[ecrea] cfp - Women and Tech in the Post-Soviet Context: Intelligence, Creativity, Transgression

Call for Papers: Special issue 'Women and Tech in the Post-Soviet 
Context: Intelligence, Creativity, Transgression’

Digital Icons: Studies in Russian, Eurasian, and Central-European New 
Media (www.digitalicons.org <http://www.digitalicons.org/>)

*

Guest editors: Saara Ratilainen (University of Helsinki), Mariëlle 
Wijermars (University of Helsinki) and Justin Wilmes (East Carolina 
University)

*

The development of the internet as a democratizing tool fostering 
freedom of information, grass-roots activism, and peer-to-peer support 
is closely related to and engrained in hacker communities. In the early 
days of the internet’s development, these groups consisted primarily of 
young white men from with access to higher education and technology. In 
popular culture, the image of the successful programmer, software 
developer and ‘hacktivist’ remains predominantly male and is based on 
such well-known examples as Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Edward Snowden, 
and Pavel Durov. Meanwhile, there are few if any stories or 
representations of women who have led the hacker revolution. As access 
to computer-programming-based technology becomes democratized on the 
user-end, gender (and other) inequalities on the developer side continue 
to persist with women drastically underrepresented in tech professions.

These representations contradict what we know from history, including 
the fact that there are several women who have led crucial advancements 
in math and computing. Ada Lovelace, Victorian mathematician and 
daughter of Lord Byron, was notably the inventor of algorithms. She 
introduced the ‘calculating machine’ one hundred years before the 
existence of modern computers. Another pioneering female computer 
scientist and feminist figure, Joan Clarke, worked as a cryptanalyst in 
the British Government’s Code and Cypher School with the task of 
decrypting the German Enigma machine code during World War II. Clarke’s 
work was brought to the attention of international film audiences by 
/The Imitation Game /in 2014 and biographies of Lovelace are being 
published in different languages. Despite some renewed interest, we 
still know far too little about women’s work in computing, internet 
activism, and technology industries in general.

Studies in Russian, Eurasian, and Central-European New Media 
(www.digitalicons.org <http://www.digitalicons.org>) invites submissions 
that address women, feminism, and the internet in post-socialist 
contexts to be published in a special issue ‘Women and Tech in the 
Post-Soviet Context: Intelligence, Creativity, Transgression’. The issue 
aims to consider what is it like to be a female programmer, online 
activist, or digital artist in the era of global connectedness through 
the internet. According to a study conducted by HackerRank 
(https://blog.hackerrank.com/), of the ten nations with the best women 
coders three are Eastern European/post-socialist countries, which 
prompts the question whether female programmers are better off in 
post-socialist countries than they are in Silicon Valley? Against this 
background, the issue also seeks to examine feminist activism and 
women’s creative work online. Did Pussy Riot pave the way for 
transnational feminism to grow through online communications? What is 
the role of internet-based ‘cyber feminism’ (feminist theorizing, 
critiquing and exploiting the internet and new media technologies) for 
the grass-roots work of women’s groups across the post-socialist space 
and beyond? How do women artists, writers, and poets advance their 
careers through online networks and computer programming?

The proposed articles can include (but are not limited to) themes such as:

  * Female coders
  * Women in software developer communities
  * Gender representation of hacktivism
  * Women and artificial intelligence
  * Feminist groups online
  * Feminist internet sites
  * Female gamers/women in the gaming industry
  * Women’s online poetry and literature
  * Women in digital art
  * Female idols on Runet
  * Female pioneers of Runet
  * Women in the history of computing and internet in the post-Soviet
    context
Please send an abstract of 350 words and a short cv to the issue’s 
editors Saara Ratilainen ((saara.ratilainen /at/ helsinki.fi) 
<mailto:(saara.ratilainen /at/ helsinki.fi)>), Mariëlle Wijermars 
((marielle.wijermars /at/ helsinki.fi) <mailto:(marielle.wijermars /at/ helsinki.fi)>) 
and Justin Wilmes ((wilmesj15 /at/ ecu.edu) <mailto:(wilmesj15 /at/ ecu.edu)>) by 15 
October 2017.

*

Deadline for abstracts: 15 October 2017

Notification of acceptance: 20 November 2017

Deadline for full articles: 31 January 2018

__

---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please
use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------