Call for Papers
Deadline for submissions: 30 March 2009
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
15-19 October 2009
The Society for the History of Technology will hold its annual meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15–19 October 2009. The Program Committee invites paper and panel proposals on any topic in the history of technology, broadly defined. Sessions dealing with pre-19th century technologies are particularly welcome. Of special interest for 2009 are proposals that engage the two following themes:
* Reform(ed) Technologies: While Pittsburgh often brings to historically-prone minds images of coke works and heavy industrial pollution, the city is consistently ranked high in livability surveys of American cities, and smokestacks no longer dominate the skyline. At a moment when decaying infrastructure is a major topic of public discussion and large promised investment, Pittsburgh looks the right place for historians of technology to reconsider linear tales of innovation or destruction. We are interested both in the ways technologies are reformed and on the historical development of technologies for reform. Environmental technologies are an obvious topic, but the theme also welcomes contributions on urban renewal, new uses of old technologies, and issues of maintenance.
* Circulation of Technology: We encourage proposals dealing with the geographical circulation of technology that discard traditional diffusion models. We are interested in the relevance of local contexts to accounts of how technologies circulate at the global scale. We hope that focused engagement with such questions will also contribute to SHOT’s ongoing efforts to build a more inclusive and diverse cosmopolitan community.
The Program Committee’s highest priority in evaluating paper and panel proposals is scholarly excellence. The Committee welcomes proposals for individual papers or sessions, as well as works-in-progress from researchers of all stripes (including graduate students, chaired professors, and independent scholars). It welcomes proposals from those new to SHOT, regardless of discipline. Multinational, international, and cross-institutional sessions are also desirable. We especially encourage proposals from non-Western scholars. For the 2009 meeting the Program Committee also encourages unconventional sessions; that is, session formats that vary in useful ways from the typical three/four papers with comment. These might include round-table sessions, workshop-style sessions with papers that are pre-circulated electronically, or “author meets critics” sessions. Panel organizers may choose either to have a commentator or to add one more paper. We also welcome poster proposals for presentation in poster sessions.
The deadline for proposals is 30 March 2009.
Proposals for individual papers must include:
1. a one-page abstract (maximum 600 words)
2. a one-page curriculum vitae, including current postal and e-mail addresses
Proposals for complete sessions must include:
1. a description of the session that explains how individual papers contribute to an overall theme.
2. the names and paper titles of the presenters
3. for each presenter, a one-page summary (maximum 600 words) of the paper’s topic, argument(s), and evidence used
4. for the commentator, chair, and each presenter: one-page c.v., with postal and e-mail addresses
Please indicate if a proposal is sponsored by one of SHOT’s special interest groups.
Submission Instructions
1. Materials should be sent as a single text attachment to an e-mail message to the Program Committee Chair, Tiago Saraiva, at tiago.saraiva@ics.ul.pt
2. Proposals for complete sessions as well as individual papers shall be submitted in one file.
3. Please adhere to the 600-word limit for each paper. Use no unusual fonts or special formatting, and save your attachment either as a Microsoft Word document (.doc) or as a Rich Text Format (.rtf) file. Nearly all word processing programs, including those used on the Macintosh, can save text in the Rich Text Format. Do not use Adobe Acrobat (pdf).
4. Name your attachment with your last name and the word ‘proposal’, e.g. ‘Smith_proposal.doc’.
5. A session organizer should also deliver a description of the overall session. If you are organizing a session and proposing a paper in that session, you will be delivering both an “abstract” and “proposal”, plus your c.v.
6. If you are proposing a non-traditional session you may indicate that in the “abstract.” These also require a curriculum vitae.
General information
While SHOT rules exclude multiple submissions (i.e submitting more than one individual paper proposal, or proposing both an individual paper and a paper as part of a session), scholars may both propose a paper and serve as a commentator or session chair.
Presenting at the 2008 SHOT meeting will not rule out presenting in 2009. For more information about the Society for the History of Technology and our annual meeting, please see the SHOT webpage: <www.historyoftechnology.org>.
For questions, please contact SHOT secretary Bernie Carlson at shot@virginia.edu
