Rethinking and Rebuilding: Grand Narratives in the History of Computing
July 4 & 5, 2022 at Siegen University and online
Most current program: https://www.socialstudiesof.info/grandnarratives.
Organizers: Thomas Haigh (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee & Siegen University) & Sebastian Giessmann (Siegen University). This event is part of project A01 of the SFB 1187: Media of Cooperation. Haigh has prepared a rather idiosyncratic introduction to the themes and topics of the workshop, which can be read at https://tomandmaria.com/Tom/node/32.
Theme: This event is prompted by the publication of A New History of Modern Computing by Thomas Haigh and Paul Ceruzzi (MIT Press, 2021), a book that was planned and largely written under the auspices of Siegen University. As the most ambitious scholarly overview history of computing published this century, this book updates the grand narrative of computing history by drawing on new generations of scholarship. Topics such as digital media devices, videogames, home computing, computer networking, smartphones, cloud computing, and the evolution of the IBM PC standard are integrated into the overall story for the first time. Yet our purpose here is less to celebrate the new book as to ask what it, and its silences, tell us about the potential to tell other stories on a similar scale about computers and their history. The workshop gathers scholars from fields such as media studies, the history of science and mathematics, and science and technology studies to ask what a grand narrative of the history of computing might look like if told from other perspectives. What do Haigh and Ceruzzi get right, and what opportunities did they neglect? What topics and chapters would appear if the story was told in a different way? What would be the protagonists and the plots?
Venue: Room 217/18 of Herrengarten 3, 57072 Siegen and online. This is a hybrid event. Speakers are roughly evenly divided between those in Siegen and those participating by Zoom. To allow for participation from North America each day’s sessions start in the afternoon.
Registration: There is no charge for registration. To register, for in-person or online participation, please email Anna Büdenbender at anna.buedenbender@student.uni-siegen.de.
Format: Almost all of the sessions are roundtable panels of 90 minutes. Panelists should each begin with a sort opening statement, but most of the time is intended to spent on open discussion including a significant portion of the session open to dialog between panelists and other attendees. So the opening statements should be short — perhaps 5 minutes in panels with many panelists and up to 10 minutes in panels with only three or four panelists. Each panel has an assigned moderator. The moderator will do the same things as a regular panelist, including a personal statement, but is in addition responsible for running the panel, calling on other panelists, and so on. Opening statements will be given in the order chosen by the moderator of each panel. Panelists should have some familiarity with the content of A New History of Modern Computing but they are not expected to confine their remarks to critiques of the book. Instead, our expectation is that they will use it as an illustration of the latest version of the conventional history of computing narrative and thus as a jumping off point to ask what other narratives might be possible.
July 4
(13:00 Coffee & snacks)
13:30-13:45 Introduction by Erhard Schüttpelz (Siegen University)
13:45-14:00 Remarks by Paul Ceruzzi
14:00-15:30 Could we structure a big story around the materialities of data, computation and networks? Roundtable discussion featuring Cyrus Mody (Maastricht University), Moritz Feichtinger (Universität Bern), Axel Volmar (Siegen University) & Valérie Schafer (C2DH, University of Luxembourg, moderator).
(15:30-16:00) Coffee & snack break.
16:00-17:30 What if we don’t center the United States? Roundtable discussion featuring Pierre Mounier -Kuhn (CNRS & Université Paris-Sorbonne), Petri Paju (University of Turku), Elisabetta Mori (Middlesex University) & Gerard Alberts (University of Amsterdam) & Ksenia Tatarchenko (Singapore Management University, moderator).
(17:30-18:00 Cocktail break, featuring cassis gin & tonic and Pimms & ginger ale)
18:00-19:30 Chances Seized and Opportunities Squandered: Writing A New History of Modern Computing, Thomas Haigh (University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee & Siegen University).
20:00 Dinner: Gusto Puro, Kölnerstrasse 10, 57072 Siegen.
July 5
12:00-13:30 What can we gain by reconnecting the history of computing with the histories of computer science and mathematics? Roundtable discussion featuring Ulf Hashagen (Deutsches Museum), Pierre Mounier -Kuhn (CNRS & Université Paris-Sorbonne), Liesbeth de Mol (Université de Lille), Troy Astarte (Swansea University), Helena Durnova (Masaryk University, Brno, moderator).
(13:30-14:00 Coffee & snack break)
14:00-15:30 How could media theory and STS underpin new historical ways of understanding the story of the computer? Roundtable discussion, convened by Sebastian Giessmann and Tatjana Seitz . Featuring Mara Mills (New York University), Ben Peters (Tulsa University), Till Heilmann (Bochum), Elisa Linseisen (Vienna/Paderborn), Sebastian Giessmann (University of Siegen) & Tatjana Seitz (University of Siegen, moderator)
(15:30-16:00 Coffee & snack break)
16:00 -17:30 Can we integrate issues of gender, justice and embodiment into the story of the computer itself or must these narratives remain separate and particular? Roundtable discussion featuring Valérie Schafer (C2DH, University of Luxembourg), Jeffrey Yost (Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota) and Elizabeth Petrick (Rice University, moderator).
(17:30-18:00 Cocktail break featuring Tom’s famous negroni)
18:00-19:30 Where did the dominant scholarly narratives in the history of computing come from, and how well have they held up? Roundtable discussion with Paul Ceruzzi (author of A History of Modern Computing), William Aspray & Martin Campbell-Kelly (authors of Computer: A History of the Information Machine) moderated by JoAnne Yates (author of Structuring the Information Age).
20:00 Dinner: Nón Café et Cuisine. Alte Poststraße 10, 57072 Siegen.
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