<div dir="ltr">Yes, one major historical issue that jumps out: the "rule[s] of composition" she attributes to UNIX authors were consciously adapted from existing engineering practices (e.g. "blackboxing" in electrical engineering), which practices were not particularly U.S.-centric.<br><br>"Modularity" in this extremely broad sense could be traced much further back in mathematics and the mathematical sciences.</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 4:57 PM, Janet Abbate <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:abbate@vt.edu" target="_blank">abbate@vt.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Anyone seen this piece by Tara Mcpherson? It starts with some interesting questions, but I found the follow-through to be disappointingly ahistorical. Again and again she argues that there must be a connection between the modularity of Unix and the compartmentalization of race within American culture, but then immediately admits that she has no evidence for any direct connection. As far as I can tell, the only reason she singles out Unix is because it coincides conveniently with the US Civil Rights era. I'm curious to know what others think.<br>
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"Why Are the Digital Humanities So White? or Thinking the Histories of Race and Computation."<br>
<a href="http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/29" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/29</a><br>
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Janet<br>
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Dr. Janet Abbate<br>
Associate Professor, Science & Technology in Society<br>
Co-director, National Capital Region STS program<br>
Virginia Tech<br>
<a href="http://www.sts.vt.edu/ncr" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">www.sts.vt.edu/ncr</a><br>
<a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groups/STS-Virginia-Tech-4565055" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">www.linkedin.com/groups/STS-Virginia-Tech-4565055</a><br>
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/VirginiaTechSTS" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">www.facebook.com/VirginiaTechSTS</a><br>
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