Professor Joanna Zylinska
Staff details
Joanna Zylinska is a cultural theorist writing on new technologies and new media, ethics and art. She is the author of five books - most recently, Minimal Ethics for the Anthropocene (Open Humanities Press, 2014), Life after New Media: Mediation as a Vital Process (with Sarah Kember; MIT Press, 2012) and Bioethics in the Age of New Media (MIT Press, 2009). She is also a translator of Stanislaw Lem's major philosophical treatise, Summa Technologiae (University of Minnesota Press, 2013).
Together with Clare Birchall, Gary Hall and Open Humanities Press, she runs the JISC-funded project Living Books about Life - consisting of a series of co-edited, electronic open access books about life which provide a bridge between the humanities and the sciences.
Joanna is one of the Editors of Culture Machine, an international open-access journal of culture and theory, and a curator of its sister project, Photomediations Machine.
She combines her philosophical writings with photographic art practice. Her current projects involve photographing media entanglements and writing a book titled Nonhuman Photography.
See an interview about Joanna's intellectual formation, academic career and current work in the Canadian journal Figure/Ground.
Biomediations
In 2013 Joanna served as Artistic Director of the 5th Festival of New Media Art and Video Transitio_MX 05 in Mexico City. The biggest new media festival in Latin America, this biennial festival, first launched in 2005, was supported by the Mexican Ministry of Culture (CONACULTA) and Mexico’s National Centre for the Arts (Cenart). Taking place from the 20th to the 29th of September 2013, the festival consisted of seven simultaneous exhibitions in some of the most prestigious arts venues in Mexico City (e.g. Cenart, Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Fonoteca Nacional), a symposium, a competition for international and Mexican artists and a series of workshops. You can see the festival website, interviews (in Spanish) in the Mexican journals Codigo: magazine of architecture, art and design and Arquine: magazine of architecture, and with the Mexican TV channel El Muro and videos from Goldsmiths' symposium on Biomediations that served as a satellite event to the festival.
Teaching
Joanna Zylinska teaches the following courses:
- Media Arts (first-year undergraduate core course)
- Technology and Cultural Form: Debates, Models, Dialogues (core course on MA Digital Media)
She also contributes to the PhD Methods course, interdepartmental MA Gender, Media and Culture and PG Certificate in the Management of Learning and Teaching in HE.
Areas of supervision
Past and current MPhil/PhD students supervised:
- Federica Frabetti, ‘Technology Made Legible: A Cultural Study of Software as a Form of Writing in the Theories and Practices of Software Engineering’
- Gabriela Mendez Cota, ‘The Genetic Contamination of Mexican Nationalism: Biotechnology and Cultural Politics’
- Adam Bales, ‘Vernacular Photography’
- Ben Craggs, ‘Technology and Bioart’
- Natalie Dixon, ‘Affect and Mobile Telephony’
- Piotr Bockowski, 'Fungal Media'
- Paolo Ruffino, ‘Gamers' Games, or the Invention of Video Game Consumers’
- Phaedra Shanbaum, ‘Art and the Interface’
- Sasha Litvintseva, 'Missing Land: Geological Filmmaking As a Form of Time Travel'
Publications
Book
The End of Man: A Feminist Counterapocalypse
Zylinska, Joanna. 2018. The End of Man: A Feminist Counterapocalypse. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-1-5179-0559-0
Nonhuman Photography
Zylinska, Joanna. 2017. Nonhuman Photography. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262037020
Minimal Ethics for the Anthropocene
Zylinska, Joanna. 2014. Minimal Ethics for the Anthropocene. Ann Arbor: Open Humanities Press. ISBN 978-1-60785-329-9
Life after New Media: Mediation as a Vital Process
Kember, Sarah and Zylinska, Joanna. 2012. Life after New Media: Mediation as a Vital Process. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-01819-7
Bioethics in the Age of New Media
Zylinska, Joanna. 2009. Bioethics in the Age of New Media. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-24056-7
The Ethics of Cultural Studies
Zylinska, Joanna. 2005. The Ethics of Cultural Studies. Continuum. ISBN 0826475248
On Spiders, Cyborgs and Being Scared: the Feminine and the Sublime
Zylinska, Joanna. 2001. On Spiders, Cyborgs and Being Scared: the Feminine and the Sublime. Manchester University Press. ISBN 0719058236
Edited Book
Photomediations: A Reader
Kuc, Kamila and Zylinska, Joanna, eds. 2016. Photomediations: A Reader. London: Open Humanities Press. ISBN 978-1-78542-002-3
BioethicsTM: Life, Politics, Economics
Zylinska, Joanna, ed. 2011. BioethicsTM: Life, Politics, Economics. UNSPECIFIED. ISBN 978-1-60785-256-8
Technology and Cultural Form: A Liquid Reader
Zylinska, Joanna, ed. 2010. Technology and Cultural Form: A Liquid Reader. Open Humanities Press.
Imaginary Neighbors: Mediating Polish-Jewish Relations After the Holocaust
Zylinska, Joanna and Glowacka, Dorota, eds. 2010. Imaginary Neighbors: Mediating Polish-Jewish Relations After the Holocaust. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0803232709
The Cyborg Experiments: The Extensions of the Body in the Media Age
Zylinska, Joanna, ed. 2002. The Cyborg Experiments: The Extensions of the Body in the Media Age. London and New York: Continuum. ISBN 978-0826459039
Book Section
“Media Always and Everywhere: A Cosmic Approach.”
Kember, Sarah and Zylinska, Joanna. 2016. “Media Always and Everywhere: A Cosmic Approach.”. In: Ulrik Ekman; Lily Diaz; Morten Søndergaard; Jay David Bolter and Maria Engberg, eds. Ubiquitous Computing, Complexity and Culture. New York: Routledge, pp. 226-236. ISBN 9780415743822
The Creative Power of Nonhuman Photography
Zylinska, Joanna. 2015. The Creative Power of Nonhuman Photography. In: , ed. Photographic Powers. Helsinki: Aalto University, pp. 132-154. ISBN 978-952-60-6392-8
Bioethics Otherwise, or, How to Live with Machines, Humans, and Other Animals
Zylinska, Joanna. 2011. Bioethics Otherwise, or, How to Live with Machines, Humans, and Other Animals. In: Tom Cohen, ed. Telemorphosis: Theory in the Era of Climate Change, v. 1. 1 www.openhumanitiespress.org: Open Humanities Press, pp. 203-225. ISBN 978-1-60785-237-7
Is There Life in Cybernetics?: Designing a Posthumanist Bioethics
Zylinska, Joanna. 2009. Is There Life in Cybernetics?: Designing a Posthumanist Bioethics. In: Rosi Braidotti; Claire Colebrook and Patrick Hanafin, eds. Deleuze and Law: Forensic Futures. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 117-141. ISBN 978-0-230-21017-2
Creative Media: performance, invention, critique
Kember, Sarah and Zylinska, Joanna. 2009. Creative Media: performance, invention, critique. In: Maria Chatzichristodoulou; Janis K. Jefferies and Rachel Zerihan, eds. Interfaces of Performance. England and USA: Ashgate, pp. 7-23. ISBN 978-0-754-67576-1
'Who is my Neighbor?': Ethics under Duress
Zylinska, Joanna. 2007. 'Who is my Neighbor?': Ethics under Duress. In: Joanna Zylinska and D. Glowacka, eds. Imaginary Neighbors: Mediating Polish-Jewish Relations after the Holocaust. University of Nebraska Press, pp. 275-300. ISBN 0803222173
Article
Photography after the Human
Zylinska, Joanna. 2016. Photography after the Human. Photographies, 9(2), pp. 167-186. ISSN 1754-0763
On Life, Movement and Stoppage: Agency and Ethics in the Anthropocene
Zylinska, Joanna. 2015. On Life, Movement and Stoppage: Agency and Ethics in the Anthropocene. Leonardo, 48(2), pp. 180-181. ISSN 0024-094X
The Vanishing Object of Technology
Zylinska, Joanna. 2015. The Vanishing Object of Technology. Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, 1(1), ISSN 2380-3312
iEarth
Zylinska, Joanna. 2014. iEarth. Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, 5,
On Bad Archives, Unruly Snappers and Liquid Photographs
Zylinska, Joanna. 2010. On Bad Archives, Unruly Snappers and Liquid Photographs. Photographies, 3(2), pp. 139-153. ISSN 1754-0763
Playing God, Playing Adam: The Politics and Ethics of Enhancement
Zylinska, Joanna. 2010. Playing God, Playing Adam: The Politics and Ethics of Enhancement. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 7(2), pp. 149-161. ISSN 1176-7529
'Visuell kultur og Det etiske imperativ' (Visual culture and the ethical imperative)
Zylinska, Joanna. 2010. 'Visuell kultur og Det etiske imperativ' (Visual culture and the ethical imperative). Ekfrase: Nordic Journal of Visual Culture, 3(2), ISSN 1891-5752
I Don’t Go to the Movies
Zylinska, Joanna. 2010. I Don’t Go to the Movies. Culture Machine, 11, ISSN 1465-4121
‘Creative Media between Invention and Critique, or What’s Still at Stake in Performativity’
Zylinska, Joanna and Kember, Sarah. 2010. ‘Creative Media between Invention and Critique, or What’s Still at Stake in Performativity’. Cultural Machine, 11, ISSN 1465-4121
You Killed Barack Obama, 2008
Zylinska, Joanna. 2009. You Killed Barack Obama, 2008. Journal of Visual Culture, 8(2), p. 190. ISSN 1470-4129
The Secret of Life: Bioethics between Corporeal and Corporate Obligations
Zylinska, Joanna. 2007. The Secret of Life: Bioethics between Corporeal and Corporate Obligations. Cultural Studies, 21(1), pp. 95-117. ISSN 09502386
'Of Swans and Ugly Ducklings: Bioethics between Humans, Animals and Machines'
Zylinska, Joanna. 2007. 'Of Swans and Ugly Ducklings: Bioethics between Humans, Animals and Machines'. Configurations, 15(2), pp. 125-150. ISSN 1063-1801
Conference or Workshop Item
Post-masculinist philosophy, or how to think like a girl: minimal ethics on a universal scale
Zylinska, Joanna. 2014. 'Post-masculinist philosophy, or how to think like a girl: minimal ethics on a universal scale'. In: Opening Lecture for Centre for Feminist Research. Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom.
Audio
Encountering the Anthropocene: Geology, Culture, Ethics
Zylinska, Joanna. 2017. Encountering the Anthropocene: Geology, Culture, Ethics.