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Tom,<br>
You've got it: epistemological chicken is a difficult bird to cook,
especially when there are whole flocks to consider.<br>
Pat Galloway<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 8/18/2015 3:30 PM, Thomas Haigh
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:01c201d0d9f4$ca8cff30$5fa6fd90$@computer.org"
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">Hmm.
I agree that it’s an interesting discussion, and one that
reflects the increasing breadth of the SIGICS community as
we have been broadening our participation from Ph.D.
historians both into the English/DH crowd and into software
developers. So the list is bringing together a cross-section
of people who would otherwise be unlikely to be in
conversation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">The
headline “Is UNIX Racist” reminds me of the journalistic
maxim that the answer to any question posed in a headline is
“no.” Otherwise they’d run it without he question mark.
(Although the real question surely is “Is UNIX shaped by
racism?”)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">More
seriously, I think Kirschenbaum is right in highlighting the
passage he does. However I find it less convincing than he
does. That’s probably because I’m trained in history, rather
than English or media studies. There’s a difference between
the kind of arguments that are allowed in the two fields,
specifically with respect to evidence and claims about
causation. Scholarship in English tends to be more
self-consciously performative, and more concerned with
joining up apparently unconnected things in a provocative or
original way. I’m reminded of a workshop at Penn where Rob
Kohler asked a visiting English professor “How would you
know if an argument of this kind had gone off the rails and
fallen off the cliff?” His suggestion was that you couldn’t,
that the aesthetic standards at work meant that almost any
connection of conclusion to evidence would be equally valid.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">In
this case the claim is that UNIX has a compartmentalized
architecture and that so was U.S. society at mid-century.
According to McPherson, it is “at best naïve” to think that
this is a coincidence.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">Call
me naïve, or worse, but I think it’s a coincidence. Say UNIX
was not modular but highly integrated and centralized. Well,
that clearly would reflect the hegemonic power of
late-capitalist ideology and the domination of white elites.
If UNIX used a system of rings and permissions for
processes, rather than the simpler model that it adopted.
Clearly that would reflect rigid racial and class
hierarchies in mid-century society. So whatever architecture
UNIX had adopted, one could make an equally plausible case
that it was shaped be ambient racism. Without having at
least a counter factual sketch of what an OS not shaped by a
racist society would look like I find any of these arguments
unconvincing. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">McPherson
appears to starts out with the assumption that a racial
answer will give the deepest and best explanation and works
hard to hold onto this faith wherever else the evidence may
lead: “we must understand and theorize the deep imbrications
of race and digital technology even when our objects of
analysis (say UNIX or search engines) seem not to be about
race at all. That will not be easy. In writing this essay,
the logic of modularity continually threatened to take hold,
leading me into detailed explorations of pipe structures or
departmental structures in the university, taking me far
from the contours of race at midcentury.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">Maybe
UNIX is compartmentalized because of the addressing scheme
of the process it was developed for. Maybe UNIX is
compartmentalized because of the need for portability, which
was unusual in operating systems of the period. Maybe UNIX
is compartmentalized because this reduced the need for
managerial coordination of the loosely coupled team working
on it in the quasi-academic world of Bell Labs where it was
to a large extent a volunteer project. Maybe UNIX is
compartmentalized because that let a small team get more
done more quickly. Remember, Unix is explicitly an
alternative to MULTICs and the problems the project ran into
with a different design philosophy. Maybe, if we follow
McPherson into big-picture cultural explanations, UNIX is
compartmentalized because of the lingering influence of
“separate spheres” gender ideology and the mid-century
exclusion for women from the workforce during the 1950s.
One can also connect it to the well-publicized travails of
OS/360, and the interest in this period in developing
software engineering techniques that would work better than
the “human wave” approach chronicled by Brooks. (MULTICS
fans: I know it did many wonderful things and has a rich
technical legacy).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">So
where I find McPherson unconvincing is in implicitly
dismissing such explanations, to convict those who might
give them credit of naivety “or worse.” In this respect I
think the article undercuts its own agenda – a call to
“historicize and politicize code studies” with which I very
much agree. She wants to convince us that technical innards
matter, and that we need to do the hard work to map social
and political factors onto the internals of the black box –
which many on this list would recognize as a classic STS
move (though she reaches for Gramschi rather than Winner or
MacKenzie). But she doesn’t do that. She picks one technical
feature, doesn’t explore it in depth, and jumps straight
past all the possible social explanations to the giant,
fuzzy fact of racism in society. It’s an explanation that
doesn’t explain, at least by the personal aesthetic
standards I apply to scholarly arguments, which are shaped
more by social history than cultural history or cultural
studies.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">Ken
Stauss’s reaction was not politely phrased, and we do need
to keep discourse on this list civil. However, McPherson
does describe her aim as polemical, and the polemicist
writes with the expectation of causing offense. The style
and content of the article are calculated to appeal to
faculty and grad students in the humanities, and beyond that
community it does not translate well. To be fair, any
scholarly work is framed within the norms of a particular
disciplinary community and tacitly excludes those outside
it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">What
I would love to see is a paper on gender in UNIX,
particularly masculinity. There’s the name, which surely
invokes “eunuchs” (as in an emasculated MULTICS). Commands
like “finger.” Or a paper on whether the libertarian
philosophy that Raymond has claimed for Linux was really
present or articulated in the original design and spread of
UNIX. (I’m a little wary to see her quote it as evidence of
“the UNIX philosophy.”) Is UNIX sexist? Very probably. Is
UNIX homophobic, in the manner of a bromance movie? I’m
ready to be convinced. Here’s a title for someone: “Gay
Kernel Panic: The Uneasy Masculinities of UNIX.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">Best
wishes,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">Tom<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">From:</span></b><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">
Members [<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org">mailto:members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org</a>] <b>On
Behalf Of </b>Matthew Kirschenbaum<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, August 18, 2015 8:43 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> Ceruzzi, Paul <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:CeruzziP@si.edu"><CeruzziP@si.edu></a><br>
<b>Cc:</b> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:members@sigcis.org">members@sigcis.org</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Is Unix racist?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">This
has developed into an interesting discussion, at
least in so far as it exposes some of the
disciplinary rifts and boundaries amongst the many
different constituencies and communities claiming
some purchase in the history of computers and
computing. Like the Doubloon nailed to the mast in
Moby Dick, here sits Tara McPherson's essay with
its provocative title, "Why are the Digital
Humanities so White?" under an even more
provocative listserv subject line, "Is Unix
racist?" Not surprising many of us feel compelled
to weigh in.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">I
suspect some are reading the essay through something
like the following framework:<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">The
author, starting with a bold and perhaps
overdetermined thesis, sifts what historical evidence
she can find, comes up short, and so stumbles and
fumbles her way toward an unsatisfying conclusion.
Alas, there is no smoking gun to prove that UNIX
developed out of overtly racist motivations after all,
but we can still salvage a publication and an English
professor qua digital humanist can maybe toss some red
meat to students.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">But
that's not what's going on in the essay, I don't think.
Instead, I see the decisive passage as this one:<br>
<br>
"By<span class="sentence"> drawing analogies between
shifting racial and political formations and the
emerging structures of digital computing in the late
1960s, I am not arguing that the programmers creating
UNIX at Bell Labs and in Berkeley were </span><em>consciously</em><span
class="sentence"> encoding new modes of racism and
racial understanding into digital systems.</span><span
class="none"> </span><span class="sentence">(Indeed,
many of these programmers were themselves left-leaning
hippies, and the overlaps between the counterculture
and early computing culture run deep, as Fred Turner
has illustrated.) . . .</span><span class="none"> </span><span
class="sentence">Nor am I arguing for some exact
correspondence between the ways in which encapsulation
or modularity work in computation and how they
function in the emerging regimes of neoliberalism,
governmentality, and post-Fordism. Rather, I am
highlighting the ways in which the organization of
information and capital in the 1960s powerfully
responds—across many registers—to the struggles for
racial justice and democracy that so categorized the
United States at the time.</span><span class="none"> .
. .</span><span class="sentence"> Computation is a
primary delivery method of these new systems, and it
seems at best naive to imagine that cultural and
computational operating systems don’t mutually infect
one another.</span>" (149)<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">The core thesis, then, is that cultural
and computational constructs influence one another.
Indeed, the very division is suspect, precisely the
"modularity" of which McPherson speaks. <br>
<br>
Who here would seriously disagree? Which is to say, I can
well imagine specialists in the history of Unix (or the
history of American social relations in the 1960s)
disputing this or that aspect of her subsequent discussion
and analysis. That's called scholarly communication. But
the kind of rhetoric some here have deployed, questioning
her credentials and the terms of her employment? That's
something else entirely. Best, Matt<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 9:11 AM,
Ceruzzi, Paul <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:CeruzziP@si.edu" target="_blank">CeruzziP@si.edu</a>>
wrote:<o:p></o:p></p>
<blockquote style="border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC
1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in
6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in">
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span
style="color:blue">Well, we know that BASIC was
developed at Dartmouth College, which at the time
was all-male and quite the macho place. Dartmouth
was founded to train Native Americans for the
Christian ministry—enough about that. It was also
the inspiration for the movie _<i>Animal House</i>_.
What this has to do with BASIC I have no idea, but
when I think of Dartmouth BASIC, I think of John
Belushi in the cafeteria (a scene that was totally
ad-libbed by the way). What for me in most
interesting about Dartmouth BASIC is that it was
designed for a time-shared system, but it was
adapted by the PC community for the Altair and
other PCs. That was a radical re-definition of the
language. For example, you could not have commands
like “Peek” and “Poke” in Dartmouth BASIC, if
you’re running it on a time-shared mainframe.
You’d crash the system. But Peek & Poke were
absolutely necessary for the personal computer,
given the limitations of memory they had. (Also
“usr.”) Kemeney & Kurtz did not approve of the
way BASIC was modified, but it had to happen. Who
came up with those changes?—it may have been at
DEC for the PDP-11.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span
style="color:blue"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span
style="color:blue">Are the terms “peek” and “poke”
sexist? Probably, but we do know that among the
computer companies of the 1960s, DEC was one of
the most progressive in hiring women.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span
style="color:blue"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span
style="color:blue">As for the Is UNIX Racist
discussion, I am disappointed that some of you use
that paper in coursework. But there are so few
alternatives, and the topic is sorely in need of
further study. I talked about this at the SIG
meeting in Dearborn. We need to address the topic
in a more fundamental way. I recommend a recent
book by a colleague of mine, Richard Paul, _<i>We
Could Not Fail</i>_, about African-Americans who
worked for NASA in southern NASA Centers, during
the hey-day of the Space Race. Around the same
time, IBM established a major facility in Atlanta,
and the company had to remind the Atlanta
political and real-estate establishment that its
employees were to be treated fairly. When the
Braves moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta, Hank Aaron
expressed some concern about the move. The issue
was real. What about the effort by Ken Olsen at
DEC and William Norriss at CDC to establish plants
in inner city neighborhoods, in St. Paul, Boston,
and Springfield, Mass.? What became of those
plants?</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span
style="color:blue"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span
style="color:blue">As I said, this topic merits
serious discussion, but the UNIX paper? Maybe not
so much.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span
style="color:blue"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span
style="color:blue">Paul Ceruzzi </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span
style="color:blue"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span
style="color:blue"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span
style="color:blue"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:.5in"><b><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">From:</span></b><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">
Members [mailto:<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org"
target="_blank">members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org</a>]
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Andrew Meade McGee<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, August 17, 2015 8:19 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Nabeel Siddiqui<br>
<b>Cc:</b> Sigcis<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Is Unix
racist?</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:.5in"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:.5in">On
a semi-related query, has there been much race-,
gender-, or class-related discussion around the
cultural logic or social context of the
development or reception of BASIC?<o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:.5in"> <o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:.5in">I
could imagine that fitting into a larger
conversation on class, institutions, social
action, and (possibly) accusations of
paternalism given its Sixties-era
development and Dartmouth origins. Just
curious -- I admittedly know far less than I
should about the dissemination of
programming languages. <o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:.5in"> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
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<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:.5in">Best,<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
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<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:.5in">Andrew<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
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</div>
</div>
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<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:.5in"><br
clear="all">
<o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:.5in">--
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
--<br>
Andrew Meade McGee<br>
Corcoran Department of History<br>
University of Virginia<br>
PO Box 400180 - Nau Hall<br>
Charlottesville, VA 22904<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:.5in"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:.5in">On
Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 5:55 PM, Nabeel
Siddiqui <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:nasiddiqui@email.wm.edu"
target="_blank">nasiddiqui@email.wm.edu</a>>
wrote:<o:p></o:p></p>
<blockquote
style="border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC
1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in
6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-top:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<div>
<p
style="mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif">I
assign it in my course to discuss race
with students, but it does have its
problems, specifically correlation vs
causality. While the article doesn't
get into it, I think it adds to David
Golumbia's <i>Cultural Logic of
Computation</i> on how computation
provides a set of ideas and metaphors
for people to think about the world
around them. The Digital Humanities
part is actually a part that was
tacked on and doesn't really add much
to the article. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p
style="mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p
style="mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif">Originally,
the article was release as "U.S.
Operating System at Mid-Century" in <i>Race
After the Internet</i>, edited by
Lisa Nakamura and Peter Chow-White.
Link to the original article's pdf
here: </span><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://history.msu.edu/hst830/files/2014/01/McPherson_2012.pdf"
target="_blank"><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif">http://history.msu.edu/hst830/files/2014/01/McPherson_2012.pdf</span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
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<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:.5in"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:.5in">On
Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 4:57 PM, Janet
Abbate <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:abbate@vt.edu"
target="_blank">abbate@vt.edu</a>>
wrote:<o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<div>
<blockquote
style="border:none;border-left:solid
#CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in
6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-top:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:.5in">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>
<br>
"Why Are the Digital Humanities
So White? or Thinking the
Histories of Race and
Computation."<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/29"
target="_blank">http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/29</a><br>
<br>
Janet<br>
<br>
<br>
Dr. Janet Abbate<br>
Associate Professor, Science
& Technology in Society<br>
Co-director, National Capital
Region STS program<br>
Virginia Tech<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.sts.vt.edu/ncr"
target="_blank">www.sts.vt.edu/ncr</a><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.linkedin.com/groups/STS-Virginia-Tech-4565055"
target="_blank">www.linkedin.com/groups/STS-Virginia-Tech-4565055</a><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.facebook.com/VirginiaTechSTS"
target="_blank">www.facebook.com/VirginiaTechSTS</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:.5in"> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:.5in"><br>
_______________________________________________<br>
This email is relayed from members at <a
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</blockquote>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:.5in"> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
_______________________________________________<br>
This email is relayed from members at <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://sigcis.org"
target="_blank">sigcis.org</a>, the email discussion
list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those
of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or
endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at <a
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</blockquote>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
<br clear="all">
<br>
-- <o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Matthew
Kirschenbaum<br>
Associate Professor of English<br>
Associate Director, Maryland Institute for Technology
in the Humanities (MITH)<br>
University of Maryland<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://mkirschenbaum.net" target="_blank">http://mkirschenbaum.net</a>
or @mkirschenbaum on Twitter<o:p></o:p></p>
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</div>
</div>
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<br>
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<pre wrap="">_______________________________________________
This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/">http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/</a> and you can change your subscription options at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org">http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org</a></pre>
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