SHOT Annual Meeting 2026 – Pre-Announcement
Mark your calendars for the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) upcoming annual meeting will be held on October 23-24 across the world wherever you are. The virtual setting for this year’s meeting will create new opportunities to connect, collaborate, and build community across borders and time zones. The theme for this year’s meeting is “Technology and Politics and Policy,” broadly defined.
The official call for papers will come May 5th. (A virtual meeting means registration will occur later in the summer.) We invite you to start contemplating creative proposals that take advantage of this setting and foster meaningful interaction, and strengthen our global scholarly community. We are planning ways to encourage graduate students and early career scholars the opportunity to make presentations of their work. We invite our museum and archives colleagues to contribute short recorded (maybe live) talks that bring a museum object, archival documents, a new exhibition, or historic landmark place into focus. New books will be featured, along with opportunities for discussion on the research, writing and publication processes. Engagement in the histories of technology through film, image, soundscape and dialogue on creative narrative methods are welcome as are workshops on methods, pedagogy and the changing landscape of teaching and research are welcome. Panels with more familiar formats and themes featuring papers and roundtable discussions remain a core part of the program and are encouraged alongside more experimental approaches.
In addition, we will be encouraging SHOT members to organize in-person gatherings in conjunction with the meeting. Small grants will be available to supplement gathering costs including internet connectivity where needed. Proposals will allow for timezone selection for ease of synchronous participation. Sessions will also be available as recordings on the platform for a limited time.
The official Call For Proposals will be released May 5th with proposals due in late June. We look forward to your contributions in co-shaping an inclusive, dynamic, and intellectually generous virtual gathering.
SHOT Program Committee
Elan Spero (Chair), Glen Bugos and Kelcey Gibbons