February 2023 - Members - lists.sigcis.org

New Book: Digital Independence. India's Way Into the Computer Age – an International History
by Michael Homberg 30 Dec '24

30 Dec '24

Dear SIGCIS, please excuse the "self-promotion": I am excited to announce the publication of my new book: "Digital Independence. India's Way Into the Computer Age – an International History" ("Digitale Unabhängigkeit. Indiens Weg ins Computerzeitalter – eine Internationale Geschichte"). It has been published this week by Wallstein, and is largely based upon my habilitation thesis which I finished at the University of Potsdam, Germany, in 2021. The book is in German language only, but an English translation is already planned. I've shared the translated German blurb below. Many thanks for all the inspirations I received from the SIGCIS community, and I hope you all have a lovely weekend. Best regards from Berlin, Michael *** Digitale Unabhängigkeit. Indiens Weg ins Computerzeitalter – eine Internationale Geschichte, Göttingen: Wallstein 2022 (Geschichte der Gegenwart, Bd. 32). URL: https://www.wallstein-verlag.de/9783835352674-digitale-unabhaengigkeit.html. Blurb: The first electronic computers arrived in India in the 1950s. Today, Indian programmers embody our globalized world. This book examines the long and chequered history of India's journey into the digital age. It shows how the emergence of digital expertise in India was the result of both national efforts and international cooperations. From early on, the computer thus became a symbol of Indian nation-building at the end of the colonial era, a tool of technocratic planning in the high modern age, and an instrument of power politics, cultural controversies and economic interests. The book interweaves a national history perspective on the Indian republic, which celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, with an analysis of the country's global relations, analyzing the different speeds and intensities of the computerization of the living and working worlds in the Global North and the Global South. Thus, it reconstructs the highly international networks of computer specialists, technicians, managers and politicians, development experts and activists in India. Since the early days of the Indian republic, industrialized nations such as the USA and the USSR, but also the Federal Republic of Germany and Great Britain promoted the expansion of computer technology and education in India. This study explores the roots of these international technical assistance programs in the Cold War era and the development of its global geopolitics of expertise, the growing desire in the Indian computer industry for “digital independence” in the global IT market since the 1970s and the triumph of elite programmers in Silicon Valley in the early 21st century. It analyzes the preconditions, dynamics, and consequences of global exchange processes in India after 1947, and thus “decenters” the primarily Western perspective of computer history and its master narratives. Drawing on broad (archival) research in India, the USA, and Europe, the study's sources include governmental records, university archival collections, academic literary estates, parliamentary minutes, and contemporary media. _______________________________ PD Dr. Michael Homberg Senior Scientist/Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam (ZZF) e.V. Am Neuen Markt 1 14467 Potsdam

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SIGICS update
by Andrew Russell 01 Jul '24

01 Jul '24

Dear SIGCIS friends - I’m writing to share the news that I’m stepping down as SIGCIS Co-Chair. I started as Chair back in 2014, and became Co-Chair when Melanie Swalwell joined me in this role in 2020. I’m really proud of what we’ve built and sustained together as a community! At the same time, I think it’s healthy for SIGCIS to have some rotation in leadership. The tipping point for me came a couple of months ago, when I was named as Officer-in-Charge (aka interim president) of my university, SUNY Polytechnic Institute. This assignment is as rewarding as it is time-consuming, and leaves me little choice but to pull back from some of my professional commitments, including SIGCIS. Fortunately, Melanie Swalwell has agreed to continue on as SIGCIS Chair. She will be writing to the list soon with an update about SIGCIS in 2023 and beyond. Thank you for your support and kindness over the years, and for making SIGCIS a welcoming and fun place to be :) All the best, Andy — — — — — — — — — — — Andrew L. Russell, Ph.D. Officer-in-Charge SUNY Polytechnic Institute 100 Seymour Road Utica, NY 13502 257 Fuller Road Albany, NY 12203 https://sunypoly.edu/ https://arussell.org/

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SIGCIS 2022 CFP: UNDER CONSTRUCTION | Due June 1
by Laine Nooney 30 Jan '24

30 Jan '24

Dear SIGCIS Community, The SIGCIS Conference Organizing Committee is pleased to *announce the CFP for our 2022 SIGCIS Conference, **UNDER CONSTRUCTION*. Our keynote for the event is Lilly Irani <https://quote.ucsd.edu/lirani/>, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication & Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego. The SIGCIS Conference will take place *November 13th, 2022 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, *on the Sunday of the SHOT conference. *Abstracts are due June 1.* Below you can find the full CFP for this year's conference. The CFP can also be viewed as a Google doc here <https://bit.ly/388L3Zk>, or at our conference website: meetings.sigcis.org. Please circulate widely, and we hope to see you at SIGCIS! -Laine Nooney, Morgan G. Ames, Stephanie Dick, and Xiaochang Li -------------------------------------------------------------- *UNDER CONSTRUCTION* *New Orleans, LA, US | November 13, 2022* The Special Interest Group in Computing, Information, and Society [SIGCIS] welcomes submissions to their annual conference meetings.sigcis.org Proposal Due Date: June 1, 2022 KEYNOTE SPEAKER Lilly Irani Associate Professor of Communication & Science Studies University of California, San Diego THEME A shovel strikes dirt in one country, and the Internet goes out in another. Data centers are cooled by local water supplies, fiber-optic cable follows the sightlines left by railroads and telegraph, global hardware semiconductor supplies depend on the labor of rare earth mineral miners: somehow computing always needs more. The past ten years, in particular, have exhibited a perilous turn in the political economy of computing, as software became service, programming became agile, and storage became cloud. This new regime is driven by an accelerated mode of iterative software development that increasingly relies on post-sales bug fixes, security patches, and performance upgrades, producing a litany of products and services whose endless failures aid some and threaten others. From the communities subject to such “innovation” to the shadow workers paid to “be” artificial intelligence to the coders pushing ambient updates by the millions, risk hums through it all. Computation today is locked in a state of perpetual beta testing, forever promising “improved” features—just don’t ask when it will end, and don’t ask who’s doing the work. In the meantime, these new standards of practice generate new labor and resource demands, new forms of risk, and new challenges for accountability and intervention alike. Yet the patched and partial nature of computing isn’t new. Computing is infrastructure, requiring its own forms of construction and maintenance throughout its history, whether tearing up roads, detangling spaghetti code, or hastily soldering circuits. These are metaphors for history too: what better encapsulates the sentiment of doing history, than the feeling that it will never be done? For historians of information and computing itself, such anxieties are particularly acute due to the objects under examination: constant upgrades, absent documentation, planned obsolescence, the failure of historic hardware. For every line of code we save, hundreds, thousands, disappear. As we work to make sense of our contemporary conditions, how does the undone quality of history affect our ability to tell it? The 2022 SIGCIS Conference, convening in-person in New Orleans on November 13 following the SHOT Annual Meeting, invites scholars, museum and archive professionals, journalists, IT practitioners, artists, and independent researchers across the disciplinary spectrum to submit abstracts related to the historical conditions of computing. We are especially interested in (but not limited to) work that relates to the theme of construction, maintenance, and labor, broadly and imaginatively construed. Areas of engagement may include: - Maintenance and infrastructure in the history of computing and information tech - Historically-oriented approaches to the platform and gig economies - Computing as a site of labor struggle - Networks, borders, boundaries - Computational models of resistance: obfuscation, open-source, hacking, going “off grid” - Government’s historic role in the construction of computing industries and infrastructure - Communitarian and utopian applications of computing - Updates, upgrades, failures, and bugs - Modding, re-using, recycling, afterlives - Archival and curatorial practices and methods - Oral history, memory, forgetting - The limits of historical representation SIGCIS is especially welcoming of new directions in scholarship. We maintain an inclusive atmosphere for scholarly inquiry, supporting disciplinary interventions from beyond the traditional history of technology and promoting diversity in STEM. We welcome submissions from: the histories of technology, computing, information, and science; science and technology studies; oral history and archival studies; critical studies of big data and machine learning; studies of women, gender, and sexuality; studies of race, ethnicity, and postcoloniality; film, media, and game studies; software and code studies; network and internet histories; music, sound studies, and art history; and all other applicable domains. The annual SIGCIS Conference begins immediately after the regular annual meeting of our parent organization, the Society for the History of Technology [SHOT]. Information about the annual SHOT conference can be found at: https://bit.ly/3Nswik2 SUBMISSION FORMATS SIGCIS welcomes proposals for individual 15-20 minute papers, 3-4 paper panel proposals, and non-traditional proposals such as roundtables, software demonstrations, art and music performances, hands-on workshops, etc. SUBMISSION PROCEDURES Submissions are due June 1, 2022 via Google form: <https://forms.gle/C8ixar9s3JsCXq8d9>https://forms.gle/sLRowEDz6QitKCfv9. Submissions require: - 300-350 word abstract, summary, or prospectus (as appropriate for the submission type). Full panel proposals should additionally include 200-250 word abstracts for each paper that will be part of the panel. - 100-150 word bios for each participant If you are submitting a co-presented paper, pre-constituted panel, or other submission involving multiple participants, please only have one person submit for the group; contact and professional information for other participants can be included in the Bio submission section. Questions about the submission process should be sent to: xiaochang.li(a)stanford.edu. COSTS/REGISTRATION While last year’s online conference was pay-what-you-can, hosting an in-person event incurs costs related to room and A/V rental, catering, etc. These costs are subsidized in part by our parent organization, SHOT, but participants should expect registration fees in the range of $45-50 for SHOT attendees and $90-120 for those only attending Sunday SIGCIS Conference (we list these rates in good faith, but they are subject to change). Attending SHOT has its own registration costs. TRAVEL AND CARE GRANTS As a new initiative, SIGCIS will be offering grants to support travel expenses and/or expenses related to child, elder, and other forms of care for presenters whose responsibilities at home may present a barrier to in-person participation. The top financial priority of SIGCIS is support for graduate students, visiting faculty without institutional travel support, and others who would be unable to attend the meeting without travel assistance. We understand that for some, participation is more contingent on childcare or elder care, and as such we are opening up these grants to provide that form of support as well. There is no separate application form, though depending on the volume of requests and available resources we may need to contact you for further information before making a decision. Any award offered is contingent on registering for and attending the SIGCIS Conference. Please note that SHOT does not classify the SIGCIS Conference as participation in the SHOT annual meeting, so acceptance by SIGCIS does not imply eligibility for the SHOT travel grant program. ACCESSIBILITY ACCOMMODATIONS REQUESTS The submission Google form will include a field where individuals may make requests for accessibility accommodations. Since our event is coordinated by our parent organization, SHOT, we cannot guarantee our ability to meet all accommodation requests. However, our intent will always be to advocate to meet the accessibility needs of our participants. SIGCIS MEETINGS ORGANIZING COMMITTEE Laine Nooney, New York University (SIGCIS Vice-Chair of Meetings) Morgan Ames, University of California, Berkeley Stephanie Dick, Simon Fraser University Xiaochang Li, Stanford University ---- Laine Nooney <http://www.lainenooney.com/> MCC <http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/mcc/> @ NYU <http://www.nyu.edu/> Assistant Professor -Need to make an appt? Click, don't email: https://bit.ly/2GIHuK0 -Probably typed by voice recognition, so please cherish typos

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History courses in CS departments
by Evan Koblentz 13 Mar '23

13 Mar '23

Hi everyone, I've been teaching a special topics course in computer history for three semesters here at NJIT. The university policy is three semesters maximum, then the course must be made permanent or cancelled. So I'm going through the process of trying to make it permanent. The department administration supports it, but it has to be voted on by the rank-and-file faculty, many of whom don't seem to understand the value of a history course -- or at least not of a history course in a technical department, rather than through our humanities college. It would help if I can show them other examples. Can anyone point me existing examples of history courses in CS, EE, or other technical departments at U.S. universities? -- Evan Koblentz New Jersey Institute of Technology - Senior Writer, Office of Strategic Communications - Adjunct Instructor, Ying Wu College of Computing - Faculty/Staff Advisor, NJIT Lego Club evank(a)njit.edu (973) 596-3065 https://web.njit.edu/~evank

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] History courses in CS departments
by Scott Campbell 21 Feb '23

21 Feb '23

I know I’m a bit late to this, but I teach a permanent history of computing course here at the University of Waterloo in Canada, hosted by the Faculty of Engineering: STV 210: The Computing Society. It’s cross-listed with the History department and open to any student, including computer science (who are in the Faculty of Math). It covers the standard pre-electronic history back to the late 18th century up through to the internet, using the venerable Campbell-Kelly, Apsray, Ensmenger, and Yost textbook as the background text, but not exclusively. I also strongly emphasize historical thinking practices, and wrote a short pedagogical paper about the course and its value to students: S. M. Campbell, "From historical thinking to critical thinking about technology," , Waterloo, ON, Canada, 2021, pp. 1-4, doi: 10.1109/ISTAS52410.2021.9629144. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9629144 Cheers all, Scott Campbell -- Scott M. Campbell (he/him) Director, Centre for Society, Technology and Values University of Waterloo Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1 (519) 888-4567 x35635 http://cstv.uwaterloo.ca > > I've been asked by colleagues to narrow down the list to US schools, and > again only to those with a specific history-of-computing course. > Many schools offer courses that overlap into computer history, but as I see > it, the direct ones are Carnegie Mellon, Colorado/Boulder, Cornell, > Minnesota, and Yale. I've made my best case to our administration, and > hopefully NJIT can join the list soon. >

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CFP: "Engineering Events: Technologies of Performance" (SHOT 2023 Open Session—Abstracts 3/20)
by Scott Kushner 21 Feb '23

21 Feb '23

Dear SIGCISians, I'm proposing an open session for the SHOT 2023. It may be of interest to scholars working on the computerization of performance infrastructures and other topics related to theater, music, dance, and other forms of performance and exhibition. Feel free to be in touch with any inquiries. See below or visit https://tinyurl.com/shot-performance-tech. Abstracts by March 20 to scottkushner(a)uri.edu. ENGINEERING EVENTS: TECHNOLOGIES OF PERFORMANCE Organizer: Scott Kushner, University of Rhode Island (scottkushner(a)uri.edu) Accounting, amplifying, autotuning, broadcasting, concealing, crowd controlling, designing, displaying, fencing, filming, lighting, loading-in, marketing, monitor mixing, rigging, simulcasting, sound engineering, staging, striking, surveilling, ticketing, transporting, wayfinding: performance events are inseparable from technological interventions. These technologies all have their own histories, and each conspires with other technologies, practices, and discourses to form an assemblage of technical operations. This SHOT session will explore the histories of technologies that support and surround performance—music, theater, sport, and other cultural formations where large groups of people watch small groups of people do things. Technologies of performance can dazzle audiences or hide in plain sight, but they all structure the possibilities of entertainment and the social parameters of performing or audiencing. How have technical instruments of performance interacted with familiar social divides such as gender, race, class, and ability? How have technologies shaped who may perform or attend, whose labor is valued or devalued, whose financial or political interests are served or sidelined? The significance of this work to the history of technology lies in concentrating discussion about the ways that technological interventions have shaped the production, consumption, and possibilities of cultural performance. Scholars at various career levels (graduate students through senior scholars, and all throughout the various dimensions of the academic-labor dominion) working on projects at all stages of development (new ideas, works-in-progress, magna opera) may propose papers exploring technologies of performance from the perspective of innovators, implementers, users, performers, audiences, and/or excluded parties. Proposals engaging with any era and geographic context are welcome. Procedure: Those interested in proposing presentations for potential inclusion in this session will kindly prepare one-page abstracts and a one-page CVs with current contact information. Please submit materials to Scott Kushner (scottkushner(a)uri.edu) by March 20, 2023. If you will be a first-time SHOT presenter, do not hold a tenure-stream position, are a graduate student (or no more than two years from receipt of a terminal academic degree), and wish to be considered for the Robinson Prize, please indicate as much in your abstract. (Find information about the Robinson Prize at the Robinson Prize page at the SHOT website: https://www.historyoftechnology.org/about-us/awards-prizes-and-grants/joan-… ) -- Scott Kushner Associate Professor Department of Communication Studies Harrington School of Communication and Media University of Rhode Island 312 Davis Hall 10 Lippitt Rd. Kingston, R.I. 02881 +1 (401) 874-5223 scottkushner(a)uri.edu

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] History courses in CS departments
by herbert.bruderer＠bluewin.ch 15 Feb '23

15 Feb '23

Hi Evan, I have published more than 50 blog posts on the history of computing, see Communications of the ACM My new two-volume book on the history of computing might be of help to you, it is available in English and German: Bruderer, Herbert: Milestones in Analog and Digital Computing, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Cham, 3rd edition 2020, 2 volumes, 2113 pages, 715 illustrations, 151 tables, translated from the German by John McMinn, https://www.springer.com/de/book/9783030409739 Bruderer, Herbert: Meilensteine der Rechentechnik, De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin/Boston, 3. Auflage 2020, Band 1, 970 Seiten, 577 Abbildungen, 114 Tabellen, https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/567028?rskey=xoRERF&result=7 Bruderer, Herbert: Meilensteine der Rechentechnik, De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin/Boston, 3. Auflage 2020, Band 2, 1055 Seiten, 138 Abbildungen, 37 Tabellen, https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/567221?rskey=A8Y4Gb&result=4 I used the book for several courses. Best wishes, Herbert Bruderer Department of Computer Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich, Switzerland (retired) ----Ursprüngliche Nachricht---- Von : members(a)lists.sigcis.org Datum : 15/02/2023 - 19:44 (MN) An : members(a)lists.sigcis.org Betreff : Re: [SIGCIS-Members] History courses in CS departments I am currently teaching a short course in the history of computing at Stanford, but in the "Continuing Studies" (adult education) department. I had previously pitched it to both the EE and CS departments. My conclusion after those discussions was that the faculty would be interested but, sadly, it was unlikely that the students would be. They are too focused on creating the next unicorn to be bothered with history. Len Shustek Founding Chairman Emeritus Computer History Museum At 09:40 AM 2/15/2023, Evan Koblentz via Members wrote: Hi everyone, I've been teaching a special topics course in computer history for three semesters here at NJIT. The university policy is three semesters maximum, then the course must be made permanent or cancelled. So I'm going through the process of trying to make it permanent. The department administration supports it, but it has to be voted on by the rank-and-file faculty, many of whom don't seem to understand the value of a history course -- or at least not of a history course in a technical department, rather than through our humanities college. It would help if I can show them other examples. Can anyone point me existing examples of history courses in CS, EE, or other technical departments at U.S. universities? -- Evan Koblentz New Jersey Institute of Technology - Senior Writer, Office of Strategic Communications - Adjunct Instructor, Ying Wu College of Computing - Faculty/Staff Advisor, NJIT Lego Club evank(a)njit.edu (973) 596-3065 https://web.njit.edu/~evank _______________________________________________ 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 http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org

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CFP: 2023 ACM History and Archiving Fellowship
by Tracy, Kim 10 Feb '23

10 Feb '23

SIGCIS members, The ACM History Committee’s call for proposals for the history and archiving fellowship program is now open. We’d appreciate your sharing this call with anyone who may be interested. The full call can be found in the link: https://history.acm.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/ACM-fellowship_CFP_2023_…. The deadline for submissions is February 15th, 2023. The ACM History Committee’s 2023 fellowship competition is for research and archiving projects on or centrally-related to ACM history. The History Committee plans to support up to four projects with awards up to $4,000. The History Committee has awarded over 40 fellowships<https://history.acm.org/projects-and-initiatives/fellowship-for-the-advance…> since the start of this fellowship program in 2009. Thanks for any help in getting the word out, --Kim Kim W. Tracy Visiting Asst. Professor of Computer Science and Software Engineering (he/him/his) ROSE-HULMAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 5500 Wabash Avenue | Terre Haute, IN 47803-3999 Room: Moench D216 | tracy(a)rose-hulman.edu<mailto:tracy@rose-hulman.edu> Phone: 812.877.8343 | Fax: 812.877.8343 www.rose-hulman.edu<http://www.rose-hulman.edu>

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Information & Culture seeking book reviewers
by James A Hodges 09 Feb '23

09 Feb '23

Greetings! Please accept my apologies for cross-posting. I'm the Senior Book Reviews Editor for *Information & Culture* ( https://infoculturejournal.org/) an information studies journal published by the UT Austin School of Information. We're currently looking for a few reviewers. In particular, we're looking for someone to review a few recent titles, listed below (although I welcome suggestions/pitches for anything within our wheelhouse that has been published within the last 6 months or so). Reviews are generally under 1,000 words and directed at a wide audience of media, library, information, and communication scholars. You can also read our full book review guidelines at https://bit.ly/ICReviewGuidelines. "The Political Lives of Information Information and the Production of Development in India" By Janaki Srinivasan https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262544047/the-political-lives-of-information/ "An Anthropological toolkit: Sixty Useful Concepts" by David Zeitlyn https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/ZeitlynAnthropological "Semantic Media: Mapping Meaning on the Internet" by Andrew Iliadis https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/ZeitlynAnthropological "Writing the Revolution: Wikipedia and the Survival of Facts in the Digital Age" by Heather Ford https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262046299/writing-the-revolution/ "A House for the Struggle: The Black Press and the Built Environment in Chicago" by E. James West https://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/9780252086397/a-house-for-the-struggle/ "Stuck on the Platform: Reclaiming the Internet" by Geert Lovink https://valiz.nl/en/publications/stuck-on-the-platform If you are interested in reviewing for us, *please send your response to reviews(a)ischool.utexas.edu <reviews(a)ischool.utexas.edu>* Thank you! Sincerely, James A Hodges, Ph.D. Senior Book Reviews Editor -- *JAMES A. HODGES, PH.D. *(he/him/his) Assistant Professor San José State University School of Information http://www.jameshodges.net Senior Book Reviews Editor Information & Culture <https://infoculturejournal.org/> Member, Committee on Publication Ethics <https://publicationethics.org/> (COPE) Junior Fellow, Rare Book School Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography <https://rarebookschool.org/admissions-awards/fellowships/sofcb/>

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TT Position in Gaming, Media, and Communication at Simon Fraser University
by Stephanie Dick 08 Feb '23

08 Feb '23

Hi everyone, The School of Communication<http://www.sfu.ca/communication.html> at Simon Fraser University is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Gaming, Media, and Communication<http://www.sfu.ca/content/dam/sfu/communication/career-opportunities/2023/G…> this year. Review of applications begins March 1. Please apply and/or distribute to your networks! We are a union shop in Vancouver, Canada, and we are excited to have a new colleague in this field. Feel free to email me with any questions. With thanks, Stephanie -- Stephanie A. Dick<https://www.sfu.ca/communication/team/faculty/stephanie-dick.html> Assistant Professor School of Communication Simon Fraser University sdick(a)sfu.ca<mailto:sdick@sfu.ca> she/her I respectfully acknowledge that at Simon Fraser University, we live and work on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

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