Professor Lisa Blackman

Staff details

Position Professor in Media and Communications
Email l.blackman (@gold.ac.uk)
Phone +44 (0)20 79197633
Professor Lisa Blackman

Lisa Blackman works at the intersection of body studies, media psychology, and media and cultural theory. Her research focuses upon the broad areas of affect, subjectivity, the body and embodiment. She also has a keen interest in mental health research and activism and was one of the early pioneers of the Hearing Voices Movement. She has published six books across these areas and has developed modules in the department reflecting these interests. She came to the Department of MCCS in 1994 to develop critical media psychology with Professor Valerie Walkerdine, who she continues to collaborate with as Co-Editor of the journal 'Subjectivity' (also see 'Mass Hysteria: Critical Psychology and Media Studies', 2001, Palgrave). Lisa was a Co-Head of Department from 2016-2019.

Her work in the area of embodiment and voice hearing has been recognised and commended for its innovative approach to mental health research and it has been acclaimed by the Hearing Voices Network, Intervoice, and has been taken up in professional psychiatric contexts ('Hearing Voices: Embodiment and Experience', 2001, Free Association Books). She is currently a Co-Investigator on a large interdisciplinary Australian Research Council research project called, 'Borderline Personality as Social Phenomena' led by Renata Kokanovic.

Her recent research is at the intersection of body studies and affect studies, and she has published two books in these areas: 'Immaterial Bodies: Affect, Embodiment, Mediation', (2012, Sage), and 'Haunted Data: Affect, Transmedia, Weird Science' (2019. Bloomsbury). She is also the Editor of the journal Body & Society (Sage). Her current research project charts the broken genealogy between narcissistic storytelling, military and psychological torture technologies and post-truth communication strategies. It is set within the context of three interrelated pandemics, Covid-19, domestic abuse, and systemic racism, and the politics of Brexit and Trumpism. It will culminate in a forthcoming book titled, 'Abuse Assemblages: Power, Post-Truth and Strategic Deception'.

She has been a member of the Centre for Feminist Research at Goldsmiths since its inception and has been a Co-Director since 2016. She was the Principal Investigator on a British Academy funded project, 'Cultures of Consent: Examining the complexity of sexual misconduct and power within Universities' with Dr Yasmin Gunaratnam (Co-investigator) and Chloe Turner (Research Assistant).

Teaching

Lisa is currently the Co-convenor of the MA Media and Communications.

She also developed and teaches a third year/MA option, Embodiment and Experience, that has been running since 1998. The second edition of the book, 'The Body', that accompanies the module is to be published next year with Routledge (2021). The first edition was published in 2008 helping to inaugurate the transdisciplinary field of body studies.

Areas of supervision

Lisa supervises students across a range of interests, which cross media and cultural studies, body studies, and science studies. Currently she supervises students working within the field of affect studies and mediality; documentary film and feminist archives; and Feeling Kinship and Queer Image-Making, a Decolonial Approach. 

She has supervised 13 students to completion, which include theses in the areas of performance and affect; the intergenerational transmission of memory and diaspora; queer theory and transfeminisms; postfeminism and subjectivity; chick-lit - young women and sexualisation; the New Biologies (the microbiome and epigenetics); disaster journalism, suggestion and affect; Fukishima and Hauntological Analysis.

She is interested in supervising students across the broad areas of affect studies, body studies, media psychology, mental health, and hauntological approaches to archives and data analysis.

Research Interests

Her current research interests are in the areas of affect and contagion (particularly in the areas of social media); experimentation across art, science and humanities; media aesthetics; critical neuroscience; mediation. She is particularly interested in phenomena which have puzzled scientists, artists, literary writers and the popular imagination for centuries, including automatic writing, voice hearing, suggestion and automatism. Lisa is part of a Wellcome-funded project, "Hearing the Voice" and will be specifically collaborating on a subproject "Voices Beyond the Self" to run from 2017-2020.

Publications and research outputs

Book

Blackman, Lisa. 2021. The Body: The Key Concepts (Second edition). Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 9781350109452

Blackman, Lisa. 2019. Haunted Data: Affect, Transmedia, Weird Science. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781350047044

Blackman, Lisa. 2012. Immaterial Bodies: Affect, Embodiment, Mediation. London and New York: Sage. ISBN 9781849204729

Blackman, Lisa. 2008. The Body: The Key Concepts. Oxford and New York: Berg. ISBN 978-1845205904

Blackman, Lisa. 2001. Hearing Voices: Embodiment and Experience. Free Association Press. ISBN 1853435333

Blackman, Lisa and Walkerdine, Valerie. 2001. Mass Hysteria, Critical Psychology and Media Studies. Palgrave Press. ISBN 978-0333647813

Edited Journal

Blackman, Lisa, ed. 2010. Bodily Integrity special issue of Body & Society, issue 16(3), 2010., Body & Society, 16(3). 1357-034X

Blackman, Lisa, ed. 2010. Affect. Special issue of Body & Society, Body & Society, 16(1). 1357-034X

Blackman, Lisa and Cromby, John, eds. 2007. Affect and Feeling (International Journal of Critical Psychology), International Journal of Critical Psychology, 21. 1471 7646

Blackman, Lisa, ed. 2003. Spirituality (International Journal of Critical Psychology), International Journal of Critical Psychology, 8.

Book Section

Blackman, Lisa. 2023. Emotions and Affects of Convolution. In: Gregory J. Seigworth and Carolyn Pedwell, eds. The Affect Theory Reader 2: Worldings, Tensions, Futures. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 326-346. ISBN 9781478024910

Blackman, Lisa. 2023. The Haunting Qualities of Small Data: Dialogues. In: Rachel Fensham; Tyne Daile Sumner; Ashley Barnwell; Danny Butt and Signe Ravn, eds. Small Data is Beautiful. Melbourne: Grattan Street Press.

Blackman, Lisa. 2023. Broken Narratives, Listening in and through another's voices. In: Rachel Fensham; Tyne Sumner,; Ashley Barnwell; Danny Butt and Signe Ravn, eds. Small Data is Beautiful. Melbourne: Grattan Street Press.

Blackman, Lisa. 2022. The Re-Making of Sexual Kinds: Queer Subjects and the Limits of Representation. In: Róisín Ryan-Flood and Alison Rook, eds. Queering Methodology: Lessons and Dilemmas from Lesbian Lives. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 8-21. ISBN 9781032298726

Blackman, Lisa. 2022. Future-Faking, Post-Truth and Affective Media. In: Joanna Zylinkska, ed. The Future of Media. London: Goldsmiths Press, pp. 59-78. ISBN 9781913380144

Blackman, Lisa. 2022. What kind of body does our current society demand? In: M Emgreen and I Dragset, eds. Useless Bodies? Milan, Italy: Fondazione Prada. ISBN 9788887029802

Blackman, Lisa. 2021. Hauntology. In: , ed. Uncertain Archives: Critical Keywords for Big Data. Cambridge Massachussets: The MIT Press, pp. 279-288. ISBN 9780262539883

Blackman, Lisa. 2019. Suggestion, Affect, Speculative Science. In: Christian Borch, ed. Imitation, Contagion, Suggestion: On Mimesis and Society. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 211-228. ISBN 9781138490642

Blackman, Lisa. 2018. Queer Bodies, Machinic Perception and Dancing Beyond the Self. In: Ray Batchelor and Birthe Havmøller, eds. Queer Tango Salon London 2017 - Proceedings. Birthe Havmøller/Queertangobook.org, pp. 52-69. ISBN 9788799802425

Blackman, Lisa. 2018. Affect and Mediation. In: Birgitt Röttger-Rössler and Jan Slaby, eds. Affect-in-Relation: Families, Places, Technologies. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 9781138059054

Blackman, Lisa. 2016. Inventive Experimentation: Weird Science, Affectivity and Archives of the Future. In: Irene Hediger and Jill Scott, eds. Recomposing Art and Science: Artists in Labs. Birkhauser: DeGruyter/Springer Publications, pp. 171-186. ISBN 978-3-11-047459-6

Blackman, Lisa. 2015. The Haunted Life of Data. In: Ganaele Langloise; Joanna Redden and Greg Elmer, eds. Compromised Data: From Social Media to Big Data. London: The Bloomsbury Press, pp. 185-209. ISBN 9781501306525

Blackman, Lisa. 2015. Researching Affect and Embodied Hauntologies: Exploring an Analytics of Experimentation. In: Britta Timm Knudsen and Carsten Stage, eds. Affective Methodologies: Developing Cultural Research Strategies for the Study of Affect. UK: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-48318-8

Blackman, Lisa. 2014. The Dissociation of Anxiety. In: Benjamin Cook and Barbara Rodriguez-Munoz, eds. The Five Year Diary Anne Charlotte Robertson. London: Lux and the Anxiety Arts Festival, pp. 4-9.

Blackman, Lisa. 2012. 'Listening to Voices: An Ethics of Entanglement'. In: Kevin Love, ed. Ethics in Social Research: Studies in Qualitative Methodology. Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp. 173-188. ISBN 978-1780528786

Blackman, Lisa. 2011. This is a Matter of Pride: The Choir: Unsung Town and Community Transformation. In: Bev Skeggs and Helen Wood, eds. Reality Television and Class. Basingstoke and New York: BFI/Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 237-249. ISBN 978-1844573974

Blackman, Lisa and Harbord, Janet. 2010. Technologies of Mediation and the Affective: Taking the Virtual Environment of mediacityuk as a case study. In: D Hauptamann and W Neidich, eds. Cognitive Architecture: From Bio-politics to Noo-Politics: architecture and mind in the Age of Communication and Information. Amsterdam: O10, pp. 302-323. ISBN 9789064507250

Blackman, Lisa. 2010. ‘It’s Down to You. Psychology, Magazine Culture and the Governing of the Female Body’. In: Lori Reed and Paula Saukko, eds. Governing the Female Body: Gender, Health, and Networks of Power. State University of New York Press, pp. 19-39. ISBN 978-1438429526

Blackman, Lisa. 2009. Mental Health and the Media. In: Meriel D’Artrey, ed. Cont_xts? Media, Representation and Society. Chester: Chester Academic Press, pp. 99-118. ISBN 978-1905929689

Blackman, Lisa. 2008. ‘Is Happiness Contagious?’. In: Sara Ahmed, ed. Happiness (New Formations). 63 Lawrence & Wishart Ltd, pp. 15-32. ISBN 978-1905007752

Blackman, Lisa and Walkerdine, Valerie. 2008. Psychology and Cultural Analysis. In: Tony Bennett and John Frow, eds. The Sage Handbook of Cultural Analysis. SAGE, pp. 66-85. ISBN 978-0761942290

Blackman, Lisa. 2005. Inventing the Psychological: Lifestyle Magazines and the Fiction of Autonomous Selfhood. In: David Morley and James Curran, eds. Media and Cultural Theory. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 209-220. ISBN 978-0415317054

Blackman, Lisa. 2002. A Psychophysics of the Imagination. In: Valerie Walkerdine, ed. Challenging Subjects. Critical Psychology for a New Millennium. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, pp. 133-148. ISBN 978-0333965092

Blackman, Lisa. 1999. Beyond the fragile chains we call autonomy. In: C Tolman, ed. Recent Trends in Theoretical Psychology. Ontario: Captus Press. ISBN 1 0896691 07507

Blackman, Lisa. 1998. Culture, Technology and Subjectivity. In: John Wood, ed. The Virtual Embodied: Practices, Theories and the New Technologies. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 132-147. ISBN 978-0415160261

Blackman, Lisa. 1996. Using an Archaeology to Contest the Voice of Reason; A History of the Present Psychological Regime of Truth. In: C Tolman, ed. Problems of Theoretical Psychology. New York, Canada: Captus University Press, pp. 321-330.

Blackman, Lisa. 1995. Techniques of the Hallucinatory Self. In: I Lubek, ed. Trends and Issues in Theoretical Psychology. New York: Springer Publishing Co Inc, pp. 306-312. ISBN 978-0826188106

Article

Blackman, Lisa. 2023. Cover stories and the Counterfactual: Berlant’s parenthetical voice. Media Theory, 7(2), pp. 245-266. ISSN 2557-826X

Blackman, Lisa. 2021. Affective Politics, Activism and the Commons: From WECH to Grenfell. New Formations: A Journal of Culture, Theory, Politics(103), pp. 156-180. ISSN 0950-2378

Blackman, Lisa. 2020. Couze Venn: Pioneer of Cultural, Post Colonial and Social Theory. Subjectivity, 13, pp. 1-4. ISSN 1755-6341

Duff, Cameron; Kokanović, Renata; Flore, Jacinthe; Thomas, Stuart D.; Callard, Felicity and Blackman, Lisa. 2020. Perspectives on Person-Centred Care for Borderline Personality Disorder: A Critical Research Agenda. Health Sociology Review, 29(1), pp. 1-15. ISSN 1446-1242

Blackman, Lisa. 2019. Haunted Data, Transmedial Storytelling, Affectivity: Attending to "Controversies" as Matters of Ghostly Concern. Ephemera: theory and politics in organisation, 19(1), pp. 31-52.

Blackman, Lisa. 2017. Loving the Alien: A Post-post-human manifesto. Loving the Alien: A post-post-human manifesto,

Blackman, Lisa. 2017. “Loving the alien”: a post–post-human manifesto. Subjectivity, 10(1), pp. 13-25. ISSN 1755-6341

Blackman, Lisa. 2016. The New Biologies: Epigenetics, the Microbiome and Immunities. Body & Society, 22(4), pp. 3-18. ISSN 357-034X

Blackman, Lisa. 2016. Social Media and the Politics of Small Data: Post Publication Peer Review and Academic Value. Theory, Culture & Society, 33(4), pp. 3-26. ISSN 0263-2764

Blackman, Lisa. 2016. The Challenges of New Biopsychosocialities: Hearing Voices, Trauma, Epigenetics and Mediated Perception. The Sociological Review Monograph, 64(1), pp. 256-273.

Blackman, Lisa. 2016. Affect, Mediation and Subjectivity-as-Encounter: Finding the Feeling of the Foundling. Journal of Curatorial Studies, 5(1), pp. 32-55. ISSN 2045-5836

Blackman, Lisa; McCarthy-Jones, Simon; Castro Romero, Maria; McCarthy-Jones, Rosaline; Dillon, Jaqui; Cooper-Rompato, Christine; Kieron, Kathyrn and Kaufman, Milissa. 2015. Hearing the Unheard: An Interdisciplinary, Mixed Methodology Study of Women’s Experiences of Hearing Voices (Auditory Verbal Hallucinations). Frontiers in Psychiatry, 6, 181. ISSN 1664-0640

Blackman, Lisa. 2015. Affective Politics, debility and hearing voices: towards a feminist politics of ordinary suffering. Feminist Review, 111(1), pp. 25-41. ISSN 0141-7789

Blackman, Lisa. 2014. Escuchar voces y corporización. Interdisciplina, 2(3), pp. 295-313. ISSN ISSN en trámite

Blackman, Lisa. 2014. Affect and Automaticity: Towards an Analytics of Experimentation. Subjectivity, 7(4), pp. 362-384. ISSN 1755-6341

Blackman, Lisa. 2014. Immateriality, Affectivity, Experimentation: Queer Science and Future-Psychology. Transformations: Journal of Media and Culture(25), pp. 1-12.

Blackman, Lisa. 2011. Affect, Performance and Queer Subjectivities. Cultural Studies, 25(2), pp. 183-199. ISSN 0950-2386

Blackman, Lisa. 2010. Bodily Integrity. Body & Society, 16(3), pp. 1-9. ISSN 1357-034X

Blackman, Lisa. 2010. Embodying Affect: Voice-hearing, Telepathy, Suggestion and Modelling the Non-conscious. Body & Society, 16(1), pp. 163-192. ISSN 1357-034X

Blackman, Lisa and Venn, Couze. 2010. Affect. Body & Society, 16(1), pp. 7-28. ISSN 1357-034X

Blackman, Lisa. 2009. The Re-Making of Sexual Kinds: Queer Subjects and the Limits or Representation. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 13(2), pp. 122-135. ISSN 1089-4160

Blackman, Lisa. 2008. Is Happiness Contagious? New Formations, 63, pp. 15-32. ISSN 0950-2378

Blackman, Lisa. 2008. Affect, Relationality and the 'Problem of Personality'. Theory, Culture & Society, 25(1), pp. 23-47. ISSN 0263-2764

Blackman, Lisa. 2007. Reinventing psychological matters: the importance of the suggestive realm of Tarde's ontology. Economy and Society, 36(4), pp. 574-596. ISSN 14695766

Blackman, Lisa. 2007. Psychiatric Culture and Bodies of Resistance. Body & Society, 13(2), pp. 1-23. ISSN 1357034X

Blackman, Lisa. 2007. Feeling F.I.N.E: Social Psychology, Suggestion and the Problem of Social Influence. Affect and Feeling (International Journal of Critical Psychology), 21, pp. 23-49.

Blackman, Lisa. 2005. The Dialogical Self, Flexibility and the Cultural Production of Psychopathology. Theory and Psychology, 15(2), pp. 183-206. ISSN 0959-3543

Blackman, Lisa. 2004. Self-help, Media Cultures and the production of female psychopathology. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 7(2), pp. 219-36. ISSN 13675494

Blackman, Lisa. 2000. Ethics, embodiment and the voice-hearing experience. Theory, Culture and Society, 17(5), pp. 55-74. ISSN 0263-2764

Blackman, Lisa. 1999. An Extraordinary Life: The Legacy of an Ambivalence. New Formations: A Journal of Culture, Theory, Politics, 36, pp. 111-124. ISSN 0950-2378

Blackman, Lisa. 1998. The Voice-hearing Experience. Nordiske Udkast, 1, pp. 39-49. ISSN 1396-3953

Blackman, Lisa. 1997. Rehearsal of Memory. Coil. Journal of the Moving Image, 4, pp. 17-28. ISSN 0397-9207

Blackman, Lisa. 1996. The Dangerous Classes: Retelling the Psychiatric Story. Feminism and Psychology, 6(3), pp. 361-379. ISSN 0959-3535

Blackman, Lisa. 1994. What is Doing History?: The Use of History to Understand the Constitution of Contemporary Psychological Objects. Theory and Psychology, 4(4), pp. 485-504. ISSN 0959-3543

Conference or Workshop Item

Blackman, Lisa. 2017. 'Carpa5 01.09.2017 Keynote Lisa Blackman'. In: Carpa 5 Keynote Professor Lisa Blackman. University of the Arts, Finland.

Reckitt, Helena; Blackman, Lisa; Wakeford, Nina and Fisher, Jennifer. 2016. 'Affect and Curating: Feeling the Curatorial'. In: Affect and Curating: Feeling the Curatorial. Whitechapel Gallery, London, United Kingdom 19 January 2017.

Blackman, Lisa. 2016. '“Academia is down at the moment; please try later” (Lisa Blackman)'. In: Affective Relationality. Freie University, Berlin, Germany.

Blackman, Lisa. 2015. 'Lisa Blackman follow-up interview to her keynote lecture at the MeCCSA-PGN 2015 Conference in Coventry.'. In: MeCCSA-PGN 2015 Conference Transformative Practice. Coventry University, United Kingdom 2015.

Audio

Blackman, Lisa. 2022. What Kind of Body Does Our Current Society Demand? (Podcast).

Film/Video

Blackman, Lisa. 1997. ‘Inside Looking Out: Personal Perspectives’.

Articles related to Professor Lisa Blackman