| Post: | Senior Lecturer in Media |
| Other posts: | Senior Lecturer in Media (Gender Studies) |
| Location: | Silverstone |
| Email: | K.ORiordan@sussex.ac.uk |
| Telephone numbers | |
| Internal: | 6730 |
| UK: | (01273) 876730 |
| International: | +44 1273 876730 |
Biography
Kate is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Media and Film at Sussex. She has taught across the Media Studies curriculum, and in the Centre for Continuing Education (CCE), specialising in digital media technologies, and science. In 2004 she chaired the International Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers, and she served on the executive committee of the organisation, 2004-2006.
Kate is on the coordinating committee of the Centre for Material Digital Culture, at the University of Sussex, joint vice chair of the Digital Culture and Communication section of the European Communication and Research Association and an active member of the Brighton and Sussex Sexualities Network (BSSN).
In 2006 she completed a three-year research secondment to Lancaster University where she worked on media representations of human genomics at the Centre for the Social and Economic Aspects of Genomics (CESAGen), and where she continues to be an affiliated researcher.
She has made numerous interventions through publishing, conferences and public engagement activities in the UK and internationally.
A recent selection of these activities includes:
- invited speaker in the Virtually McLuhan: Theorizing Code and Digital Life series at the Centre for Cross Faculty Enquiry in Education, UBC, Canada
- invited speaker in the Centre for Cultural Studies Colloquium, UCSC, USA
- invited speaker in the TAP seminar series at Goteborg University, Sweden
- commentator at the Science and Justice Working Group at UC Santa Cruz, USA
- co-chairing Digital Media: European Perspectives
- chairing Media Technology and Sexuality at the University of Sussex's Centre for Material Digital Culture
Role
- Senior Lecturer in Media and Film, University of Sussex.
- Affiliated CESAGen Researcher, Lancaster University.
- Co-ordinating Committee: Centre for Material Digital Culture.
Research
Kate's research is a cultural studies of science and technology that deploys sexuality and gender as its key analytical categories. There are two strands to this work;
- Embodiment and digital media (ICTs)
- Embodiment and human biotechnology (genomics and cloning)
Kate has worked on gender and gaming, web cameras, medical imaging, art and digital design. She has also published on sexuality and technology and the ethics of internet research. In the ICT strand of her research she has recently completed an edited collection with David Phillips called Queer Online: Media Technology and Sexuality. Also in the ICT strand she is co-editing a special edition of Fibreculture After Convergence, what connects?
In the biotechnology strand she has completed a co-authored monograph on visual cultures of genomics, and disc
ourses of human cloning (2007) with Routledge: Human Cloning in the Media: From Science Fiction to Science Practice. She is currently working on a new book project The Genome Incorporated: the construction of biodigital identity.
Current projects:
Queering Genealogies
In the ICT strand of her work Kate is developing a practice-based project called Queering Genealogies which assembles video clips and audio files from interviews into a web-based installation, modelled on, and using social networking technologies. These materials are drawn from interviews with participants who come from queer families, or who have experienced queer forms of kinship, and are themselves queer identified in some way.
The Genome Incorporated
ICTs and human biotechnology also intersect, and Kate is currently examining this axis in depth in a book project that focuses on intersections of ICTs and human biotechnology in relation to the body. The book is provisionally called The Genome Incorporated: The Construction of Biodigital Identity. It develops concepts of biodigitality (Parisi, 2004, Parikka, 2007) biovalue (Waldby, 2002) and biomedia (Thacker, 2004), through the lens of incorporation to examine a series of case studies examining the proliferation and consumption of human genomics as it intersections with media forms. These case studies include new media and personal genome sequencing intersections, genome browsing, genomic health testing and reality programming partnerings, and bio and sci-art engagements with genomics.
Teaching
Kate is the external examiner for the MA in Internet and Communication Studies at Liverpool John Moores University.
She currently supervises DPhil work on feminity and blogging, and hypertext and embodiment, and has previously worked with students on gendered digital reading practices and online fan cultures.
Taught postgraduate:
- Interactive Media Theory
Undergraduate:
- Introduction to Media and Film Studies
- Gender and Genre
- Science and the Media
Selected publications
2009
Science Communication Reconsidered: Challenges, Prospects, and Recommendations (with Tania Bubela and Matthew Nisbet) in Nature Biotechnology Volume 27 pp. 514-518
2008
Fragments of Creative Cloning: Time, Money and Relationships Andy Miah, ed., in Human Futures: Art in an Age of Uncertainty Liverpool: FACT & Liverpool University
Genomic science in contemporary film: institutions, individuals and genre Bruce Bennett, Marc Furstenau, Adrian Mackenzie, ed., in Cinema and Technology: Cultures, Theories, Practices Palgrove Macmillan ISBN 0-230-52477-X
Human Cloning in Film: Horror, Ambivalence, Hope. in Science as Culture Volume 17 pp. 145-162
2007
Human Cloning in the Media: From Science Fiction to Science Practice (with Haran, J, Kitzinger J and McNeil, M) London and New York: Routledge, 244 pp. ISBN 0415422361
Queer Online: Media Technology and Sexuality New York: Peter Lang ISBN 978-0-820-48631-4
Queer Theories and Cybersubjects: Intersecting Figures O'Riordan, K and Philips, D, ed., in Queer Online: Media Technology and Sexuality New York: Peter Lang pp. 13-30 ISBN 978-0-820-48631-4
Technologised Bodies: Transformations In Understandings of The Body As Natural Hargreaves J, and Vertinsky P, ed., in Physical Culture, Power and the Body London: New York: Routledge pp. 232-252 ISBN 0415363527
2006
Gender Technology and Visual Cyberculture A Massanari and D Silver, ed., in Critical Cyberculture Studies New York: New York University Press pp. 243-254 ISBN 0-814-74024-3
Women, Feminism and Human Cloning: Recirculating Concerns and Critiques (with Haran, J) in Feminist Media Studies Volume 6 pp. 217-222
2005
Changing Cyberspaces: Dystopia and Technological Excess Stacy Gillis, ed., in The Matrix Trilogy: Cyberpunk Reloaded London: Wallflower Press pp. 138-150 ISBN 1904764320
From usenet to Gaydar: a comment on queer online community in ACM SIGGROUP Bulletin Volume 25 pp. 28-32
Transgender Activism and the Net: Global Activism or Casualty of Globalisation Wilma de Jong, Martin Shaw and Neil Stammers, ed., in Global Media, Global Activism London: Pluto Press ISBN 0-745-32195-0
2004
Internet Research Annual: Volume Three New York: Peter Lang ISBN 0-8204-7856-3
Internet Research: Questioning Ubiquity (with Consalvo, Mia) O'Riordan, K and Consalvo, M, ed., in Internet Research Annual: Volume Three New York: Peter Lang ISBN 0-8204-7856-3
Virtual Ideals: Art, Science and Gendered Cyberbodies (with Doyle, J) Kuni, V and Reiche, C, ed., in Cyberfeminism: Next Protocols Autonomedia ISBN 1-570-27149-6
2002
Ethics of Internet Research: Contesting the Human Subjects Model. (with Bassett, E.H.) in Journal of Ethics and Information Technology. Volume 4 pp. 233-247
Virtually Belonging: Risk, Connectivity and Coming Out On-line (with Sally Munt and Bassett, E.H.) in International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies Volume 7 pp. 125- 137
Virtually Visible: Female Cyberbodies and the Medical Imagination (with Doyle, J) Booth, A and Flanagan, M, ed., in Reload: Rethinking Women and Cyberculture Cambridge: MIT Press ISBN 0-262-56150-6
Windows on the Web: The Female Body and the Web Camera Consalvo, M and Paasonen, S, ed., in Women and Everyday Uses of the Internet: Agency & Identity New York: Peter Lang ISBN 0-820-46141-5
2001
Playing With Lara in Virtual Space S R Munt, ed., in Technospaces - Inside the New Media London , Washington: Cassell pp. 224-238 ISBN 0-826-45003-2