring Harbor, Long Island, NY.
Nov. 9, 4PM. “Words and Rules.” Bolt,
Beranek, & Newman/GTE, Cambridge, MA.
Nov. 13, 8PM, “Words and Rules” (Herzberg
Lecture). Bell Theater, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario.
Nov. 15, 7PM, “The American Conversation,” panel
discussion on current issues, McCormack Institute of U Mass Boston. Omni Parker
House, Boston.
Dec. 5, 7PM, “Words and Rules,” Barnes and
Noble/Boston University Bookstore, Kenmore Square, Boston.
Dec. 6, 7PM, “Words and Rules,” Harvard Coop,
Harvard Square.
Feb 19, 2001, 7:30 PM, “Words and Rules.”
Claremont McKenna College, Los Angeles area.
Feb 28, 2001, 8PM. “Words and Rules” (Ireland
Lecture). University of Alabama at Birmingham.
April 19 – 22 (time and day TBA), “Words and
Rules.” Invited lecture, Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child
Development.
Among Prof. Pinker’s research projects are
The MIT Twins Study and other studies of language, its development, and its neural bases. This research uses regular
(walk-walked) and irregular (come-came) inflection as
well-matched and easily studied examples of the two main components of
language: combinatorial grammar and memorized words. Click here for a recent bibliography of this research.
Click here for resources in Cognitive Science, Psychology, and Linguistics.
Cover story, Maclean’s
(Canada’s newsmagazine), May 1, 2000.
Interview by John Koch, Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, Jan 23,
2000.
“Steven Pinker: The Mind Reader,” Profile in The Guardian, November
6, 1999.
“Gould, Pinker, Lewontin, Wilson: Who’s the
Fittest Evolutionist of them All?,” Lingua Franca,
Nov. 1999.
“Pinker on the Brain,” profile in Scientific American, July 1999.
Films featuring Steven
Pinker:
How the Mind
Works and Steven Pinker: In Depth. Filmed
lecture and interview. Click here for the
brochure text. Into the Classroom
Media, 10573 W. Pico Blvd. #162, Los Angeles CA 90064. 800-732-7946
The Seven Wonders of the World II. One of seven half-hour BBC programs in which a
scientist or author describes seven wonders of the world. Christopher Sykes Productions.
Me and Isaac Newton. Feature film on seven scientists. Clear Blue Sky Productions.