Begin forwarded message:

From: Gabrielle Hecht <ghecht@stanford.edu>

Subject: SHOT anti-racist syllabus project & international program update

Date: March 19, 2021 at 12:23:04 PM EDT

Cc: Kevin Chen <kxchen@stanford.edu>

Reply-To: Kevin Chen <kxchen@stanford.edu>

Dear SHOT SIG (and other) leaders,

As part of SHOT’s efforts in anti-racism and internationalization, we are launching an endeavor to update the “Doing HoT” portion of our website to reflect 21st century concerns, programs, and scholarship.

We begin with two arms of this endeavor:

1. An anti-racist syllabus project. We are looking to collect and consolidate syllabi in the history of technology that (a) address race, racism and/or racial & ethnic diversity in a substantive way, and/or (b) give a prominent place to the work of BIPOC scholars. 

2. Update SHOT’s list of “Departments and Programs of Study” to better capture the non-US scene (and of course revise any errors members may spot in the current listings).

We solicit your input, and that of your members, on both these fronts. I gather that some SIGs have syllabus projects underway, so for those responding to the syllabus solicitation may be straightforward. For others it may be more involved. We appreciate whatever time you and your members can devote to this request!

Hopefully #2 is easier - just involves looking at the current list, and letting us know what we should add. Obviously people will notice different omissions, so don’t try to be exhaustive! Just let us know the ones that immediately spring out to you & your members.  

Since SIGs function in a variety of different ways, we leave it to you to sort out the details. Feel free to simply forward this email to your members, if that’s easiest. Obviously this project will always be a work in progress. Nevertheless, an initial response by Monday 19 April, with at least some contributions, would be hugely appreciated. 

We have the great good fortune of being assisted in this task by Kevin Chen (see below for a brief bio). If you simply reply to this email, the response will go to him. In addition to the syllabi and program suggestions, he’ll collect any questions you may have. Once there’s a critical mass of these, we’ll respond with another overview email. 

Thank you so very much for your help with this!

Cheers,

Gabrielle Hecht

(SHOT VP)

Kevin Chen is currently a first-year law student at Yale. He worked with me full time for two years (2018-20) on a community-engaged teaching and research project on “Racial Justice in the Nuclear Age,” and he’s still serving as the part-time project manager for that endeavor. His undergraduate degree is in anthropology, from Columbia. During his time at Stanford, he plunged into the worlds of environmental justice scholarship and STS. So beyond his overall fabulousness, efficiency, and perspicacity, he is well-prepared for this work!

Gabrielle Hecht
Professor of History

Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute | CISAC
Professor of Anthropology, by courtesy
Stanford University

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