Go Hoosiers!

July 15, 2012     #teaching

So what exactly is a Hoosier? I still am not entirely sure, but I am now one officially. At the beginning of June I joined the faculty of the School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University.

In any case, we are now fully moved, present, and ready for action!

Osiris, Masculinity, and Science

May 31, 2012     #publications

Osiris is the annual special-issue companion to Isis, the premier journal of the history of science. In preparation for the upcoming issue on Masculinities in Science, the Philadelphia Area Consortium for the History of Science [PACHS] held a consortium on gender, science, and technology. I presented my contribution to the forthcoming Osiris volume, tentatively entitled “Beards, Sandals, and Other Signs of Rugged Individualism”: Masculine Culture within the Computing Professions.” Full paper to appear in the summer of 2015.

Update: the published Osiris version of the Beards and Sandals paper is now available.

Chicago Law Review

February 20, 2012     #publications

In the most recent edition of the Chicago Law Review, two former University of Pennsylvania colleagues and I published a long (20,000 word) review/response to Timothy Wu’s recent book, The Master Switch. At the heart of the review is the question “what does it mean to use history as a guide for contemporary policy?”

This is my first publication in a law journal, and the process was even more rigorous than the usual peer review. I have never before had a dedicated fact checker…

Full paper here.

Doctoral Research & Theory, Part II

January 10, 2012     #teaching

Becoming a professional academic means learning how to do research.

In this seminar, we will focus on epistemological concepts and processes of theory generation and testing as they apply to the study of Information. Our goal is to provide you with the tools needed to advance to the next level in your scholarly career.

In addition to learning about the theory and practice of research, you will also develop the professional skills associated with being a working academic, including presentation, publication, networking, and teaching. The readings will focus on the application of theories from the social and humanistic studies of science and technology to contemporary questions in information studies.

New Course Download the syllabus.

The Computer Boys on Kindle!

January 09, 2012     #publications

Update: The Kindle Edition of The Computer Boys Take Over is now available on Amazon!

From Computing Celebrities to Historical Biography

December 05, 2011     #publications

In an essay in the current issue of the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, I explore the implications of the focus on “computing celebrities” in the popular press on the scholarly discipline of the history of computing. The recent passing of Steve Jobs has only exacerbated a long-standing tendency to focus on idiosyncratic, unrepresentative, highly mythologized geniuses such as the “two Steves” (Jobs and Wozniak), Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, and Mark Zuckerberg. I compare such cults of celebrity to early history of science, which emphasized (generally apocryphal) “eureka moments” (Newton’s apple, Darwin’s finches, Archimede’s bathtub) at the expense of nuanced, situated historical biography. I argue that the history of computing can draw some instructive lessons from the ways in which historians of science have learned to both harness the popularity of the scientific biography for good and overcome its inherent limitations and hazards.