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Ben Gross

@bhgross144.bsky.social

4.2K followers 1.9K following 2.2K posts

John Merritt Associate Director for Research Services at the Harry Ransom Center; Author of The TVs of Tomorrow-How RCA's Flat-Screen Dreams Led to the First LCDs (Chicago 2018). Posting in a personal capacity.

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · Aug 5

Do you:
-Love #literature? 📚
-Adore #art? 🎨
-Fancy #film or #photography? 📽️📸
-Thrill to the #theater? 🎭
-Relish #RareBooks? 📖

Apply for @ransomcenter.bsky.social's 2026-27 #fellowships!

Learn more & submit a proposal by Nov. 3: www.hrc.utexas.edu/fellowships/

#Humanities #Research #CFP #CFA 🗃️📜

A scholar examines a postcard in the Harry Ransom Center's reading room. Her photo is framed by a blue square with "FELLOWSHIP APPLICATIONS ARE NOW OPEN" written on each side. That image is positioned in front of a section of the etched windows on the Ransom Center's first floor, which showcase highlights from our collections.

More info about the Ransom Center's fellowships: https://www.hrc.utexas.edu/fellowships/

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

To the best of my knowledge, there were approximately 280 in-person registrations this year.

Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

John Krige, historian of state-driven innovation & scientific diplomacy during and after the #ColdWar, has earned the Da Vinci Medal— @shothisttech.bsky.social’s highest honor.

More on his work: iac.gatech.edu/people/perso... #SHOT2025

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

Cecilia Passanti has received the 2025 Brook Hindle Postdoctoral Fellowship for her work on the history of biometrics in newly independent African nations post-WWII. #SHOT2025

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

Thanks to a generous donation, SHOT is awarding 2 Kranzberg Dissertation Fellowships to Karolina Partyga and Thomas McLamb.

@sigcisconf.bsky.social is also sponsoring an unprecedented 3rd dissertation fellowship in Kranzberg’s memory to Jeffrey Rubel. #SHOT2025

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

Jakob Henningsson (KTH Royal Institute of Technology) wins the Robinson Prize for best first-time SHOT presenter. His paper looked at industrial economy education in Stockholm (1911-1945). #SHOT2025

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

Greetings once again from @uni.lu where the time has come for the #SHOT2025 Awards Ceremony!

In her opening remarks, SHOT president Debbie Douglas reminds us that interest in the history of technology has never been greater or more important.

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

Mario Bianchini raises an interesting ? for @anya-shchetvina.bsky.social about the use of #scifi in Internet manifestos. She notes that while there are references to key tropes (e.g., cyberspace from Neuromancer), it can be tricky to ascertain what their authors were reading at the time... #SHOT2025

Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

Olmos concludes that the absence of popular alternatives to the Taser reflects the limits of imaginations enmeshed in a network of sociotechnical assumptions.

(Which raises an important question...how can we break free from that web and redefine the scope of technological possibility?)

#SHOT2025

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

Olmos calls attention to the etymology of TASER (Tom A. Swift's Electric Rifle) which traces its roots to a colonialist pulp novel published in 1911.

She suggests that the modern invention's use is rooted in a fundamentally racist, but typically unrecognized technological imaginary. #SHOT2025

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

Our final presenter, Ana María Guzmán Olmos, is interested in the destructive shape that imagination can take. What happens when science imagines death?

Interestingly, her paper focuses on tasers, which are normally framed as non-lethal. And yet these weapons are harmful and often deadly. #SHOT2025

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

Jankowski's next steps for the anthology:
-Find an open access publisher
-Select 18 or so texts
-Solicit scholars to write brief commentaries
-establish organizing principle

Ultimate goal of this project: Inspire new insights about imagination, media, and history. #SHOT2025

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

Jankowski ultimately identified 39 interesting stories from the 19th & 20th centuries that explore different media (automata, photography, telephones, TV, radio, etc.) that were published from many different genres (scifi, horror, romance, etc.).

Here are a few highlights...

#SHOT2025

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

Jankowski is proposing the idea of anthologies as a research method. Anthologies circulate & canonize short stories. Could they also facilitate analyses that transcend specific time periods or new media platforms? If so, how to approach selection of relevant texts? He has some ideas... #SHOT2025

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

"New technologies are not only used to tell stories."

@textaural.bsky.social cites Ben Peters' definition of new media ("new media are media we don't know how to talk about yet"). Artists engaging w/these media may be tapping into things we may not understand. #SHOT2025

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

To conclude, Shchetvina raises the question of recursivity: What happens to the imagined vision of a medium when the medium is used define the form that imagination will take. #SHOT2025

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

Shchetvina: Romanticizing goes out of fashion after 1997. It remains in use in marketing or self-branding of CEOs, etc.

Instead we see more experiments using the Internet to support arguments--bridging the gap b/w text & mode (e.g., Manifesto for a Critical Approach to the User Interface) #SHOT2025

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

Shchetvina is specifically interested in 2 ?s
1) How does the form of a manifesto mediate imagination of the Internet?
2) How do those forms change over time?

Texts published 1974-97, for example, feature metaphors/neologisms, new social identities (e.g. hackers), florid language #SHOT2025

"And then it happened...a door opened to the world...rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins."

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

"Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind..." -John Perry Barlow (1996)

Our next presenter, @anya-shchetvina.bsky.social, begins her presentation on Internet manifestos by quoting one of the most famous examples #SHOT2025

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

by John Perry Barlow Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us ...

www.eff.org

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

Glad to be of service! I wish that there were more people sharing their thoughts on Bluesky. (I can only attend one panel at a time...)

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

GM: "We have the car of the future, but we can't make it."
Toyota: "We are complying with regulations."

Eisler notes that this was a public element of technical dramaturgy that shows what automobility might look like in the future. But GM didn't know about Toyota's new hybrid (#Prius)

#SHOT2025

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

Eisler: But would a zero-emissions vehicle look like? Initially the thought was to pursue a battery-powered car. But automakers really didn't like that...

Instead, Toyota & GM organized a series of demonstrations of this technology to demonstrate EV's abilities & limitations. #SHOT2025

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

Eisler: Public R&D demonstrations become very important in persuading automobile industry to begin reinvesting in electric vehicles. Specifically, let's look at cooperation & competition between GM & Toyota as they raced to develop systems that could align w/California's zero emissions law #SHOT2025

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

Our first presenter is Matt Eisler, who is interested in ways that different technologies can capture the imagination. His books have looked at this question in the context of fuel cells (Overpotential) and the electric car (Age of Auto Electric).

#SHOT2025

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

The New Yorker is fine, but I'm partial to RCA's Electronic Age...

(This is from the Spring 1966 issue.)

Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 1d

Roth notes that this afternoon's panel complements a recently published edited volume (Making Media Futures, Routledge) featuring writing & co-chair Timothy Stoneman.

He also encourages us to look at Ana Shchetvina's blog, Matters of Imagination: matterofimagination.neocities.org #SHOT2025

matterofimagination

matterofimagination.neocities.org

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