While we hope that many SHOT conference participants will come to the THATCamp, many more will not. In order to share some of what we will do at the THATCamp, Finn Arne Jørgensen proposed an untraditional session for this year’s conference, titled “This is not a roundtable: THATCamp SHOT and the place of technology in history of technology.” To our great pleasure, this “un-roundtable” was accepted and will take place in the first time slot, 8:30-10:00 AM on Friday 7 November. The intention is for this session to be made in the same manner as a THATCamp – on the fly, based on who’s interested in participating and what they would like to share. This could be good! Or, it could be a total failure – rather exciting, isn’t it?
Here is the full proposal:
Immediately before the start of the 2014 SHOT meeting in Dearborn, The Henry Ford will host the first SHOT THATCamp. THATCamp is a so-called unconference, and stands for “The Humanities and Technology Camp.” As such, it is an open and inexpensive meeting where humanists and technologists of all skill levels learn and build together in sessions proposed on the spot. As the official THATCamp website states, “an unconference is to a conference what a seminar is to a lecture, what a party at your house is to a church wedding, what a pick-up game of Ultimate Frisbee is to an NBA game, what a jam band is to a symphony orchestra: it’s more informal and more participatory.” The THATCamp has become a well-established format since the first event at George Mason University in 2008, with close to 200 camps arranged worldwide. We are excited about this opportunity to create a new meeting place for SHOT where historians of technology, museum professionals, students, teachers, librarians, technologists, and others can explore new approaches to history of technology in an open, welcoming, and non-hierarchical manner.
In the spirit of the unconference format, I am here proposing what can best be described as an un-roundtable to follow up the THATCamp experience at the SHOT meeting, with the intent of debriefing and sharing what we learnt with the rest of the conference participants. This clearly falls under the “unconventional session” format – I will not submit a list of participants, nor spell out exactly what we plan to talk about. This doesn’t mean that the session will take place in a complete vacuum. As the main THATCamp organizer, my aim is to integrate these two events. A concluding discussion session at the THATCamp will function as a bridge to the un-roundtable, where I will invite 3-5 THATCamp participants to contribute to the session. I aim to have a have a good gender balance in this group, as well as include both junior and senior scholars. I will serve as the moderator for the session, where we’ll aim for the same spontaneously generative setup as the THATCamp itself.
While I can’t spell out exactly what issues the session will deal with, I still expect us to address the following questions in one way or another:
-Have we as historians of technology succeeded in employing new technologies in our teaching and research? What are some good examples that we can learn from?
-How can we create open and welcoming arenas where we as historians of technology can learn from each other, disregarding traditional ideas of mentoring and seniority?
