another new book!

Leigh Star (slstar who-is-at ux1.cso.uiuc.edu)
Mon, 4 Dec 1995 11:31:41 -0600

>The Cultures of Computing
>Edited by Susan Leigh Star
>Blackwell Publishers
>Oxford, England and Cambridge, Massachusetts
>October, 1995
>
>Computers are rapidly diffusing through every organizational,
>creative and domestic setting, creating cultural changes in all of
>them. Scholars are using the tools of anthropology, sociology and
>organizational theory to understand these processes. Some of them
>are associated with making, and some with using, computers and
>information technology. Because computers are simultaneously
>intimate and formal, they offer a good opportunity to study a
>variety of processes: the development of material culture, the
>formation of practice-based networks, the fallibility of language,
>the relationship between power and infrastructure.
>
>This book is one of the first collections to explore the range of
>cultural practices associated with the design and use of computing.
>Each of the contributors examines specific kinds of work that
>people do together with and around computers. Each essay examines
>the ways in which people are brought together in computing
>practices as learners, artists, gatekeepers and scientists -
>sometimes as insiders, sometimes as outsiders. The contributors
>cover a range of topics, from the military to gender in cyberspace,
>from education to multi-national corporate IT use.
>
>Audiences: Advanced undergrads, graduate students; researchers in:
>sociology and anthropology of computing; human-computer interaction and
>computer-supported cooperative work; technology and education;
>organizational computing; history of technology.
>
>
>Contents
>
>Introduction 1
>Susan Leigh Star
>
>From practice to culture on Usenet 29
>Nancy K. Baym
>
>Changing documents/documenting changes: using
>computers for collaborative writing over distance 53
>Eevi E. Beck
>
>Cyberpunks in cyberspace: The politics of subjectivity
>in the computer age 69
>Paul N. Edwards
>
>Connecting cultures: Balinese character and the computer 85
>Dianne DiPaola Hagaman
>
>Information systems strategy, a cultural borderland,
>some monstrous behaviour 103
>Mike Hales
>
>Making space: a comparison of mathematical work in
>school and professional design practices 118
>Rogers Hall and Reed Stevens
>
>Contextualization, cognitive flexibility, and hypertext:
>The convergence of interpretive theory, cognitive
>psychology, and advanced information technologies 146
>Robert A. Jones and Rand Spiro
>
>Constructing easiness-historical perspectives on work,
>computerization, and women 158
>Randi Markussen
>
>`Pulling down' books vs. `pulling up' files: textual
>databanks and the changing culture of classical
>scholarship 181
>Karen Ruhleder
>
>The visual culture of engineers 196
>Kathryn Henderson
>
>Cross-classroom collaboration in global learning circles 219
>Margaret Riel
>
>Sex and death among the disembodied: VR, cyberspace,
>and the nature of academic discourse 243
>Allucquere Rosanne Stone
>
>References 256
>
>Notes on Contributors 276
>
>Index 279
>
>___________________________________________________________
>Ordering Information:
>
>For inspection copies:
>
>UK and elsewhere: inspcopy who-is-at BlackwellPublishers.co.uk
>0800-716328
>USA and Canada: blkwell who-is-at world.std.com
>1-800-216-2522
>
>To Purchase:
>
>ISDN #0-631-19282-4 (paperback)
>
>UK/Europe, etc.: Marston Book Services
>PO Box 87, Osney Mead
>Oxford OX2 ODT UK
>(44) (0) (1865) 791100
>FAX: (44) (0) (1865) 791347
>=A312.99
>
>
>US: Blackwell Publishers
>238 Main St.
>Suite 501
>Cambridge, MA 02142 USA
>(617) 547-7110
>FAX: (617) 547-0789
>$19.95

***************************************
Susan Leigh Star
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois 123 LIS Building
501 East Daniel St.
Champaign, IL 61820 Phone: (217) 244-3280
=46AX: (217) 244-3302 email: s-star1 who-is-at uiuc.edu
____________________________________________________

It seems so simple
when things or people
have modified each other's qualities
somewhat;
we almost forget the oddity
of that.
--Kay Ryan (The New Yorker, August 7, 1995)