Sociotechnocanonicon/2021

The Sociotechnocanonicon Great Books Discussion Series allows members of the CDSC to build their familiarity with some of the classic works which are foundational in studies of online communities and peer production. The discussions are open to all, and facilitated by senior members of CDSC in order to introduce the broader context of the work. Meetings are held in person and aired over Jitsi for remote participation.

Themes try to cover including collective action, social movements, participatory-democracy, networks, sociomateriality, sociotechnical systems, and cooperation.

This page covers the Summer 2020 version of the reading group. Links to previous years are at the bottom of the page.

Details and Schedule

 * Time: Mondays at 11am Pacific; 1pm Central; 2pm Eastern; 8pm Central European
 * Notes: Etherpad
 * Location: Online on CDSC Jitsi


 * [Week 1 / of July 6]: Elinor Ostrom's Governing the Commons (first half: Preface, Chapters 1-3)
 * People attending: sohyeon, kaylea, aaron, sejal, Mako!, jdfoote, Charlie, Carl, mika, salt, sejal
 * [Week 2 / of July 13]: Elinor Ostrom's Governing the Commons (second half: Chapters 4-6)
 * People attending: kaylea, aaron, Ellie, sejal, Mako!, jdfoote, salt, sejal
 * [Week 3 / of July 20]: Two articles by Yochai Benkler: Coase's Penguin and Sharing Nicely
 * If there's anyway you can, read Ronald Coase's The Nature of the Firm (Mako calls it a Sleeping Beauty paper). At the very least, read the Wikipedia article on the article which has a good summary of the piece.
 * People attending: sohyeon, kaylea, aaron, Ellie, Mako!, jdfoote, Nemo, Stef
 * [Week 4 / of July 27]: Dorothy Singer and Tracey Revenson's A Piaget Primer: How a Child Thinks (first half: Preface, Chapters 1-4)
 * Discussion leader(s): You?
 * People attending: Floor, kaylea, Ellie, Mako!, jdfoote(?), Nate Nemo, Regina, Stef
 * [Week 5 / of August 3]: Dorothy Singer and Tracey Revenson's A Piaget Primer: How a Child Thinks (second half: Chapters 5-8)
 * People attending: Floor, kaylea, Mako!, jdfoote(?), Nate Nemo,Stef
 * Discussion leader(s): You?
 * [Week 6 / of August 10]: Francesca Polleta's Freedom is an Endless Meeting (first half: Preface, Chapters 1-4) and Jo Freeman's "Tyranny of Structurelessness"
 * People attending: sohyeon, Floor, kaylea, aaron, Mako!, jdfoote, Nate, Charlie
 * Discussion leader(s): You?
 * [Week 7 / of August 17]: Francesca Polleta's Freedom is an Endless Meeting (second half: Chapters 5-8)
 * People attending: sohyeon, Floor, kaylea, aaron, Mako!, jdfoote, Nate Nemo
 * Discussion leader(s): You?
 * [Week 8 / of August 24]: Albert Hirschman's Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (the whole book, it's short!)
 * People attending: mako, charlie
 * Discussion leader(s): You?
 * [Week 9 / of August 31]: TBD
 * [Week 10 / of September 7]: Data Feminism
 * People attending:
 * Discussion leader(s):

New suggestions go here

 * Ruha Benjamin, The New Jim Code
 * Sasha Costanza-Chock, Design Justice
 * Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples - Linda Tuhiwai Smith
 * A People’s History of Computing in the United States - Joy Lisi Rankin
 * Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet (Lisa Nakamura)
 * Data Feminism
 * Coding Freedom
 * Automating Inequality - Virginia Eubanks

Lessons from 2019 Instantiation

 * Deciding on book/s needs to happen earlier so that we can get the word out and folks can plan
 * Intersecting reading choices and discussion leaders earlier would also be helpful

Structural Ideas from Post-Summer 2019

 * Part of a broader "Samba school" program that CDSC might operate as over each summer?
 * What is the periodicity of the STC? 3 years? 4 years?

Reading Ideas From 2019 Planning

 * Axelrod's wikipedia:The Evolution of Cooperation. A more controversial suggestion would be Kropotkin's wikipedia:Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution —m a k o ๛ 
 * Claude Shannon (or at least someone else's summary of information theory) Aaronshaw (talk) 16:38, 7 May 2019 (EDT)
 * Hayek (on information) Aaronshaw (talk) 16:39, 7 May 2019 (EDT)
 * If we want to read something ecological I would pick "organizations evolving" by Reuf and Aldrich. It may be a bit too high level and its kind of a textbook. I'd also be excited to do Marx, Weber, Durkheim. Another idea for a social theory book is "Constructing Social Theories" by Stinchcomb. Groceryheist (talk) 18:24, 5 June 2019 (EDT)
 * Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: outline of the theory of structuration. University of California Press.
 * Something by Wanda Orlikowski Sneha (talk) 11:49, 6 June 2019 (EDT)
 * Jo Freeman's Tyranny of Structurelessness Sneha (talk) 11:49, 6 June 2019 (EDT) (this is very short and important! there's no excuse not to do it —m a k o ๛  20:44, 5 June 2020 (CEST))
 * Jessica Nembhard's Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice Sneha (talk) 11:49, 6 June 2019 (EDT)
 * Francesa Polletta's Freedom is an Endless Meeting Sneha (talk) 11:49, 6 June 2019 (EDT) (This is a new classic and and I'd really like to do it. —m a k o ๛ )

Reading Ideas From Post-Summer 2019

 * Castells (or, perhaps, Phil Howard on Castells, with some auxiliary reading) Kaylea (talk) 15:52, 13 November 2019 (EST)
 * Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (Hirschmann) Kaylea (talk) 15:52, 13 November 2019 (EST)
 * The Sciences of the Artificial, HA Simon. "best known for concepts of bounded rationality and satisficing" Kaylea (talk) 15:48, 8 January 2020 (EST)
 * Piaget (or, someone covering Piaget) in keeping with last year's pattern of having a reading about education Kaylea (talk) 15:52, 13 November 2019 (EST) (Mako suggests the A Piaget Primer: How a Child Thinks by Dorothy Singer and Tracey Revenson) Kaylea (talk)
 * Gabrielle Tard (Mako mentioned in orgcomm class)
 * Kollock, Peter and Marc Smith. 1999. Communities in Cyberspace. London: Routledge.
 * Data Feminism by Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein (—m <font color="#600099">a <font color="#2D0399">k <font color="#362365">o <font color="#000000">๛ )
 * Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking by Gabriella Coleman (—<font color="#C40099">m <font color="#600099">a <font color="#2D0399">k <font color="#362365">o <font color="#000000">๛ )

Previous Years

 * Sociotechnocanonicon/2018 Schedule
 * Sociotechnocanonicon/2019 Planning
 * Sociotechnocanonicon/2019 Schedule