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SUMMARY:Programming — the Second Literacy: What Kind of Information Age?
DTSTART:20180530T080000
DTEND:20180530T084500
DTSTAMP:20260928T201003Z
UID:b38ce1c30578292f95407347a32e8971d360508873dd939813df92a2
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Ksenia Tatarchenko\, Global Studies Institute\, University of 
 Geneva\nThis presentation questions the assumptions behind America-centere
 d narratives of the global Information Age and sketches a late socialist v
 ision of the Information Society by analyzing the concept of “programmin
 g\, the second literacy” developed by the Soviet programmer Andrei Ersho
 v. At the heart of this concept is a preoccupation with the nature of the 
 interaction between human and machine. I trace the concept's origin to Ers
 hov's international networks and his efforts to define the identity and so
 cial role of the programmer\, a new Cold War professional. As a slogan beh
 ind the Soviet education reform that introduced compulsory informatics cla
 sses in 1985\, the concept reveals the connections and tensions between th
 e expert's philosophy of information\, perestroika techno-politics\, and t
 he late Soviet quest for technological modernity. My study represents a ra
 dical reappraisal of the familiar failure narrative associated with Soviet
  computing in general and the 1985 reform in particular. It answers Michae
 l Mahoney's call for “computing histories” and embraces the challenges
  of integrating the history of software. A case study of a Soviet concept 
 grounded in the transnational Cold War perspective\, this talk will also s
 uggest unexpected continuities between the Soviet and present day experien
 ces with information technology.\n \nKsenia Tatarchenko is a lecturer at 
 the Global Studies Institute\, Geneva University\, specializing in the his
 tory of Russian science and technology. She has held positions as a visiti
 ng Assistant Professor of History at NYU Shanghai and a post-doctoral fell
 ow at the Harriman Institute\, Columbia University. She received her Ph.D.
  from the History of Science Program\, History Department\, Princeton Univ
 ersity (2013)\, and an M.A. in history from University Paris-Sorbonne (200
 6).\n 
LOCATION:BC 420 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==BC%20420
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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