[SIGCIS-Members] CFP: SHOT 2012 Conference, 4-7 Oct in Copenhagen. Deadline 31 March.

[Thomas Haigh]

Hello everyone,

 

This topic has been receiving some spirited discussion on the general list
and in smaller groups, but I think the time has come to accept it as an
unfortunate use of "reply to all" from one of our newest members and move
on..

 

..but not before I mention that I wouldn't have come to every SHOT meeting
for the last 8 years and organized something like 20 panel submissions for
the conference if I was cynical about the SHOT experience or indeed found it
dreadful. However, in encouraging people without history Ph.D.s to attend
and submit to SHOT I've become aware that there's a lot of tacit knowledge
about how a history conference works that is mystifying to (say) computer
scientists, amateur historians or economists but is not included in a
typical history CFP because it is "too obvious" to bother stating. So to
further the SIG's interdisciplinary mission, and help SHOT's stated goal of
broad participation, I aimed to take some of that "insider" knowledge I
learned during my academic apprenticeship and share it with our members.

 

Tom

 

From: Deborah Douglas [mailto:ddouglas at mit.edu] 
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2012 3:54 PM
To: Catherine Lathwell
Cc: Thomas Haigh; members at sigcis.org
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] CFP: SHOT 2012 Conference, 4-7 Oct in
Copenhagen. Deadline 31 March.

 

Dear Catherine,

 

I'm very sorry for that impression as the Society has been an exceptionally
warm and stimulating intellectual home for me for more than a
quarter-century.  The conferences are small (300-400 participants) and
extremely welcoming of scholars from all disciplines as well as many who do
not call themselves historians.  I've listened to awesome presentations as
well as some incredibly dull ones but I've never failed to go home without
the sense that at least one or two Roman Candles have been set off in my
mind.   One of the most important parts of these conferences are the field
trips, which have taken me atop of dams, over bridges, inside steel mills,
and onto auto assembly lines over the years.  Last year's plenary on the
events following the tsunami in Japan was exceptionally helpful.  

 

The lesson from Thomas' note is that great sessions take work to create and
put together.  Like most things in life, there is not a guarantee that a
slot can be found but the Program Committee tries to balance many things to
make the program as diverse as possible.  (As the chair of the Albatross
Special Interest Group (Aviation and Space History), some in that group
would love to have an "all-aviation and space conference" but, obviously,
it's good to have some sessions on computing, etc.    In general, I've often
found that I've learned the most from sessions wholly outside my area of
expertise.  

 

So I'm a bit less cynical than Thomas and would like to suggest you come to
Copenhagen next fall or to Portland in 2013.  Perhaps others might share
there impressions of the Annual Meeting as I'm sure the conversation would
benefit the Society greatly.

 

Regards,

 

Debbie Douglas

 

On Feb 16, 2012, at 4:34 PM, Catherine Lathwell wrote:





Dear Thomas, 

 

The SHOT conference sounds dreadful however I am so happy to be receiving
your mails that hardly matters.

 

Thank you for letting me into your group.  I very much appreciate the
collegiality.

 

Best Regards,

Catherine Lathwell

 

 

http://www.aprogramminglanguage.com <http://www.aprogramminglanguage.com/> 

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Deborah G. Douglas, Ph.D. . Curator of Science and Technology, MIT Museum,
Room N51-209 . 265 Massachusetts Avenue . Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 .
http://web.mit.edu/museum  .  http://museum.mit.edu/150 . ddouglas at mit.edu .
617-253-1766 phone  .  617-253-8994 fax

                                                            

Spring Semester 2012 . Research Associate, Program in Science, Technology,
and Society . Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Room E51-179B . 77
Massachusetts Avenue . Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 . 617-452-3545 phone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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