| SHOT 2021 Annual Meeting in New Orleans
New Orleans. The name alone conjures a host of images: multicultural food, magnificent architecture, distinct music and dialects, and devastating hurricanes. For some, New Orleans is the most European of U.S. cities. For others, it is the northernmost Caribbean port. In the complex and often tragic history of race relations in the United States, the city holds a distinctive place: location of the largest slave market of pre-Civil War America; birthplace of jazz; and, most recently, exemplar for the human costs of environmental inequality and racialized vulnerability to disaster.
Nicknamed the Crescent City because of its unique geography—the Mississippi River curves deeply around its urbanized core—New Orleans has long been a vital commercial center for both domestic and global trade. A long history of infrastructural interventions needed to manage the river for human use is evident throughout the city, making it a particularly compelling destination for historians of technology. Today, nearly half of New Orleans exists below sea level. Indeed, the channelization of the Mississippi River, coupled with the vast pumping system constructed to drain storm water from the interior bowl created by the levees, has deprived the landscape of the sediment that a naturally overflowing river provides. The result is an actively sinking city, despite the injection of billions in federal post-Hurricane Katrina recovery aid. The benefits of this infusion of aid have, moreover, been unevenly distributed. New Orleans remains one of the most impoverished metropolitan regions in the United States.
To assert that New Orleans has a troubled, dichotomous history is to state the obvious. And yet the city persists, a fabled, hemispheric crossroads with an unmatched joie de vivre. That SHOT and the History of Science Society (HSS) in New Orleans have chosen to jointly host their meetings New Orleans in 2021 (2020 was the 15th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the 10th anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill) is no small matter. This co-mingling of associations offers scholars a splendid opportunity to reflect on the relationship between the environment, infrastructure, and social justice at the juncture of science and technology, and how all of these elements contribute to the ongoing story of New Orleans and to the maintenance of our modern world. To pay tribute to the location of the meeting, we encourage proposals that relate to a broadly interpreted theme of “Environment, Infrastructure, and Social Justice.”
Conference Theme: Environment, Infrastructure, and Social Justice
Infrastructure is an inherently social mode for the modification of natural environments. It is the most basic form of sociotechnical collaboration; it is fundamental to society’s functions; and it is indispensable for other technological developments. Infrastructure requires vision, planning, engineering, management, and maintenance. It also necessitates considerations of risk and an anticipation of environmental events with potential to seriously impact human lives and nonhuman landscapes. Colloquially described as “natural disasters,” these events become “disasters” only when infrastructure fails.
At the same time, infrastructure is also a symbol of nationhood and civilization. It is often cited as a justification for conflict, imperialism, and displacement. The benefits that it offers and harm that it causes are not distributed equally. Those who are displaced or otherwise affected by new infrastructure projects too often do not experience their benefits. And when infrastructure fails, the harm often falls disproportionately on those who are already socially and economically disadvantaged.
We invite SHOT participants to reflect on these themes from a historical as well as a contemporary perspective, and with respect to a variety of socio-cultural environments. Among the aspects which deserve discussion are how infrastructure modifies human and natural environments; how risk assessment influences infrastructure planning; how different societies approach infrastructure vis-à-vis other forms of technological development; and how climate change brings about reassessments of infrastructural needs.
Session Proposals & Abstract Submission
An important note for all applicants (including resubmittals of accepted session proposals in 2020): If health/safety conditions force the cancellation of the 2021 meeting, SHOT has committed to holding the meeting entirely in virtual format. Your commitment to presenting in New Orleans in 2021 should also be viewed as a commitment to present that same material at a virtual version of the conference, in the event that the 2021 physical meeting is cancelled. If the conference moves online, session lengths will be shortened from 90 to 60 minutes.
Note for applicants who have been invited to participate in sessions sponsored by the SHOT Internationalization Committee: Please be sure to indicate on the application form that your session has been sponsored by the SHOT Internationalization Committee.
For the 2021 meeting the Program Committee welcomes proposals of these types
Joint SHOT/HSS sessions: Since this meeting will be held in conjunction with HSS, it is possible to submit a proposal that speaks to both SHOT and HSS communities, and which would appear on both programs. When submitting a joint proposal, indicate this fact in the abstract and make sure to submit an identical proposal through the HSS website. The Program Committees of both societies will evaluate these joint proposals. (The proposal may meet the formatting requirements of either society.) SHOT and HSS plan to stream at least some of the joint sessions. Please indicate whether your panel is interested in being a hybrid session.
Traditional sessions: Sessions of 3 or 4 papers, with a chair listed in the session proposal. It is not necessary to have a commentator. However, if a commentator has a central role in the session, they will be counted as an additional speaker. Deadline: April 18, 2021
Unconventional sessions: Sessions with formats that diverge in useful ways from traditional sessions. These can include (but are not limited to) roundtables, discussion panels, workshop-style sessions with pre-circulated papers, “you write, I present” sessions, and poster sessions. Poster proposals should describe the content and the visual material to be used in the poster. Individuals whose posters are accepted must be available to talk about them in a lunch/evening slot to be decided by the Program Committee. The Program Committee encourages other creative formats to facilitate communication, dialogue, and audience involvement. The Program Committee will look favorably on formats that make sessions less hierarchical and reduce the ‘distance’ between audience and author, and between author and commentator. Deadline: April 18, 2021.
Open sessions: Individuals interested in finding others to join an organized session may propose Open Sessions, starting March 15, with a final deadline of April 7. Open Session descriptions, along with the organizer’s contact information, will appear on the SHOT website. (The earlier the proposal is sent to SHOT, the earlier it can be posted to the website.) For individuals who want to join a proposed session from the Open Sessions list, please contact the organizer for that session, not the Program Committee. In order to give the session organizer sufficient time to select proposals and assemble a final list of presenters, the deadline for submitting your paper proposal to the organizer is April 7, 2021. Open Session organizers will then assemble completed sessions and submit them through SHOT’s online system by April 18, 2021.
Individual papers: Proposals for individual papers will be considered, but the Program Committee will give preference to pre-organized sessions (traditional, unconventional, or completed open sessions). Scholars who might ordinarily propose an individual paper are encouraged to propose Open Sessions themselves or to join an Open Session already listed. Deadline: April 18, 2021.
General Guidelines for Submission
SHOT allows the same speaker to present papers at consecutive meetings but turns down papers that are substantially the same as previously accepted ones. Any submission on the same topic should explain how the new paper differs from the prior presentation.
Most pre-organized sessions, if accepted, will remain as proposed. In select cases, depending on the quality and coherence of the individual papers, part of a proposed session may be turned down, merged into another organized session, or combined with individual papers to form a new session. If you believe that your session can only work as one single unit, please specify “all or none” in the abstract. In this case, the Program Committee may reject the whole session proposal despite the presence of qualified individual papers.
Individuals are permitted to take on multiple roles at SHOT, as well as additional roles at HSS. However, no individual is to give more than one titled paper or commentary for both societies. Additional presentations in SIGs, participation in roundtables, poster sessions, and other activities for which no title is listed in the SHOT meeting program are allowed; however, a paper at a graduate student workshop does count as a paper for this purpose. The SHOT Program Committee ensures there are no schedule conflicts between an individual’s various roles on the SHOT program. However, SHOT and HSS cannot resolve conflicts between papers / commentaries and other roles across societies. In cases when an individual’s presentation or commentary would conflict with additional roles on the other society’s program, the individual will be asked to forgo the additional role.
Each session proposal should be accompanied by an abstract that details: 1) the session’s overall theme; 2) each individual presenter’s contribution; 3) the role of a commentator (if any); 4) diversity statement (see above); 5) whether a given proposal desires “all or none”; 6) hybrid session requests and remote participation and/or presenter preferences, with explanation, if applicable; and 7) whether any of the presenters are candidates for SHOT’s Robinson Prize.
Individual paper proposals should indicate whether the presenter is a Robinson Prize candidate, and provide their remote participation preferences, with explanation, if applicable.
Specific instructions related to submission details appear on the SHOT webpage (https://www.historyoftechnology.org/). For joint SHOT/HSS session proposals, please submit proposals to both SHOT and HSS. For details about HSS proposal submission, please visit the HSS webpage (https://hssonline.org/).
Presentation Options & Remote Access during SHOT 2021 NOLA
We first note once again that the SHOT physical meeting in New Orleans will be switched entirely to a virtual format if health conditions are deemed to be unsafe.
An Experiment with Hybrid (Live-Streaming) Sessions
SHOT is thinking boldly about how to structure our 2021 meeting to address possible concerns about travel during COVID-19. The Society is also committed to facilitating access and inclusion, reducing the environmental impact of meetings, and supporting the ongoing internationalization of our field. Accordingly, we will be conducting an experiment this year by offering three parallel hybrid (live-streaming) sessions available for remote access. We highlight the following, and hope to assess our society and its membership’s interest and willingness to lead the way in making our conferences accessible to people around the globe at a fraction of the cost of attending an in-person meeting. We see this as a process every society needs to experiment with, as climate change and other issues come to the fore. For the 2021 SHOT Annual Conference, the Program Committee hopes to offer the following:
● Live stream of the opening plenary, keynote, presidential roundtables, and other program highlights, such as the Da Vinci Lectures
● Live stream of a number of SHOT-HSS joint sessions (cosponsored with HSS)
● Live stream of sessions selected by the Program Committee that are deemed to be of greatest interest to a global/remote audience
Those participating in a hybrid (live-streaming) session, including the audience, will be able to contribute to the Q&A period. All individuals with an assigned role in a hybrid session (presenters, chairs, and commentator) will need to register for the conference at the usual registration rates (lower for graduate students, etc.).
Remote Presentation Options
Under conditions where the conference does meet in New Orleans, we understand that some potential presenters may remain concerned about COVID-19 exposure; they may also wish to, or need to participate remotely for other reasons. Accordingly, in addition to the opportunity to present remotely if selected for a hybrid (live-streaming) session, presenters may give their papers as a pre-recorded presentation in any session. Those doing so must commit to pre-recording their presentation and sending that file to their session organizer and chair by a deadline before the meeting starts. A session organizer or chair, in a session where at least one paper will be delivered remotely, will need to commit to handling the actual screening of this presentation in their session. Sessions for which all presenters plan to deliver their papers remotely must include a session organizer or chair who will be in-person; if you do not have such an individual, please indicate this on your proposal and if your organized session is accepted, the Program Committee will work to identify an individual who will be there in person to convene the session.) Remote presenters are also welcome to make arrangements with the session organizer or chair for them to join their session’s Q&A period by phone. Remote presenters will need to register for the conference at the usual registration rates (lower for graduate students, etc.).
Indicating Your Presentation Preferences
In submitting a session proposal or individual abstract, organizers and authors should indicate:
1. Whether they wish to have their paper/sessions considered for a hybrid (live-streaming) session.
2. Whether they intend to participate in person; as a remote presenter only if assigned to a hybrid session; or as a remote presenter regardless of session assignment (You may rank order your preferences, with the reasons for your preferences, if applicable.)
3. Or if an organized session, which presenters requests each of these presentation formats. (NOTE: Sessions for which all presenters plan to deliver their papers remotely must include a session organizer or chair who will be in-person; if you do not have such an individual, please indicate this on your proposal and if your session is accepted, the Program Committee will work to identify an individual who will be there in person to convene the session.) |
