Goldsmiths - University of London

Dr Lynn Turner

Academic qualifications

PhD Cultural Studies (University of Leeds) 2002
MA Cultural Studies (University of Leeds) 1995
BA (Hons) Fine Art (Newcastle Polytechnic - now the University of Northumbria) 1990

Teaching

I contribute to the MA Core Course, teach a level 3 BA option on ‘Sexual Poetics’ as well as delivering lectures on the BA level 1 core course ‘Introduction to Art History.’

Areas of supervision

I currently supervise projects on autoimmunity and science fiction; film and murmur of the name; skin and species in South African art; animal and plant life in the Museum. I welcome proposals for research on animal and sexual differences; contemporary visual culture, aural culture particularly the voice/speech relation, science fiction; deconstruction, particularly in relation to the gift, friendship, destinerrance, the animots.

Research interests

My research brings together longstanding interest in diverse feminist theories addressing sexual politics and poetics, as expressed in a variety of media, with recent work in philosophy and cultural studies on the ‘animal question.’ I understand the complexity of the term ‘performativity’ as it unfolds across Jacques Derrida’s work from his early use of the trace to the recent autobiographical question of whether anyone may decide to erase their tracks and link this with Donna Haraway’s work on the contingent unfolding of kinship as consolidated in the question ‘who am I (following)?’ In this light, my book, Machine-Events: autobiographies of the performative in visual culture makes the argument that the performative not only implicates the organic with the synthetic, but also ruins the categorical division of species. Chapters pursue this argument in relation to the interspecies kiss in Carolee Schneemann’s several Infinity Kisses series (1980’s, 1990’s, 2008); the nature of confession in Richard Linklater’s film, Tape (2001); and fantasies about genetics in Lynn Hershmann’s transferential film Conceiving Ada (1997) and Hussein Chalayan’s The Absent Presence (2005). Future research will be directed to what Evelyn Fox Keller calls a ‘radically transformed bestiary’ attendant upon both science and science fiction. I also continue to be involved with the journal parallax, currently as the Arts Editor having previously served a three-year term as joint Commissioning Editor.

Selected publications

Books:

Machine-Events: autobiographies of the performative in visual culture (a monograph, forthcoming)

Edited journals:

‘Random Figures’ parallax 8:1 2002 (co-edited with Marcel Swiboda & Cylena Simonds) Contributors: Homi Bhabba, Tom Cohen, Sara Ahmed, Jeffrey Mehlman, Jeffrey Nealon, Brian Rotman, Wendy McMurdo, Julian Yates, Jason Winfree and Joanne Crawford.

‘Immanent Trajectories’, parallax 7:4 2001 (co-edited with Marcel Swiboda & Cylena Simonds) Contributors: Félix Guattari, Bracha Ettinger, Claire Colebrook, Ian Buchanan, Simon 0’Sullivan, Yve Lomax & Vit Hopley, Lynn Silverman, and Maria Assad.

‘Hot Property’, parallax 7:2 2001 (co-edited with Marcel Swiboda & Cylena Simonds) Contributors: Hélène Cixous, Sue Golding, Steven Connor, Dorothea Olkowski, Adrian Kear, Ewa Ziarek, Heather Kerr, Deborah Kass, Paul Bowman and Robert Dawson.

Selected articles:

'Seeks-Zoos: some recent correspondence with animals' in The Issues in Contemporary Culture & Aesthetics’ pp. 10-21, No. 2-3, 2009.

‘The course of a general displacement, or, The course of the choreographer’ in The Origins of Deconstruction, Martin McQuillan & Ika Willis, eds. Palgrave, 2009.

‘stop looking for some single defining difference’: the ongoing Arkhe of Donna Haraway’ pp. 142-145 in parallax, 14:3, 2008.

‘Wind up: the Machine-Event of Tape’ pp. 112-135 in Camera Obscura, 64, 2007.

‘Differential Vibrations: on things that go buzz in the night’ pp.437-439 in The Journal of Visual Culture, 6:3, 2007.

‘Des Jeunes Nées: for a confusion of the tongue, the lip, & the rim’ pp. 171-178, in The Issues in Contemporary Culture & Aesthetics, No.1, 2005.

‘Sexual Difference’ pp 317-32 in The Year’s Work in Cultural & Critical Theory, Vol.11, 2003.

‘Braiding polyphony: Je tu il elle (& lui)’ pp. 94-100, in Performance Research, 8:1, 2003.

‘Translation Reading Sex’ pp. 57-70 in parallax, 8: 4, 2002.

‘Lift off: il n’y a pas de deux hors texte’ pp. 372-374 in The Journal of Visual Culture, 1:3, 2002.

‘Translating John Malkovich’ pp.132-137 in Performance Research, 7:2, 2002.

‘Documentary Friction: Visual & Vocal Strategies in Surname Viet: Given Name Nam’ pp.81-93 in parallax 1:3, 1997.

Grants & awards

AHRC Research Leave Scheme 2007-2008
British Academy studentship (3 years + fees) 1997-2000