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The History of Computing is More Relevant Than Ever

I recently wrote a piece for the Washington Post using history to debunk the infamous “Google Memo” and its contention that women are somehow less innately suited to technical pursuits. Truth is, for a long time women were predominant in the field of computing because technical work wasn’t seen as important. Their disappearance has everything to do with structural discrimination and little to do with “innate” differences.

I was also very glad to get a few mentions in The Guardian. See this (delightfully acerbic) article about memogate in general, and this one that’s specifically about the history of computing’s role in helping us better understand power and (the lack of) diversity in our technological landscape in the present.

Quick note about the latter article–it made a little bit of a mistake in the first few lines (read more here and here). Both SUSIE and SADIE were computers. The typist/programmer in the ad was unnamed.

BCL Computer ad from 1967 that talks all about the “typist” that will program your newly-purchased computer for you.

 

What the Google gender ‘manifesto’ really says about Silicon Valley

File 20170809 32154 xnrsxk
Oh the terrible irony.
Photo by Mar Hicks

Five years ago, Silicon Valley was rocked by a wave of “brogrammer” bad behavior, when overfunded, highly entitled, mostly white and male startup founders did things that were juvenile, out of line and just plain stupid. Most of these activities – such as putting pornography into PowerPoint slides – revolved around the explicit or implied devaluation and harassment of women and the assumption that heterosexual men’s privilege could or should define the workplace. The recent “memo” scandal out of Google shows how far we have yet to go.

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Why Should We Care About The Failure of the British Computing Industry?

Recently I gave a talk at Data & Society, a think tank in NYC that focuses on issues of social justice and technology. The talk was about how the history of computing of our closest historical cousin, the UK, can help us learn things about the past and present of the US–things that we may be blind to, or perhaps just resistant to seeing. The half-hour talk is an overview of what happens when countries build discrimination into technological order, rather than seeking to make equality a core goal of technological progress. In it, I address how the current state of affairs in the US relates to this, and I offer some advice on solving the problems of underrepresentation in STEM fields today. Watch the talk here.

 

Press and Early Reviews for Programmed Inequality

photo courtesy of Cathy Gillespie (pictured)

I’m honored that the Times Higher Education Supplement, a leading publication for higher education professionals, has chosen Programmed Inequality for its prestigious book of the week slot this week. Professor John Gilbey writes in his review that Programmed Inequality is “a sophisticated work of scholarship: detailed, insightful, deeply researched,” and “has a much wider relevance, too, which it would be unwise to understate. Discussing, as it does, the role of profoundly structural gender discrimination in the collapse of technical dominance by a formerly great power, this book makes very uncomfortable reading – on a number of levels.” Read the full review and the interview that follows it here: The failure of the UK computer industry in the 20th century holds uncomfortable lessons for the US in the 21st century, writes the Times Higher Educational Supplement

I was also fortunate enough to be on the radio (twice!) last week discussing Programmed Inequality. The first was with Steve Grzanich of WGN Radio in Chicago on his show The Opening Bell (listen to the podcast here). The second was with Frank Stasio of WUNC Radio on his show The State of Things (listen to the podcast here). And after I went on air at WUNC I headed to the Regulator Bookshop in Durham, NC (home of Duke University, where I got my PhD) to give a book talk.

Photo by Ashley Willard

 

Getting your bearings if you were surprised

In the wake of an election that has chagrined many, I made up a list of 10 films for students in my “Disasters” course. My intent was to help them get a sense of why we are where we are today, in a way that wouldn’t require them to add to the mountains of reading and problem sets they already do for their courses.

The list is below–they’re mostly documentaries. But not the boring kind. I decided to leave it handwritten, rather than type it up, because I think we could all use traces of each other as human beings right now. Plus, that way you can see my “Depress-o-meter” rating for each film (in the margin). I did that so you won’t end up watching something terribly depressing when you’re already crushed, as my students seemed to be this Wednesday  when I saw them in class.

Against Meritocracy in the History of Computing

Meritocracy is often taken for granted, even though when you look at it closely it’s pretty clear that it’s a pleasant historical fiction. The danger of this fiction is that it clouds our judgment of the past, present, and future. It makes us sloppy about ensuring that everyone’s civil rights are being respected and hurts our understanding of the social systems that we live and work within.

The high technology sector is still one of the worst offenders when it comes to indulging in this particular fiction. So when I was recently invited to write a piece on the topic for CORE, the magazine of the Computer History Museum, I jumped at the chance to talk about this issue in a publication that helps remind Silicon Valley about its history. You can read the article here (it starts on page 28): Against Meritocracy in the History of Computing.

Fall 2015 IIT Digital Humanities Speaker Series

Digital Humanities Speaker Series 2014-2015: Building Infrastructure Through Collaboration

In connection with the establishment of both a Digital Humanities Center and a Digital History Lab on IIT’s campus this year, this year’s series will focus on how infrastructure for the digital humanities, broadly construed, gets built, used, and apportioned–both at IIT and at other universities.

Fall Schedule:

All meetings take place on Tuesdays from 1:15 to 3pm in the Siegel 218 conference room (map). Faculty, staff, students, and visitors from other universities are welcome to attend.

1. September 9th: Katrin Voelker & Jillana Enteen, heads of the DH lab at Northwestern

“Jumpstart: Digital Humanities Projects at Northwestern University”

Jillana Enteen and Katrin Voelkner will share experiences and insights from recent projects at Northwestern that are designed to engage faculty in Digital Humanities debates and expand curricular offerings at the undergraduate level. Jillana and Katrin will address benefits and challenges of trying to jumpstart and sustain digital humanities projects and curricular efforts, such as such as NUDHL, MMLC, CSCDC and the AVD Summer Fellowship.

2. October 21st: Kevin Baker & Andrew Keener, graduate student co-conveners of the Northwestern DH seminar.

“How to ‘Do DH’ with Others: Digital Methods in Philology and Book History”

Andrew Keener will talk about collaborative digital methods in graduate humanities research through discussing the “Spenser Engagements” project and his work on a Humanities Without Walls grant that is registering Northwestern’s Special Collections holdings with a digitally accessible bibliographical catalog (the ESTC) for the use of scholars around the world. Kevin Baker will discuss his experiences as a co-convener of the Northwestern DH seminar and offer a critical view of the institution-building involved in Digital Humanities, using insights from the field of Science and Technology Studies.

3. November 18th: Lisa Massengale and Devin Savage from Galvin Library

“Structured Collaborations: How Libraries are supporting Digital Humanities Initiatives”

Devin Savage and Lisa Massengale will give a brief talk on how academic librarianship has sought to encourage and support research and teaching for Digital Humanities initiatives. They will then lead a discussion on how the Galvin Library might create local opportunities for collaboration across disciplines.

Cool Code, Bro: Brogrammers, Geek Anxiety and the New Tech Elite

Journalist Nick Parish recently published an e-book on privilege, sexism, and heteronormativity in high tech called: Cool Code, Bro: Brogrammers, Geek Anxiety and the New Tech Elite. In it, he discusses how the changing landscape of the American economy has helped shift the culture of tech.

In the past three decades, we’ve seen the leading edge of the software industry go from privileging whiz kids to bad boys. In our attempts to come to grips with the new postindustrial age as workers and consumers, we’ve found that we’re becoming more and more wary of the hero stories coming out of Silicon Valley. What once seemed like boyish irreverence for social etiquette now seems an antisocial force that may be inimical to the very industry our economy relies upon. As the model of geek-chic has changed, so has the meaning. Or has it? Parish tries to figure all of this out, while giving a brief primer on how high technology and privilege interact in some disturbing ways.

His e-book is free to download today. Full disclosure: I was interviewed by Parish for this work and several of my articles are referenced within it, which how I know about it. You can read my writings on the subject here, here, and here. I’d also recommend the work of several others referenced in Parish’s e-book, particularly Kate Losse and Sapna Cheryan.

Presentations for STS Final Projects

Post a link to your prezi in a comment here no later than April 28 at 6pm. Make sure that your prezi is set to be publicly viewable.

Comic based on the book Cybernetic Revolutionaries, by Pooja Agarwal, using images from Medina’s book and ComicBook! iPad app.

You will hand in the paper portion of your final project on April 29 in class and give an oral presentation (using your prezi) in class. Remeber that your presentation must be no longer than 6-8 minutes. I will enforce this time limit in order to give everyone time to speak—so be sure to practice your talk before class and stick only to the most important evidence you have to present: your presentation should not just be a sped-up description of what you wrote in your paper. Rather, it should focus on one point that gives us a new insight into your topic.