I was very glad to be a part of the digital history and humanities panel at the SIGCIS Workshop (part of the 2015 meeting of the Society of the History of Technology in Albuquerque this year), As background to my comments, I’ve provided my Digital Labor Class syllabus, which was my main contribution to the digital humanities degree we recently set up at Illinois Institute of Technology.
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.
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.
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.
One of my great pleasures over the course of this semester was being able to introduce undergraduates in my Filming the Past class to the amazing work of graduates in the Humanities Department’s Technical Communication program within the Program in Technology and the Humanities. My class not only teaches students through the medium of oral history and documentary film, but asks them to actively engage the public by creating in these mediums and sharing the products of their intellectual development. In that spirit, I’d like to highlight two “podcast-style” interviews students did with young faculty in the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Humanities Department.
One group of students interviewed recent Ph.D. and current Visiting Assistant Professor, Halcyon Lawrence, who works on speech intelligibility. Specifically, Prof. Lawrence asks the question: why do so many of our new, convenience-enabling technologies make life harder for the majority of English speakers? Speech recognition systems deployed worldwide, from Siri to your credit card’s voice prompts, are modeled on, and take for granted, American English or British accents as “standard English”–despite the fact that most English speakers today do not learn English in America or the UK. As English becomes our economic and technological “lingua franca,” how can we solve problems of speech intelligibility that are increasingly becoming embedded in our global technological infrastructure? Prof. Lawrence’s work offers a window into this fascinating problem and potential solutions:
Direct link to interview
Graduate Student Andrew Roback focuses on a different kind of speech: political speech on twitter. In particular, he asks, how do organizations wield 140 characters and what do they expect to get out of social networking? Though much lauded in the popular press for being a political game changer (cf. the conversations about Twitter in the “Arab Spring”), what exactly do we know about political influence on Twitter and about who has control and who doesn’t?
Direct link to interview
In this course, we’ve talked a lot about how to use qualitative evidence and sociotechnical theories as tools for further intellectual insight into large, complex, systems that span both the technical and the social realm. In order to think about how technical artifacts work with and within political, cultural, economic, and environmental spheres, we’ve tried to systematize ways of looking at power and agency when it comes to technology. No two technological case studies are exactly alike, but there are enough historical similarities for us to apply past evidence to present situations.
In an essay of 400-600 words, discuss one issue or theory that you found most important and useful to your intellectual development over the course of the semester. Apply this knowledge to a contemporary issue in order to show what you’ve learned. (Note: this contemporary issue should not be the same topic that you’re focusing on for your final paper.)
In your essay, make an argument that is new and original–in other words, one that we wouldn’t already agree with before reading your essay and seeing your evidence. If your argument seems like something most people would agree with without seeing your evidence, then you need to go back to the drawing board and revise your argument–we
don’t need to prove the obvious. The emphasis in this essay is on showing us something new and backing it up with evidence from the course readings and lectures. Think historically and make comparisons. Try to put things together in an original way that represents your particular take on the course materials.
Due by 5pm on 4/20. Post your essay in a comment and remember to leave an extra line between paragraphs for formatting reasons. As usual, your essays will not show up immediately–I will approve the best ones after the deadline has passed.
This week my STS students read Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination, by Alondra Nelson. Professor Nelson, who teaches sociology at Columbia University, delves into the history of healthcare reform through the healthcare initiatives of the Black Panther Party–with fascinating results.
Below, the students in the class have aimed to summarize the salient points of this important new book, while adding their own insights and questions.
What one new thing did you learn about the concept of a cyborg from the readings this past week? (B. Woods & N. Watson, “In Pursuit of standardization: the British ministry of health’s model 8F wheelchair, 1948-1962;” D. Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto;” Selected news articles on cyborg culture on Blackboard.)
And, who (or what) has the power in creating the cyborgs discussed in the Woods and Watson article?
Conclude by discussing how the answers to the two questions above relate to each other, in order to shed new light on our concept of a “cyborg.”
Your essay should be 300 to 500 words. Posts are due by 5pm on February 27th.