[SIGCIS-Members] SIGCIS: gender, race, working class history, imperialism....

[Irish, Sharon Lee]

Dear colleagues, 
I want to take this opportunity to give a big thank you to Tom for his
leadership. Since I don’t often get to SHOT meetings, I cannot deliver
this appreciation in person.
I got one reply to my query about gender and computing, not comprehensive,
but thanks to Melissa Chalmers at U Mich. I think Abbate is already on the
old list.

Abbate, J. (2012). Recoding Gender: Women's Changing Participation in
Computing: MIT Press.
Chun, W. H. K. (2011). Programmed Visions: Software and Memory: The MIT
Press.
Misa, T. J. (2011). Gender Codes: Why Women Are Leaving Computing: Wiley.
​     * I​ncludes historical essays from Ensmenger, Downey, Hicks, Abbate,
Haigh, ETC. ​ *​
 
Edwards, P. N. (1990). The Army and the Microworld: Computers and the
Politics of Gender Identity. Signs, 16(1), 102-127.
Ensmenger, N. (2010). The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers,
and the Politics of Technical Expertise. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Fritz, W. B. (1996). The Women of ENIAC. Annals of the History of
Computing, IEEE, 18(3), 13-28.


A huge challenge is sustaining an effort like this, as Tom notes. In the
Society of Architectural Historians there used to be one or two librarians
who would add to the resources list on a regular basis. Just dreaming…

Sharon Irish

On 9/12/14, 5:49 PM, "Thomas Haigh" <thaigh at computer.org> wrote:

>Hello Bernard,
>
>That is a great idea. The resources list is in need of an update anyway. I
>wrote the current version, but have not updated it for several years and
>there are dozens of important new resources to add, as well as the old
>ones
>that I overlooked. Some time ago I discussed with the then-SIGCIS officers
>the idea that it would be best for it to become more of an institutional
>project than a personal one, with new short entries in the current format
>added by multiple contributors at tagged with the initials of contributors
>from the SIGCIS leadership. There would then be a list at the bottom
>mapping
>initials to names. That retains the slightly informal, personal quality of
>the current entries but doesn't require me to write them all. They liked
>the
>idea, but did not in the end write any new entries and I did not follow up
>with reminders. So this reminds me that we need to revive the project.
>
>We also have a number of more specialized resource guides -- for example
>on
>British history of computing. So one might imagine some specialized guides
>on topical areas, for example sexuality, aside from the main resource
>list.
>That would allow lists that go more in-depth or encompass areas less
>directly related to the history of computing (for example crossing over
>into
>work that is primarily situated within STS or digital humanities but
>likely
>to be of crossover interest to many SIGCIS members). On the other hand, we
>should not ghettoize all coverage of these issues on a separate list, or
>even under separate headings within the main list. For example, Light is
>grouped under "Scientific Computing" rather than placed in a separate
>section for gender.
>
>One of the problems here, of course, is the idea that the main list is a
>kind of canon for the "history of computing" as that can be approached
>from
>so many different perspectives. The current list is personal, and out of
>date, but I tried to imagine a kind of consensus SIGCIS view of the world
>that would cover areas of significant intersection in our different
>visions
>of what is important. Of course that will itself change over time along
>with
>the interests and composition of our members.
>
>I would be happy for you to pull together material to address these areas,
>perhaps by coordinating the drafting one or more specialized guides and by
>nominating entries and or categories to include in the updating of the
>main
>guide. As you know Andy Russell is taking over as chair soon, but I will
>try
>to make sure that we have a plan in place with our new volunteers for
>updating the main guide and that you are in the loop on this and able to
>contribute.
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Tom
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: members-bounces at sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org] On
>Behalf Of geoghegb at cms.hu-berlin.de
>Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2014 5:43 AM
>To: sigcis
>Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] SIGCIS: gender, race, working class history,
>imperialism....
>
>Hi SIGCIS,
>
>One of the surprising accusations surrounding this email nonsense was that
>SIGCIS promoted racism, gender bias, and industrial domination. I was
>curious enough to visit our website and see where we address these topics
>in
>the history of informatics. It seems that on
>http://www.sigcis.org/resources
>we have not addressed  issues like race, gender, sexuality, and working
>class history in informatics. Given the rich range of other resources we
>offer along these lines, I think a few subsections in these areas would be
>worthwhile. If the group approves of adding these resources, topics and
>authors that may be germane include
>
>1) Gender and Computing (Hayles on the Turing Test in POSTHUMAN, Haraway
>misc., Stone on Lovelace, Light on "When Computers were Women")
>2) A People's History of Computing (Robins & Webster on "Long History of
>the
>Information Revolution", Schaffer on "Babbage's Intelligence"?)
>
>If there is interest in putting something like this together and putting
>it
>up as resources, maybe we can bounce the email back and forth, quoting and
>amending the brief list above to quickly generate something better.
>
>Best,
>Bernard
>
>
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