[Air-L] CfP: Special issue 'Women and Tech in the Post-Soviet Context: Intelligence, Creativity, Transgression’, Studies in Russian, Eurasian, and Central-European New Media

[Mariëlle W.]

*Studies in Russian, Eurasian, and Central-European New Media *(
www.digitalicons.org) invites submissions for its upcoming special issue



*'Women and Tech in the Post-Soviet Context: Intelligence, Creativity,
Transgression'*

Guest editors: Saara Ratilainen (University of Helsinki), Mariëlle
Wijermars (University of Helsinki) and Justin Wilmes (East Carolina
University)

The development of the internet as a democratizing tool fostering freedom
of information, grass-roots activism, and peer-to-peer support is closely
related to and engrained in hacker communities. In the early days of the
internet’s development, these groups consisted primarily of young white men
from with access to higher education and technology. In popular culture,
the image of the successful programmer, software developer and ‘hacktivist’
remains predominantly male and is based on such well-known examples as
Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Edward Snowden, and Pavel Durov. Meanwhile,
there are few if any stories or representations of women who have led the
hacker revolution. As access to computer-programming-based technology
becomes democratized on the user-end, gender (and other) inequalities on
the developer side continue to persist with women drastically
underrepresented in tech professions.

These representations contradict what we know from history, including the
fact that there are several women who have led crucial advancements in math
and computing. Ada Lovelace, Victorian mathematician and daughter of Lord
Byron, was notably the inventor of algorithms. She introduced the
‘calculating machine’ one hundred years before the existence of modern
computers. Another pioneering female computer scientist and feminist
figure, Joan Clarke, worked as a cryptanalyst in the British Government’s
Code and Cypher School with the task of decrypting the German Enigma
machine code during World War II. Clarke’s work was brought to the
attention of international film audiences by *The Imitation Game *in 2014
and biographies of Lovelace are being published in different languages.
Despite some renewed interest, we still know far too little about women’s
work in computing, internet activism, and technology industries in general.

*Studies in Russian, Eurasian, and Central-European New Media *(
www.digitalicons.org) invites submissions that address women, feminism, and
the internet in post-socialist contexts to be published in a special issue
‘Women and Tech in the post-Soviet Context: Intelligence, Creativity,
Transgression’. The issue aims to consider what is it like to be a female
programmer, online activist, or digital artist in the era of global
connectedness through the internet. According to a study conducted by
HackerRank (blog.hackerrank.com), of the ten nations with the best women
coders three are Eastern European/post-socialist countries, which prompts
the question whether female programmers are better off in post-socialist
countries than they are in Silicon Valley? Against this background, the
issue also seeks to examine feminist activism and women’s creative work
online. Did Pussy Riot pave the way for transnational feminism to grow
through online communications? What is the role of internet-based ‘cyber
feminism’ (feminist theorizing, critiquing and exploiting the internet and
new media technologies) ) for the grass-roots work of women’s groups across
the post-socialist space and beyond? How do women artists, writers, and
poets advance their careers through online networks and computer
programming?

The proposed articles can include (but are not limited to) themes such as:

   - Female coders
   - Women in software developer communities
   - Gender representation of hacktivism
   - Women and artificial intelligence
   - Feminist groups online
   - Feminist internet sites
   - Female gamers/women in the gaming industry
   - Women’s online poetry and literature
   - Women in digital art
   - Female idols on Runet
   - Female pioneers of Runet
   - Women in the history of computing and internet in the post-Soviet
   context

Please send an abstract of 350 words and a short cv to the issue’s editors
Saara Ratilainen (saara.ratilainen at helsinki.fi), Mariëlle Wijermars (
marielle.wijermars at helsinki.fi) and Justin Wilmes (wilmesj15 at ecu.edu) by *15
October 2017*.

*

Deadline for abstracts: 15 October 2017

Notification of acceptance: 20 November 2017
Deadline for full articles: 31 January 2018