January 2026 - Members - lists.sigcis.org

Conference "Computer in Deutschland", November 7th-8th, Paderborn (Germany)
by Martin Schmitt 16 Feb '26

16 Feb '26

Dear SIGCIS, I hope everyone of you returned home safely from Luxembourg last week. It was awesome to see so many of you there at SHOT. So many good panels on the history of computing! Who still hasn’t enough (and is able to understand German), I just wanted to invite you to a conference on „Computer in Germany. New perspectives in History of Computing and Computer Archeology“. ("Computer in Deutschland“) The conference takes place on the of the 100th anniversary of Heinz Nixdorf in Paderborn, Germany, on November 7th-8th. I’m co-organizing the conference with my colleague Stefan Höltgen with the support of the Historical Institute Paderborn, the German Society for Computer Science (GI) and the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum, on of the largest computer museums in the world. Conference language is German, the conference is free. Please find attached the program and the poster. Best Martin Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter | digital enthusiast UNIVERSITÄT PADERBORN Historisches Institut Zeitgeschichte, Neuere & Neuste Geschichte, Digital History https://www.uni-paderborn.de/person/100968 Tel.: +49 5251 60-2428 Zuletzt erschienen: Schmitt, Martin: „Socialist AI? Societal Use, Economic Implementation, and the Tensions of Applied Computer Science in Late Socialist GDR“, in: IEEE Annals Hist. Comput. (2023), S. 66-79.

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A little less than three weeks left till the Submission Deadline for SIGCIS 2026 Known Error
by Ekaterina Babintseva 27 Jan '26

27 Jan '26

Dear SIGCIS Community, We are writing with a reminder that the due date to submit your proposals to SIGCIS 2026 annual meeting is a little less than three weeks from now — Mon, 2/16. Our theme for this year’s meeting is "Known Error.” Please see the full CFP here.<https://meetings.sigcis.org/> We will gather at the School of Information, UC Berkeley in June 17-18, 2026, but will also have options for virtual participation. This year we are accepting submissions for individual papers, pre-constituted panels of 3-4 papers, software demos, roundtables, and other formats. We are also once again running our graduate student works-in-progress (WIP) closed session, where students can share draft chapters or article manuscripts with a more senior SIGCIS community member and receive feedback. If you would like to serve as a WIP mentor but are not otherwise submitting a proposal to SIGCIS, please reach out to us at sigcis.conference(a)gmail.com<mailto:sigcis.conference@gmail.com>. We are also excited to announce that this year's keynote, "Computing in the Age of Decolonization,”’ will be delivered by Dwai Banerjee,<https://sts-program.mit.edu/people/sts-faculty/dwai-banerjee/> <https://sts-program.mit.edu/people/sts-faculty/dwai-banerjee/> Associate Professor of Science, Technology, and Society, MIT. Bio: What new perspectives about the history and practice of science, technology, and medicine emerge when we foreground the intellectual labor of thinkers and practitioners from the Global South? Dwaipayan Banerjee's work centers the lives and creative visions of scientific practitioners in South Asia, challenging scholars to reorient how we understand the past and future of science, technology, and medicine. He is an Associate Professor in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the author of Enduring Cancer: Life, Death, and Diagnosis in Delhi (Duke Univ Press), Hematologies: The political life of blood in India (Cornell Univ Press) and Computing in the Age of Decolonization: India's Lost Technological Revolution (forthcoming, Princeton Univ Press). Please help us circulate the call widely by forwarding the announcement to your own networks and communities! Looking forward to seeing you in-person or virtually this summer! With best wishes, The SIGCIS Meetings Organizing Committee: Morgan G. Ames<http://morganya.org/>, University of California, Berkeley (SIGCIS Co-Chair) Katya Babintseva<https://www.cla.purdue.edu/directory/profiles/ekaterina-babintseva.html>, Purdue University Jason Ludwig<https://www.filmandmedia.ucsb.edu/person/jason-ludwig/>, University of California, Santa Barbara Colette Perold<https://www.colorado.edu/cmci/people/media-studies/colette-perold>, University of Colorado, Boulder Honghong Tinn<https://cse.umn.edu/hstm/honghong-tinn>, University of Minnesota Gili Vidan<https://infosci.cornell.edu/content/vidan>, Cornell University (Vice-Chair of Meetings)

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The Adolescence of Technology
by Dag Spicer 27 Jan '26

27 Jan '26

Just out… Dario Amodei, Anthropic chief: “Humanity needs to wake up” to dangers of AI. "I believe we are entering a rite of passage, both turbulent and inevitable, which will test who we are as a species. Humanity is about to be handed almost unimaginable power, and it is deeply unclear whether our social, political, and technological systems possess the maturity to wield it." Read his 20,000 word essay —The Adolescence of Technology — here: https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/the-adolescence-of-technology#4-player-pi… Dario Amodei — The Adolescence of Technology darioamodei.com Dag ----- Dag Spicer Senior Curator Computer History Museum Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing ACM History Committee 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View CA 94043 “History is a vast early warning system.” — Norman Cousins, American journalist (1915-1990). Join our Mailing List here: https://info.computerhistory.org/subscribe

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computer game of Nim
by Guy Fedorkow 23 Jan '26

23 Jan '26

Greetings SIGCIS, My colleague Brian White has done quite a bit of work to successfully recover a demo/game of Nim, written to run on the Whirlwind computer in late 1955. We know that the Whirlwind project had an ongoing work item to produce a variety of demonstrations to impress their steady stream of VIP visitors with the breadth of applications that could be run on this new-fangled general-purpose computing machine. The thing that's a puzzle is just how much work they put into "generalizing" Nim. The normal game allows a number of tokens to be removed from a bucket on each turn. The WW Nim can be configured to allow/require the players (human against computer) to remove a number of tokens from a number of buckets in each turn. I don't think the Nim game is very well known these days, but it seems to have had a bit of a moment in the early days of computing as an algorithmic problem that was more challenging than (e.g.) tic-tac-toe, but more tractable than chess. I've seen reference to Nim on a couple of special-purpose Nim-playing machines (Nimatron and Ferranti NimRod), but is anyone aware of other "game theory" approaches to Nim algorithms from that era that might have prompted the Whirlwind efforts? Thanks! /guy ps, All the material is posted on my Whirlwind simulator github site, although the user-interface is so un-intuitive (there's graphical output on a CRT, but input is all in octal) that it really needs a fairly extensive user-guide to be playable. You can see the original Whirlwind memo on the game at http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/mit/whirlwind/DCL-series/DCL-113_Generalized_N…

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Our "Women in Computing" book display
by Brian Randell 22 Jan '26

22 Jan '26

Hi: Last weekend I took a mixed party of about twenty visitors around the School of Computing at Newcastle University, mainly to see our historical computing display (some ten display cabinets). But I also showed them our display (see attached photo) of books “Women in Computing” - it was the one display that the visitors actually applauded! (It is sponsored by Sage Computing, and we have arranged that additional copies of all the books on display are borrowable from the University Library.) Cheers Brian Randell -- School of Computing, Newcastle University, 1 Science Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5TG EMAIL = Brian.Randell(a)ncl.ac.uk<mailto:Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk> PHONE = +44 (0)786 7805578 URL = https://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/staff/profile/brianrandell.html

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SIGCIS 2026: Known Error | CFP and Keynote Announcement | Submissions due: 2/16/2026
by Gili Vidan 19 Jan '26

19 Jan '26

Dear SIGCIS Community, We're thrilled to share our CFP for the upcoming SIGCIS 2026 annual meeting, "Known Error," which will take place at the School of Information, UC Berkeley in June 17-18, 2026, and virtually. *Abstract submission are due in 4 weeks--Mon, 2/16!* *Please see the full CFP here <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VP2Z2dMjFt055P0ee4PwpVyosWu8Mbgu0Jf8Uzk…>*. This year we are accepting submissions for individual papers, pre-constituted panels of 3-4 papers, software demos, roundtables, and other formats. We are also once again running our graduate student works-in-progress (WIP) closed session, where students can share draft chapters or article manuscripts with a more senior SIGCIS community member and receive feedback. If you would like to serve as a WIP mentor but are not otherwise submitting a proposal to SIGCIS, please reach out to us at sigcis.conference(a)gmail.com. We are also excited to announce this year's *keynote speaker:* *Dwai Banerjee* <https://sts-program.mit.edu/people/sts-faculty/dwai-banerjee/>, Associate Professor of Science, Technology, and Society, on *"Computing in the Age of Decolonization."* Bio: What new perspectives about the history and practice of science, technology, and medicine emerge when we foreground the intellectual labor of thinkers and practitioners from the Global South? Dwaipayan Banerjee's work centers the lives and creative visions of scientific practitioners in South Asia, challenging scholars to reorient how we understand the past and future of science, technology, and medicine. He is an Associate Professor in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the author of *Enduring Cancer: Life, Death, and Diagnosis in Delhi* (Duke Univ Press), *Hematologies: The political life of blood in India* (Cornell Univ Press) and *Computing in the Age of Decolonization: India's Lost Technological Revolution* (forthcoming, Princeton Univ Press). *Please circulate this call widely to your own networks and communities!* We look forward to gathering both in person and virtually this summer! The SIGCIS Meetings Organizing Committee: Morgan G. Ames <http://morganya.org/>, University of California, Berkeley (SIGCIS Co-Chair) Katya Babintseva <https://www.cla.purdue.edu/directory/profiles/ekaterina-babintseva.html>, Purdue University Jason Ludwig <https://www.filmandmedia.ucsb.edu/person/jason-ludwig/>, University of California, Santa Barbara Colette Perold <https://www.colorado.edu/cmci/people/media-studies/colette-perold>, University of Colorado, Boulder Honghong Tinn <https://cse.umn.edu/hstm/honghong-tinn>, University of Minnesota Gili Vidan <https://infosci.cornell.edu/content/vidan>, Cornell University (Vice-Chair of Meetings) --- Gili Vidan Assistant Professor | Information Science | Cornell University Pronouns: she/her

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[CfP] INDL-North America Symposium on Labor and AI @ Yale
by Posada, Julian 15 Jan '26

15 Jan '26

Dear colleagues, I am pleased to announce the call for papers for the INDL-North America Symposium on Labor and Artificial Intelligence. Event Details: * Date: April 29, 2026 * Location: Yale University, New Haven, CT (In-person) Theme: "Workers Building, Using, and Resisting AI" This inaugural symposium highlights the essential role of labor not only in creating AI models but also in shaping how those technologies transform work, maintaining AI infrastructure, and developing strategies to navigate or resist AI-driven change. We invite contributions from established and early-career academic researchers (including graduate students), labor organizers and practitioners, and professionals engaged with the theme. Funding: We are pleased to offer a limited number of scholarships for graduate students, non-academics, and independent scholars, funded by Yale’s MacMillan Center. Important Dates: * Abstract Deadline (<500 words): January 18, 2026 (AoE) * Notification of Acceptance: February 28, 2026 For the full call for papers and submission instructions, please visit the symposium website: https://indl-na.sciencesconf.org/ *Apologies for cross-posting. Please share widely.* —————————— Julián Posada, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of American Studies Yale University https://posada.website/

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[RESET Journal] Call for Papers – “Towards New Social and Historical Studies of Artificial Intelligence” (January 16, 2026)
by FICHEN Mathilde 15 Jan '26

15 Jan '26

Hello everyone, The journal RESET is issuing a call for contributions on the following theme: “Towards New Social and Historical Studies of Artificial Intelligence”. Details of the call are available in French<https://journals.openedition.org/reset/6249> and English<https://journals.openedition.org/reset/6250> on the journal’s website. This special issue, coordinated by Mathilde Fichen (HT2s, Cnam), Alexander Campolo (Durham University), and Valentin Goujon (médialab, Sciences Po), aims to bring together empirically grounded contributions that fall within one or more of the following areas: * “Winters” and “springs,” symbolic and connectionist: testing the robustness of major historiographical narratives about artificial intelligence * Spaces, objects, intersectionality: renewed perspectives on the history of artificial intelligence * Contemporary socio-histories of artificial intelligence, between commercial breakthroughs and scientific renewals Article abstracts (around 4,000 characters, excluding bibliography) are expected by January 16, 2026 at the following three email addresses: * mathilde.fichen(a)lecnam.net * alexander.campolo(a)durham.ac.uk * valentin.goujon(a)sciencespo.fr The proposal, written in French or English, should indicate the research question, the methodology used, the theoretical framework applied, and the expected results. It should emphasize the scientific relevance of the proposed article in relation to the existing literature and the call for papers, and should be accompanied by a short bibliography. Authors will receive a response in mid-February 2026. For accepted proposals, full articles must be submitted no later than June 2026. The journal RESET is also open, in its Varia<https://journals.openedition.org/reset/3228> section, to all work in the humanities and social sciences that deals with the digital world as an object or method of research. Please feel free to share this call with anyone who may be interested. We remain available at the email addresses above for any questions. We look forward to reading your submissions, Mathilde Fichen, Alexander Campolo, and Valentin Goujon. Mathilde Fichen Ph.D Candidate CNAM - HT2S<https://technique-societe.cnam.fr/histoire-des-technosciences-en-societe-ht…> Personal page: mathfichen.github.io<https://mathfichen.github.io/>

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Postdoc in history of cryptography
by Matthew L. Jones 14 Jan '26

14 Jan '26

SIGCIS folks, Sharing an exciting two year post-doc opportunity in the history of cryptography, focused broadly in the latter third of the twentieth century to the present. Reach out to me and/or christof.paar(a)mpi-sp.org with any questions. Please distribute widely in your networks. Cheers, Matt Matthew L. Jones Smith Family Professor of History Princeton University@nescioquid The Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy (MPI-SP) in Bochum, Germany, is offering a position for One Postdoctoral Scholar (m/f/d) for 2 years, with employment contract: TVöD-Bund (pay scale E14) to begin in June 2026 or later. We seek a postdoctoral scholar working in the history of cryptography and information security after 1970, with a robust research agenda. The successful applicant will conduct their own research within these guidelines, will undertake a series of oral history interviews, and will organize a workshop on the history of cryptography with a focus on the last 50 years. The project aims to support innovative scholarship on cryptography, both the individual project of the successful candidate and the broader work in the community. The project will be conducted in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin (Etienne Benson) and Princeton University (Matthew Jones).The successful candidate will organize and undertake, along with the director at MPI-SP and the collaborators, to secure high quality, technically and historiographically informed oral history interviews of the major figures in the development of cryptography. Special attention should be given to the 1970s, when cryptography began to emerge as a research field outside government agencies, and to the 1990s, when concerns about privacy and state surveillance became prominent with the rise of the internet. The position will be centered at Christof Paar’s group at MPI-SP and offers a unique opportunity to work within two intellectually stimulating environments: the history-of-science community, with a focus on technology and information technology, and the global cryptography community. The hosting institute together with the collaborating institutions are well connected in both communities at the international level. To apply, please submit the following documents: - Cover Letter; - Curriculum vitae; including publication list; - Research prospectus in which you outline your planned contribution to the research theme (maximum 1,500 words); - An English writing sample communicating your own research to academics or the general public. Preferably a published piece. - Contact information for two referees. Applications must be received by February 28, 2026, and should be sent to christof.paar(a)mpi-sp.org with the subject line “history of cryptography”. Applications will be reviewed in March 2026 and short-listed candidates will be interviewed in March and possibly April of 2026. Only successful candidates will be notified. Please note that we can only accept electronic applications submitted through the portal. The Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy stands for a collaborative, diverse and inclusive workplace culture and promotes equal opportunities. We strongly encourage applications from members of any underrepresented group in our research area. In particular, we invite and encourage women and individuals with disabilities to apply.

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🎮 ROMchip Presents: Upcoming Game History Talks & Fundraiser Twitch Stream!
by Laine Nooney 13 Jan '26

13 Jan '26

The ROMchip Editorial Group <https://romchip.org/index.php/romchip-journal/about/editorialTeam> is excited to invite you to a series of *free* online talks on *the ROMchip Twitch channel* (https://www.twitch.tv/romchipjournal) as part of our annual fundraiser season. These events highlight new work in game history and support *ROMchip*’s mission to publish ad‑free, open access research in the history of games. *Learn More about ROMchip* DONATE <https://hcb.hackclub.com/donations/start/romchip-a-journal-of-game-histories> | SUBSCRIBE <http://eepurl.com/crCul1> | BLUESKY <https://bsky.app/profile/romchip.bsky.social> | YOUTUBE <https://www.youtube.com/@ROMchipJournal> ------------------------------ 📅 *Friday, January 23, 2026 — 2:00 PM EST* *ROMchip Presents: Cameron Kunzelman on Everything Is Permitted: On Assassin’s Creed* *About the book:* Released in fall 2007, *Assassin’s Creed* transformed video gaming. Across more than a dozen franchise entries, players engage with the eternal conflict between the Order of Assassins and the nefarious Templar Order, carrying out missions in a series of painstakingly rendered historical settings, from the Holy Lands during the Third Crusade to Renaissance Italy, the Age of Piracy, the French Revolution, and Victorian London. *Everything is Permitted *is an analysis of the development, evolution, gameplay, and world-building of this sprawling and distinctive franchise. Tix and more info HERE <https://www.tickettailor.com/events/romchipajournalofgamehistories/2018775> . ------------------------------ 📅 *Friday, February 6, 2026 — 2:00 PM EST* *ROMchip Presents: Raiford Guins on King Pong: How Atari Bounced Across Markets to Make Millions* *About the book:* *PONG *is one of the longest- and most consistently circulating video games. Released in 1972, it remains at our fingertips as Android or iOS app, hosted at freepong.org and the Internet Archive, and even released as *A Tiny Game of Pong* for the Apple Watch. Despite its simplicity and ubiquity, Atari’s *PONG *encapsulates far more than the history of a video game and an iconic game company. *King PONG* is the first book dedicated to an unassuming game that changed the world. Through the prisms of product positioning, market development, and category creation, Raiford Guins answers the question of why Atari’s inaugural product succeeded and why it endures. Tix and more info HERE <https://www.tickettailor.com/events/romchipajournalofgamehistories/2013396> . ------------------------------ 📅 *Friday, February 13, 2026 — 2:00 PM EST* *ROMchip Presents: Carlin Wing on Bounce: Balls, Walls, and Bodies in Games and Play* *About the book:* *Bounce *follows an array of bouncing balls through the histories of nonelectronic and electronic games, across the spectrum of play, game, and sport, and into the domains of physics, material science, animation, and computing. The book’s focus on bounce sidesteps the focus on play found in much of the game studies literature and broadens the scope of game history by spotlighting an interaction that is central to thousands of physical and digital games and sports. ------------------------------ 🎉 *Saturday, February 21, 2026 * *— 11:00 AM - 11:00 PM ESTJoin us for the **ROMchip Twitch Fundraiser Stream!* Drop in for a full day of game streams, special guests, prizes, and historical hijinks featuring guests from across the game history community! Featured streamers include Rob Dubbin, Naomi Clark, Pablo F. Quarta, Kendra Albert, Jason Soctt, Todd Anderson, and more! Explore the developing lineup schedule HERE <https://donate.romchip.org/>. DONATE <https://hcb.hackclub.com/donations/start/romchip-a-journal-of-game-histories> | SUBSCRIBE <http://eepurl.com/crCul1> | BLUESKY <https://bsky.app/profile/romchip.bsky.social> | YOUTUBE <https://www.youtube.com/@ROMchipJournal> -- Laine Nooney <http://www.lainenooney.com/> Associate Professor | MCC <http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/mcc/> @ NYU <http://www.nyu.edu/> | they/them Managing Editor | ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories <https://romchip.org/index.php/romchip-journal> | Join our Newsletter <http://eepurl.com/crCul1> -Need to make an appt? Click, don't email: https://calendar.app.google/V9ZuMRWEKnnUBdQ56 -Probably typed by voice recognition, so please cherish typos

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