Charbonneau: Drake, Sagan & their Soviet counterparts embraced an internationalist view of the search for extraterrestrial civilizations. They believed finding proof of life on other planets might facilitate detente b/w Cold War rivals. (We are all Earthlings, after all...) #SHOT2025
Smith: Making thoughtful interventions in a museum context requires triangulation b/w the content or collection materials that will be displayed, key concepts (move beyond *treasures from collection*), and the platform/medium.
#SHOT2025
Did Darwin support eugenics? Yep (As shown at the 3rd international exhibit of eugenics)
After a leisurely break (esp. compared to #SHOT2025), it's time for the an unfortunately topical panel on #eugenics.
Our first presenter, Erik Peterson, kicks things off w/what could have been the shortest HSS paper of all time by offering a one-word answer to his main question...
#HSS2025 #Darwin
Do you have thoughts about this year's @shothisttech.bsky.social meeting?
Join CHSTM's #histtech working group later today for our #SHOT2025 debrief!
www.chstm.org/group/histor...
The "Luxembourg" sign outside of the capital city's airport.
History friends: Did you attend this year's @shothisttech.bsky.social meeting in Esch-sur-Alzette, either in-person or virtually? Or are you wondering what you missed?
Next Tuesday (Oct. 28), join CHSTM's #histtech working group for a #SHOT2025 debrief!
www.chstm.org/group/histor...
#histSTM 🗃️📜⚙️
So this came out a year ago 🕸️. Yet, it is still around - both as a printed book and in digital #openaccess! 👉 doi.org/10.7551/mitp.... We just had a great author meets critics session on it at #shot2025 with @modomodo.bsky.social, Elizabeth Petrick, @ccmmody.bsky.social & Thomas Haigh. #histsci 📚💙
many #energylives members at #SHOT2025 in Luxembourg last week!
#histstm #envhum #energyhistory
I had a great couple of days at the #SHOT2025 conference in Luxembourg. Our panel went really well and I enjoyed presenting my work there. I thank @iiil.li for inviting me and the SHOT/EDITH Special Interest Group for supporting me with a travel grant. I hope to see you all next year
Goodbye Luxembourg and #SHOT2025, it's been inspiring!
John Krige, historian of state-driven innovation & scientific diplomacy during and after the #ColdWar, has earned the Da Vinci Medal— @shothisttech.bsky.social’s highest honor.
More on his work: iac.gatech.edu/people/perso... #SHOT2025
Cecilia Passanti has received the 2025 Brook Hindle Postdoctoral Fellowship for her work on the history of biometrics in newly independent African nations post-WWII. #SHOT2025
Thanks to a generous donation, SHOT is awarding 2 Kranzberg Dissertation Fellowships to Karolina Partyga and Thomas McLamb.
@sigcisconf.bsky.social is also sponsoring an unprecedented 3rd dissertation fellowship in Kranzberg’s memory to Jeffrey Rubel. #SHOT2025
Jakob Henningsson (KTH Royal Institute of Technology) wins the Robinson Prize for best first-time SHOT presenter. His paper looked at industrial economy education in Stockholm (1911-1945). #SHOT2025
Mario Bianchini raises an interesting ? for @anya-shchetvina.bsky.social about the use of #scifi in Internet manifestos. She notes that while there are references to key tropes (e.g., cyberspace from Neuromancer), it can be tricky to ascertain what their authors were reading at the time... #SHOT2025
Olmos concludes that the absence of popular alternatives to the Taser reflects the limits of imaginations enmeshed in a network of sociotechnical assumptions.
(Which raises an important question...how can we break free from that web and redefine the scope of technological possibility?)
#SHOT2025
Olmos calls attention to the etymology of TASER (Tom A. Swift's Electric Rifle) which traces its roots to a colonialist pulp novel published in 1911.
She suggests that the modern invention's use is rooted in a fundamentally racist, but typically unrecognized technological imaginary. #SHOT2025
Our final presenter, Ana María Guzmán Olmos, is interested in the destructive shape that imagination can take. What happens when science imagines death?
Interestingly, her paper focuses on tasers, which are normally framed as non-lethal. And yet these weapons are harmful and often deadly. #SHOT2025
Thankful to all of you posting about #SHOT2025, especially @bhgross144.bsky.social. It's a welcome remedy to my FOMO. (Belval campus giving echoes of Zollverein!)
Jankowski's next steps for the anthology:
-Find an open access publisher
-Select 18 or so texts
-Solicit scholars to write brief commentaries
-establish organizing principle
Ultimate goal of this project: Inspire new insights about imagination, media, and history. #SHOT2025
Jankowski ultimately identified 39 interesting stories from the 19th & 20th centuries that explore different media (automata, photography, telephones, TV, radio, etc.) that were published from many different genres (scifi, horror, romance, etc.).
Here are a few highlights...
#SHOT2025
Jankowski is proposing the idea of anthologies as a research method. Anthologies circulate & canonize short stories. Could they also facilitate analyses that transcend specific time periods or new media platforms? If so, how to approach selection of relevant texts? He has some ideas... #SHOT2025
"New technologies are not only used to tell stories."
@textaural.bsky.social cites Ben Peters' definition of new media ("new media are media we don't know how to talk about yet"). Artists engaging w/these media may be tapping into things we may not understand. #SHOT2025
To conclude, Shchetvina raises the question of recursivity: What happens to the imagined vision of a medium when the medium is used define the form that imagination will take. #SHOT2025
https://interfacemanifesto.hangar.org/
Shchetvina: Romanticizing goes out of fashion after 1997. It remains in use in marketing or self-branding of CEOs, etc.
Instead we see more experiments using the Internet to support arguments--bridging the gap b/w text & mode (e.g., Manifesto for a Critical Approach to the User Interface) #SHOT2025
"And then it happened...a door opened to the world...rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins."
Shchetvina is specifically interested in 2 ?s
1) How does the form of a manifesto mediate imagination of the Internet?
2) How do those forms change over time?
Texts published 1974-97, for example, feature metaphors/neologisms, new social identities (e.g. hackers), florid language #SHOT2025
Lara Marziali discusses the conflict between state bureaucracy & astronomers in what computer to use (& pay for!)
I see strong parallells to a contemporary fight in Sweden between effiency and scientific independence!
#shot2025
"Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind..." -John Perry Barlow (1996)
Our next presenter, @anya-shchetvina.bsky.social, begins her presentation on Internet manifestos by quoting one of the most famous examples #SHOT2025
GM: "We have the car of the future, but we can't make it."
Toyota: "We are complying with regulations."
Eisler notes that this was a public element of technical dramaturgy that shows what automobility might look like in the future. But GM didn't know about Toyota's new hybrid (#Prius)
#SHOT2025
Eisler: But would a zero-emissions vehicle look like? Initially the thought was to pursue a battery-powered car. But automakers really didn't like that...
Instead, Toyota & GM organized a series of demonstrations of this technology to demonstrate EV's abilities & limitations. #SHOT2025
Eisler: Public R&D demonstrations become very important in persuading automobile industry to begin reinvesting in electric vehicles. Specifically, let's look at cooperation & competition between GM & Toyota as they raced to develop systems that could align w/California's zero emissions law #SHOT2025
