From the rapid uptake of commercial AI tools in the workplace to the increasingly dominant role the tech industry is playing in politics, the combustible confluence of technology, power, money, and politics is moving fast and things are breaking. Scholars and practitioners know to be wary of cycles of hype and fear around new technologies. But to many, what’s happening today feels like a definitive break from the past, akin to an unexpected power spike that exceeds the normal operating voltage of a circuit. For SIGCIS 2025, we ask: What are the stakes of studying the history of computing at a time when technology's perceived excesses are unraveling political institutions, legal doctrines, and professional norms? When technology works as intended for some and "glitches" for others (Benjamin 2019), when political agency is superseded by the technologists' visions of autonomy (Marx 2010), and when labor is devalued in the name of machine
We are excited to announce our Call for Participation for the 16th Annual Conference of the Special Interest Group for Computing, Information, and Society, "Power Surge," which will take place online September 25-27. Proposals for papers, panels, graduate student WIP papers (new this year!), or other forms of participation are due June 30 (11:59pm AoE) at https://forms.gle/R63W9xYzAepkCwB98. See below or follow this link <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1plGw7dI_bUWUxNW295A0IrdeBMggoZ-qRI2hPAKPrEM/edit?usp=sharing> for the full CFP. Please reach out if you have any questions, and please spread the word! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SIGCIS 2025: power surge September 25-27 2025 | Online via Zoom The Special Interest Group for Computing, Information, and Society (SIGCIS) welcomes submissions to their 16th Annual Conference meetings.sigcis.org Proposal Due Date: June 30, 2025 | Submit Here <https://forms.gle/R63W9xYzAepkCwB98> Keynote Speaker Lily Geismer <https://www.cmc.edu/academic/faculty/profile/lily-geismer>Professor of History, Claremont McKenna College call for participation productivity (Bix 2000), we assert that locating this moment within the longer history of computing can help us grapple with the contemporary politics of power. The 16th annual conference of the Special Interest Group for Computing, Information, and Society (SIGCIS) employs a broad definition of the history of the politics of computing to facilitate a timely discussion of the relationship between political power and digital technologies. What role does the tech industry play in engineering political, cultural, and economic orders? How do the changes in systems of government funding and patronage steer the goals, tasks, and values of professional and research communities in computer science and engineering? How do political and economic ideologies create demand for certain technologies and shape their adoption? Whether one sees this moment as a breaking point or as a fundamental continuity, this year's theme "Power Surge" also connotes the potential for resistance and response to excesses of computing’s technologies, institutions, corporate actors, and legal doctrines. What modes of effective push-back does the history of computing present to us? "SIGCIS 2025: Power Surge" invites scholars, museum and archive professionals, journalists, IT practitioners, artists, and independent researchers across the disciplinary spectrum to consider how the history of computing and information technology can offer fresh perspectives on tech policy and regulation, the institutional contexts in which computing technology is developed and deployed, and how computing technologies mediate the politics of everyday life. SIGCIS is welcoming of new directions in scholarship. We are particularly interested in submissions that bridge and engage with adjacent but often siloed fields that center the study of power, politics, and policy such as American Political Development (APD), global political economy, political theory, technology policy, and related fields; as well as broader analyses 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; or other adjacent domains. We maintain an inclusive atmosphere for scholarly inquiry supporting disciplinary interventions from beyond the traditional history of technology and promoting diversity in STEM. submission format and procedures SIGCIS welcomes proposals for individual 15-minute papers, 3-4 paper panel proposals, and non-traditional proposals such as roundtables, software demonstrations, art and music performances, hands-on workshops, etc. Participants are limited to one presenting role, but may take on additional roles as moderator, discussant, graduate student workshop mentor, or similar. NEW THIS YEAR: WIP Workshops for graduate students! In addition to the open SIGCIS program, we invite graduate students to submit an abstract, following the submission guidelines below, for a closed works-in-progress (WIP) workshop, where accepted participants will receive feedback on their drafts from established scholars in the history of computing and adjacent fields. Workshops will take place on Saturday, September 27, the final day of the conference. Students who are accepted to the WIP Workshop must submit a full or excerpted draft of their paper/chapter (4000-8000 words, excluding references) by August 31, 2025 in order to be included in the final program. Drafts will be circulated to mentors in the weeks before the conference. We also invite mentor nominations (including self-nominations), and graduate students submitting WIP papers are especially encouraged to submit nominations. Submissions are due June 30, 2025 here: https://forms.gle/R63W9xYzAepkCwB98. Submissions must include: - An anonymized 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. If you are proposing a virtual performance, skill share, social activity, or other non-traditional event, please also tell us how much time you anticipate needing. Please do not include names or other identifying information in this file. - A separate file of 100-150 word biographies with full name, affiliation, email, and presentation title for you and each other participant in your submission (if applicable). 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. Questions about the submission process should be sent to sigcis.conference@gmail.com. virtual logistics and accessibility In order to make SIGCIS as accessible as possible within the means of an all-volunteer organization, the SIGCIS Conference Committee has implemented these measures: - SIGCIS is hosted online every other year, starting in 2021. - Virtual SIGCIS conferences are not co-located or co-timed with our parent organization, SHOT, so as not to conflict with SHOT’s in-person conference. - While our typical in-person format is a one-day, 3-stream conference, our virtual format is a multi-day, single stream event with time-zone-sensitive scheduling. - The virtual conference has a sliding-scale registration fee, and membership in SHOT is not required to register. - The submission form includes a field where you can list your time zone(s) and a field where you may make requests for accessibility accommodations. SIGCIS meetings organizing committee - Morgan G. Ames <http://morganya.org/>, University of California, Berkeley (SIGCIS Vice-Chair of Meetings) - Xiaochang Li <https://comm.stanford.edu/faculty-li/>, Stanford University - Katya Babintseva <https://www.cla.purdue.edu/directory/profiles/ekaterina-babintseva.html>, Purdue University - Gili Vidan <https://infosci.cornell.edu/content/vidan>, Cornell University - Colette Perold <https://www.colorado.edu/cmci/people/media-studies/colette-perold>, University of Colorado, Boulder