Software History: Exploring the Materiality of Virtual Things
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2022-10-21
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Indiana University Workshop in Methods
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Abstract
Software-based systems are an increasingly pervasive and fundamental technology of modern social, economic, and political life. And yet most of these systems are effectively black boxes, either necessarily or deliberately opaque. Software is often invisible, ethereal, and immaterial. Opening up the black box of software to scholarly analysis requires creativity and cross-disciplinary perspectives. This talk will discuss several methods for situating software within its larger social context. These include labor and gender history, case studies in the materiality of computer chess and software maintenance, and emerging perspectives on the environmental history of computing.
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Nathan Ensmenger is an Associate Professor in the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering at Indiana University, where he also recently served as the Chair of the Informatics department.
He specializes in the social and labor history of computing, gender and computing, and the relationship between computing and the environment.
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