2006 Newsletter, including 2006 Annual Report

January 10th, 2007 Posted in Newsletters

WITH Annual Meeting, Oct 13th, 2006 in Las Vegas – Reportabout 38 people attended the meeting.

- WITH award

This year’s WITH travel award was presented to Mara Mills, who is a graduate student at the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. Her paper has the title: “The Deaf May Lead the Way”: Sound Spectrography and Visible Speech. It was presented in session 22 on Friday, Oct 13th, 2006. The paper traces the history of sound spectrography, which was originally designed as an aid to deaf oral speaking, and yet it seems to have provided a fertile research site for quite a few technologies, like e.g. bird song documentation, machine speech and cybernetics. Mara Mills focuses on the significance of minority experience to technological development as well as on the experience of deaf people who are constructed as sound makers by science and technology. Her paper therefore contributes to the conversation about “modes of difference” and broadens our view of the differently abled, as it introduces us to the experiences of a group underrepresented in SHOT.

- WITH travel award prize committee

the prize committee consists of three WITH members, at least one of whom has been a member of the WITH executive board. it operates on a rotational scheme. each member serves three years. a new member of this committee will be elected at the WITH meeting each year.

present members:
molly berger, case western reserve, will join the committee for 2007 to 2009. martina blum, munich center for the history of science and technology, (2006/2007) joan rothschild, city university of new york graduate center, (2006-2008) will be the chair of the committee in 2007.

- WITH travel award funding

as dues were collected at the meeting, we also asked for some extra funding for the WITH award. we all want to thank you for being so generous. about half of the collected money was given for the award.

- 50th SHOT anniversary 2007, washington, d.c.

Debbie Douglas gave a short oversight of some activities planned so far for the next two SHOT meetings that will encompass the 50th Anniversary celebrations of the Society. Here is her report:

The Anniversay theme is: Looking Back, Looking Beyond. Next fall’s meeting will be held in Washington, DC and will be somewhat more focused on SHOT’s history. The 2008 meeting will be in Lisbon and the emphasis will be on SHOT’s future. You can expect extra events as well as commemoratives such as a poster and other items. More information will be forthcoming via email and newsletters.

Of particular interest is a special workshop that will be held on Thursday, October 18th. Funded by the National Science Foundation, this will be the first of two sessions (the second will be in Lisbon in 2008) that explores some of the most important ideas and interesting thinkers in our field. Speakers will be invited and papers prepared in advance but all will be welcome to attend and participate in the discussions. The National Academy of Engineering will host two evening events, Wednesday (public) and Thursday (SHOT); there will be wonderful program featuring SHOT’s daVinci Medalists and receptions sponsored by the Lemelson Center.

Since her presentation in Las Vegas, the Anniversary Planning Committee has had to change its Sunday public outreach program. Originally, conceived as an event at the National Museum of American History, the closure of NMAH for renovations has meant some modifications in the plans. The National Air and Space Museum has agreed to host this event but the Smithsonian registrars have said “no” to the idea of lending artifacts from the other museums. This event was intended to allow SHOT members to talk directly with visitors about their favorite artifacts. If you have a favorite Air and Space artifact, you are still welcome to participate but please contact Debbie (ddouglas@mit.edu) directly as this event will be coordinated by the Albatrosses.

Most importantly, Debbie encourages WITH members to submit great ideas for papers and panels. While there will be some historiographical presentations (we discussed a panel that might look at gender and the linked histories of SHOT and WITH), the program committee is mainly looking for current scholarship. In Washington, the anniversary will likely attract some media attention and so everyone on Program Committee and the Anniversary Committee is hoping for especially strong presentations.

ANY PROPOSALS AND / OR VOLUNTEERS TO ORGANIZE A WITH-PANEL for Washington?????

another idea was to collect reflections from WITH members on 32 years WITH experiences and make a special newsletter-edition in analogy to the 21-years-coming of age newsletter in 1996.

all WITH newsletters and other material has been transferred to the archives of the American History Museum.

Bev Sauer offered help to look for rooms for WITH activities at johns hopkins university.

- 50th SHOT anniversary 2008, lisbon

daryl hafter (1325 Brooklyn Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48104-4414. Phone: 734-995-4918, email: dhafter@emich.edu) proposed to assemble a current bibliography of gender history for the lisbon meeting to have some material at hand for distribution to interested people.

rachel maines, francesca bray, and bayla singer joined into the effort. others interested are welcome to join the group and / or asked to send references to them.

- WITH newsletter

common consent was to keep the newsletter as a means of community building. bev sauer resigned as newsletter editor. molly berger, case western reserve (molly.berger@case.edu) volunteered to take over the job.

FOR THE 2007 NEWSLETTER, PLEASE SEND UPDATED CONTACT INFORMATION, NEWS OF PUBLICATIONS, PROFESSIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS, AND NEWS YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE TO MOLLY BERGER AT MOLLY.BERGER@CASE.EDU.

on behalf of the WITH board,

martina blum, annual meeting organizer
molly berger, newsletter editor
jonathan coopersmith, treasurer
melanie mccalmont, webadministrator