Abstractions and Embodiments

New Histories of Computing and Society

Janet Abbate, Stephanie Dick

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English

Johns Hopkins University Press
25 October 2022

Gender studies, gender groups; History of engineering & technology

Series: Studies in Computing and Culture

Cutting-edge historians explore ideas, communities, and technologies around modern computing to explore how computers mediate social relations.

Computers have been framed both as a mirror for the human mind and as an irreducible other that humanness is defined against, depending on different historical definitions of ""humanness."" They can serve both liberation and control because some people's freedom has historically been predicated on controlling others. Historians of computing return again and again to these contradictions, as they often reveal deeper structures.

Using twin frameworks of abstraction and embodiment, a reformulation of the old mind-body dichotomy, this anthology examines how social relations are enacted in and through computing. The authors examining ""Abstraction"" revisit central concepts in computing, including ""algorithm,"" ""program,"" ""clone,"" and ""risk."" In doing so, they demonstrate how the meanings of these terms reflect power relations and social identities. The section on ""Embodiments"" focuses on sensory aspects of using computers as well as the ways in which gender, race, and other identities have shaped the opportunities and embodied experiences of computer workers and users. Offering a rich and diverse set of studies in new areas, the book explores such disparate themes as disability, the influence of the punk movement, working mothers as technical innovators, and gaming behind the Iron Curtain.

Abstractions and Embodiments reimagines computing history by questioning canonical interpretations, foregrounding new actors and contexts, and highlighting neglected aspects of computing as an embodied experience. It makes the profound case that both technology and the body are culturally shaped and that there can be no clear distinction between social, intellectual, and technical aspects of computing.

Contributors: Janet Abbate, Marc Aidinoff, Troy Kaighin Astarte, Ekaterina Babinsteva, André Brock, Maarten Bullynck, Jiahui Chan, Gerardo Con Diaz, Liesbeth De Mol, Stephanie Dick, Kelcey Gibbons, Elyse Graham, Michael J. Halvorson, Mar Hicks, Scott Kushner, Xiaochang Li, Zachary Loeb, Lisa Nakamura, Tiffany Nichols, Laine Nooney, Elizabeth Petrick, Cierra Robson, Hallam Stevens, Jaroslav Švelch

Edited by: Janet Abbate, Stephanie Dick
Imprint: Johns Hopkins University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 31mm
Weight: 635g
ISBN: 9781421444376
ISBN 10: 1421444372
Series: Studies in Computing and Culture
Pages: 472
Publication Date: 25 October 2022
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

"Acknowledgments Introduction. Thinking with Computers Part I. Abstractions Chapter 1. Waiting for Midnight: Risk Perception and the Millennium Bug Chapter 2. Centrists against the Center: The Jeffersonian Politics of a Decentralized Internet Chapter 3. Beyond the Pale: The Blackbird Web Browser's Critical Reception Chapter 4. Scientology Online: Copyright Infringement and the Legal Construction of the Internet Chapter 5. Patenting Automation of Race and Ethnicity Classifications: Protecting Neutral Technology or Disparate Treatment by Proxy? Chapter 6. ""Difficult Things Are Difficult to Describe"": The Role of Formal Semantics in European Computer Science, 1960–1980 Chapter 7. What's in a Name? Origins, Transpositions, and Transformations of the Triptych Algorithm–Code–Program Chapter 8. The Lurking Problem Chapter 9. The Help Desk: Changing Images of Product Support in Personal Computing, 1975–1990 Chapter 10. Power to the Clones: Hardware and Software Bricolage on the Periphery Part II: Embodiments Chapter 11. Indigenous Circuits: Navajo Women and the Racialization of Early Electronic Manufacture Chapter 12. Inventing the Black Computer Professional Chapter 13. The Baby and the Black Box: A History of Software, Sexism, and the Sound Barrier Chapter 14. Computing Nanyang: Information Technology in a Developing Singapore, 1965–1985 Chapter 15. Engineering the Lay Mind: Lev Landa's Algo-Heuristic Theory and Artificial Intelligence Chapter 16. The Measure of Meaning: Automatic Speech Recognition and the Human-Computer Imagination Chapter 17. Broken Mirrors: Surveillance in Oakland as Both Reflection and Refraction of California's Carceral State Chapter 18. Punk Culture and the Rise of the Hacker Ethic Chapter 19. The Computer as Prosthesis? Embodiment, Augmentation, and Disability Chapter 20. ""Have Any Remedies for Tired Eyes?"": Computer Pain as Computer History Afterword. Beyond Abstractions and Embodiments Contributors Index"

Janet Abbate (FALLS CHURCH, VA) is a professor of science, technology, and society at Virginia Tech. She is the author of Inventing the Internet and Recoding Gender: Women's Changing Participation in Computing. Stephanie Dick (VANCOUVER, BC) is an assistant professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University.

Reviews for Abstractions and Embodiments: New Histories of Computing and Society

Abstractions and Embodiments may offer histories of computing, but it is not solely of interest to historians and computer scientists. There is plenty within this book to be of interest to scholars across the fields of information science and technology....Abstractions and Embodiments is a welcome volume and a conversation starter. The diverse set of articles presented here serves to deepen and complicate the histories that we have heard before. —Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology