Call for Participation (download PDF)

Abstracts due June 1, 2021

OPEN CALL

SIGCIS 2021 is an open call for any and all work related to the history of computing and information systems, broadly imagined. The SIGCIS community is especially welcoming of new directions in research and creative production, and encompasses academic professionals, museum and archive professionals, IT practitioners, artists and creative technologists, and independent researchers across the disciplinary spectrum. We maintain an inclusive atmosphere for scholarly inquiry, promoting diversity in STEM and supporting disciplinary interventions from beyond traditional history of technology. We especially encourage submissions from those who have not previously attended but wish to learn more about our community.

Traditionally, SIGCIS holds its annual conference on the Sunday immediately following the annual conference for our parent organization, the Society for the History of Technology. While SHOT is going forward with an in-person meeting this fall, this year SIGCIS has elected to hold a virtual meeting earlier in the fall. We believe this choice will help ensure accessibility for our wide-ranging community, which includes many graduate students, early career scholars, precarious workers, and international scholars who may not be able to travel. Membership in SHOT is not required to submit to or attend SIGCIS.

SIGCIS has always invited both traditional scholarship and alternative forms of presentation and discussion. We encourage participants to think creatively about what forms of engagement, presentation, and scholarship will help us bridge the experience of the last year and what is to come.

Presentation formats include, but aren’t limited to:

• Individual presentations of scholarly work
  
• Pre-constituted panels or roundtables of 3-4 scholars plus a moderator/respondent
  
• Virtual performances or exhibitions
  
• Skill-shares and tutorials
  
• Social activities
  
• Lightning talk sessions

VIRTUAL LOGISTICS AND ACCESSIBILITY

In order to make SIGCIS 2021 as accessible as possible within the means of an all-volunteer organization, the following changes have been made to the traditional SIGCIS Conference format:

• This year’s SIGCIS conference will not be co-located or co-timed with our parent organization, SHOT, so as not to conflict with SHOT’s in-person conference
• Our traditional one-day, 3-stream conference will be re-organized as a multi-day, single stream event
• Time-zone sensitive scheduling
• ​Sliding scale registration fees; membership in SHOT is not required

SUBMISSION PROCEDURES

Submissions are due June 1, 2021 via Google form: https://forms.gle/C8ixar9s3JsCXq8d9. 
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Submissions require: 

• 300-350 word abstract, summary, or prospectus (as appropriate for the submission type). Full panel proposals should additionally include 200-250 word abstracts for each paper that will be part of the panel. 
• 100-150 word bios for each participant
  
  

If you are submitting a co-presented paper, pre-constituted panel, or other submission involving multiple participants, please only have one person submit for the group; contact and professional information for other participants can be included in the Bio submission section.

Questions about the submission process should be sent to: xiaochang.li@stanford.edu.

SIGCIS CONFERENCE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Laine Nooney, New York University (SIGCIS Vice-Chair of Meetings)
Stephanie Dick, University of Pennsylvania
Morgan G. Ames, University of California, Berkeley
Xiaochang Li, Stanford University