History of Computing Workshop for Graduate Teaching Assistants, Summer Fall 2020

History of Computing Workshop, August 18, 2020, 2-5 pm

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Mar Hicks, 2:10-3:10 pm
Presentations by workshop participants, 3:20-5:00 pm

More information about the workshop will be posted here as it is updated. Registration is required: https://virginiatech.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUqc-qrrzgjGNe5rlR8prjd1QaN2bTC3ckz. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Mar Hicks, Associate professor of the history of technology, Illinois Institute of Technology
On the Shoulders of Mainframes: Using Computing’s Past to Understand our Current Tech Crises

This talk investigates how the history of computing can help students from both STEM and humanities majors better understand our current high tech landscape, and the crises that we are confronting in that space. Most of us will either work within or be responsible for building this tech infrastructure, so it’s important to have a good understanding of where we’ve been in the past to understand where we’re going. This talk draws connections between past failures and present day concerns in computing, focusing on how over-centralization has created computing products whose enormous power & reach relies on an absence of robust democratic oversight.

More information about Dr. Mar Hicks: https://marhicks.com/ and https://www.iit.edu/directory/people/mar-hicks

Workshop schedule:
Introduction, Tom Ewing, 2:00-2:10
Keynote Speaker and discussion, 2:10-3:10
Break, 3:10-3:20
Presentations by workshop participants:
Panel 1: 3:20-3:55 pm: Damien Williams, Alice Fox, Leanna Ireland, Alex Hicks
Break: 3:55-4:00
Panel 2: 4:00-4:35: Sam Beckenhauer, Kulash Zhumadilova, Azharul Islam, Sarah Plummer
Discussion of presentations: 4:35-5:00: Mar Hicks, Tom Ewing

Titles and Abstracts:

Sam Beckenhauer, The History of Computing and the Construction of the ‘Human’: This course raises the following question: how has computing transformed, and potentially annihilated, an Enlightenment or Modernist conception of the ‘human’? Students will learn how technology has increasingly integrated into the functioning of global structures of power and everyday processes. Students will investigate how computing capabilities have altered social relations, economic production, and political structures, globally. Thematically, students will explore and interrogate what constitutes ‘computing’, ‘information,’ and ‘digitality.’ Particular topics include: cybernetics, algorithms of control, the nature of virtuality, and the political economy of cyberspace. Theoretically, this course will deploy multiple frameworks, putting into conversation Marxist, poststructuralist, and feminist approaches in order to situate computing in a global history.

Alice Fox, Adventures in Video Gaming: The tone and texture of what is considered 'controversial' content in video games is strongly interwoven with the history of computing and the dominant images of players and their expectations. My presentation will highlight teaching students how to engage with controversies about digital artifacts, like video games, that take place predominantly in non-academic, online contexts. This will include how to generously interpret arguments and position themselves kindly and logically in the debate. Particularly, this presentation will take a brief look at the controversy in The Last of Us 2 as an illustration of the value this content can offer a wide range of students.

Alex Hicks, Computational History Through Key Events in Computer Science: This course will explore the history of computing through its seminal works, including papers by Alan Turing, Claude Shannon, and Dennis Ritchie, and focuses on how paradigm shifts in computing led to computers “making sense” and how that led to their widespread adoption by the wider world. This presentation will also explore the potential topic of Alan Turing and his contribution to computing.

Leanna Ireland, Vigilantes of the Online World: This hypothetical course will look at why the public might be needed for governance of online spaces and how the public and police have responded to crime, deviance, and injustices online throughout history.

Azharul Islam, Computer in Econometric Analysis: Transformations and Challenges: The proposed course explores the contribution of the computer and the statistical software in econometric analysis. It addresses the transformation of econometric analysis and modeling with the changes in the mode of computing. Students will be able to make the connection between econometric modeling and real-world economic phenomenon with a critical view.

Sarah Plummer: Art and Technology: Examines plays, writing, music, and visual arts, that create tension at or dissolve boundaries that have traditionally existed between artistic and technological disciplines. We will look at both technology as a medium and the ways artists respond to technological change.

Damien Williams, Queer Coding: Multiple Marginalization and the History of Computing: An exploration of elements of context and identity which may provide crucial means of understanding certain marginalized people and groups' advances and contributions to the history of computing, as well as helping to understand why those contributions had a harder time getting recognized.

Kulash Zhumadilova, Cybernetics and its legacy: In my presentation I will introduce Norbert Wiener's ideas and key works on Cybernetics. I will also attempt to trace how cybernetic logic influenced our thinking about computers and biology today.

The History of Computing Workshop for Graduate Teaching Assistants will explore themes necessary for understanding how computing became centrally integrated into every aspect of contemporary life. Participants in the workshop will discuss assigned readings, explore teaching strategies, review Pathways requirements for ethics, humanities and computational thinking, and identify specific themes to be developed in connection with their own teaching, research, and professional development. The workshop is open to continuing graduate students in any program at Virginia Tech. Priority will be assigned to graduate students whose teaching assignments in the coming years are most likely to include opportunities to teach the new course, HIST / STS / CS 3034, Topics in the History of Computing. Workshop participants will receive a stipend of $2500 for their work in summer 2020. Questions about the workshop may be directed to Professor Tom Ewing (etewing@vt.edu)

Applications have closed.

Applicants must commit to participate fully in the following activities:

• Weekly meetings , May 26 to June 16, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1-3 pm (zoom)

• Consultations with project director, July 2020 (remotely)

• Afternoon symposium, August 12, 2020 (format TBD)

• Monthly meetings, September - November 2020 (time, day, format TBD)

Stipend: $2500, half paid in summer 1, half paid in summer 2

Workshop is open to any continuing graduate student eligible for funding, any field, masters or doctoral student, with preference for students likely to teach courses in the history of computing in 2020-2021 or subsequent years, as instructor of record or teaching assistant

Must be eligible to receive stipend for approximately 10 hours / week, May - August, 2020.

Expectations:

• Participation in all meetings

• Lead two discussions during May and June meetings

• Contribute to a collective syllabus for history of computing

• Develop topic relevant to field of teaching and research

• Consult with project director on topic, July 2020

• Present on topic at August 12 symposium

• Produce written description of topic suitable for conference or publication

• Participate in monthly meetings in fall 2020

• Participate in Pathways workshops, TBA, summer 2020

Frequently Asked Questions (link)

About the image: Virginia Tech Computer Center, 1980, photograph from Special Collections: https://imagebase.lib.vt.edu/image_viewer.php?q=lh175