Dear Colleagues,

Want to announce a new journal and its call:

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The Charles Babbage Institute for Computing, Information, and Culture (CBI) is launching a new eJournal.  It is entitled Interfaces: Essays and Reviews in Computing and Culture.  It will have a continuous publication model with publication date for each essay/article (no waiting in queue) and push email to subscribers (and volumes by calendar year). Interfaces will exclusively publish short essay articles (1,500 to 3,000 words) and review essays (books, film, physical/virtual exhibits, other media) on computer/software/internet studies.  Interfaces will be co-edited by CBI Director Jeffrey Yost and CBI Archivist Amanda Wick.  The editors are especially interested in content connecting the history of computing/IT studies with contemporary social, cultural, political, legal, economic, and environmental issues--e.g. essays on gender, race, class, users, human computer interaction, identity, labor, gaming, automation, capitalism, inequality, AI, algorithmic thinking, local or global environmental ecosystems, law/criminal justice, cryptocurrencies, security, leisure, and privacy.  It, however, is not limited to these (any computing history or historically  grounded or contextualized IT studies topics/themes are in scope).  

The journal seeks to be an interface between disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences/medicine (including/especially CS, HCI, information science, and sciences of the artificial); as well as an interface between academic and broader audiences--our reasoning for keeping essays short, strongly encouraging use of images (CBI has thousands digitized and online, and more than 150,000 overall), being timely (quick response, relatively rapid submission to publication), and pushing for highly accessible writing. Types of computing history/IT studies essays could include (but definitely are not limited to):

To submit to Interfaces: Send a Word file (1,500 words to 3,000 words) of your essay, which includes a bibliography/sources at the end (bib., image captions, and 75 word or shorter bio, do not count to word maximum). Authors should use in-text parenthetical cites (MLA) with no footnotes/endnotes/note text. Essays should be broadly accessible and seek to avoid, or greatly limit, disciplinary jargon (and if used, done sparingly and clearly defined). Authors retain copyright and only sign a license form allowing Interfaces to publish (and the journal is open/free access). Send to Jeffrey Yost (yostx003@umn.edu), Amanda Wick (abwick@umn.edu), or the general email cbi@umn.edu 

Authors are strongly encouraged to touch base with Jeffrey or Amanda for feedback on an essay idea, but this is not required and if you prefer, you can just send a submission.

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With it being continuous publication, and to kick it off, I wrote an essay (PDF is attached--journal will present in both a mobile optimized web version and PDF) entitled "Where Dinosaurs Roam and Programmers Play: Reflections on Infrastructure, Maintenance, and Inequality." PDF attached and Web version and PDF link at https://justcode.cbi.umn.edu/interfaces  

If you are not already, Amanda and I encourage signing on to CBI's email list. To be added to our email list which includes Interfaces notifications, simply email cbi@umn.edu with "subscribe" in the subject line

We hope you will consider submitting a short essay to this new publication (articles are reviewed by editors), and/or encourage colleagues to do so. Please forward to potentially interested people. Please email us with any questions.

Best, Jeff