Fall 2024 Colloquium - Patrick McCray
Abstract: To say that computers today are everywhere is an observation that verges on the obtuse. However, this assertion carries the burden of a significant historical question: How did this technological revolution happen? One powerful catalyst was, ironically, one of the oldest information technologies in the modern world: books. Computers had to be both popularized and popular (the two are not the same) before they became omnipresent. Books were an essential ingredient in this process.
My forthcoming book, titled README, offers a literary history of computers and computing between the end of World War Two and the dot-com crash that marked the first few years of the 21st century. In my talk, I will do three things: I’ll give an overview of the larger research project; I’ll present some examples of how books give insights into particular historical moments in the history of computers, the history of books and publishing, and American culture in general; and, finally, I’ll raise some questions the evolving relationship between writers and technology at a time when computers themselves have become authors of a sort.
