- Face Recognition and the Emergence of Smart Photography Kember, Sarah. 2014. Face Recognition and the Emergence of Smart Photography. Journal of Visual Culture, 13(2), pp. 182-199. ISSN 1470-4129
- No Humans Allowed? The Alien in/as Feminist Theory Kember, Sarah. 2011. No Humans Allowed? The Alien in/as Feminist Theory. Feminist Theory, 12(2), pp. 183-199. ISSN 1464-7001
- Media, Mars and Metamorphosis Kember, Sarah. 2010. Media, Mars and Metamorphosis. Culture Machine, 11, xx-xx. 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
- The Virtual Life of Photography Kember, Sarah. 2008. The Virtual Life of Photography. Photographies, 1(2), pp. 175-203. ISSN 1754-0763
- ‘Creative Evolution? The quest for life (on Mars)’ Kember, Sarah. 2006. ‘Creative Evolution? The quest for life (on Mars)’. InterZone,
- Metamorphoses: The Myth of Evolutionary Possibility Kember, Sarah. 2005. Metamorphoses: The Myth of Evolutionary Possibility. Theory Culture & Society, 22(1), pp. 153-173. ISSN 02632764
- Reinventing cyberfeminism: cyberfeminism and the new biology Kember, Sarah. 2002. Reinventing cyberfeminism: cyberfeminism and the new biology. Economy and Society, 31(4), pp. 626-641. ISSN 03085147
Professor Sarah Kember
Sarah focusses on the future of publishing, digital media, smart media, feminist science and technology studies.
Staff details
Position
Professor of New Technologies of Communications
Department
Media, Communications and Cultural Studies
s.kember (@gold.ac.uk)
Sarah is Director of Goldsmiths Press and her research focuses on the future of publishing, digital media, smart media, questions of mediation and feminist science and technology studies. She has investigated the possibilities of life after new media (studies), and has engaged in debates on artificial life and other aspects of the convergence between biology and computer science. She also works on imaging technologies and the relationship between photography and the digital and, as a writer as well as acedemic, she explores the ‘fusion’ of science and literary fiction.
Teaching
Sarah Kember convenes MA Digital Media and teaches the option course for the MA Digital Media - Digital Media, Critical Perspectives. She also offers a masterclass on the online, non-assessed module After New Media, based on her book Life After New Media (MIT Press 2012).
Areas of supervision
Sarah has seen many PhD students through to the successful completion of their dissertations. Previous students include: Andre Favilla (digital photography and genetics); Sen Yin Li (representations of GM food in the press); Jonas Andersson (p2p file sharing); Eleanor Dare (intelligent/intra-active books) and Gavin Mackie (artificial life and evolutionary computer games). Current students include: Gabriela Mendez Cota (biotechnology and Mexican nationalism); Paolo Ruffino (independent video games); Ben Craggs (tissue culture and the re-materialisation of life); Natalie Dixon (affect and mobile phones); Phaedra Shanbaum (the digital interface in new media art) and Adam Bales (vernacular photography).
Publications and research outputs
Book
- Furious: Technological Feminism and Digital Futures Bassett, Caroline; Kember, Sarah and O'Riordan, Kate. 2019. Furious: Technological Feminism and Digital Futures. London: Pluto Press. ISBN 9780745340500
- iMedia: The gendering of objects, environments and smart materials Kember, Sarah. 2016. iMedia: The gendering of objects, environments and smart materials. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781137374844
- 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
Edited Book
- Whose Book is it Anyway?: A View from elsewhere on publishing, copyright and creativity Jefferies, Janis K. and Kember, Sarah, eds. 2019. Whose Book is it Anyway?: A View from elsewhere on publishing, copyright and creativity. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. ISBN 9781783746484
- Astrobiology and the Search For Life on Mars Kember, Sarah, ed. 2011. Astrobiology and the Search For Life on Mars. Open Humanities Press. ISBN 978-1-60785-255-1
- Inventive Life: Approaches to the New Vitalism Fraser, Mariam; Kember, Sarah and Lury, Celia, eds. 2006. Inventive Life: Approaches to the New Vitalism. London: Sage. ISBN 9781412920360
Edited Journal
- Editorial Kember, Sarah, ed. 2008. Editorial, Photographies, 1(2). 1754-0763
- Inventive Life: Approaches Towards a New Vitalism Fraser, Mariam; Kember, Sarah and Lury, Celia, eds. 2005. Inventive Life: Approaches Towards a New Vitalism, Theory Culture and Society, 22(1). 0263-2764
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
- Ambient Intelligent Photography Kember, Sarah. 2013. Ambient Intelligent Photography. In: Martin Lister, ed. The Photographic Image in Digital Culture. Second Edition. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 1-21. ISBN 978-0415535298
- Face Re-Cognition Kember, Sarah. 2011. Face Re-Cognition. In: Gordon MacDonald, ed. Photoworks: Issue 17. Photoworks, pp. 50-55. ISBN 978-1903796344
Article
- Principles of Robotics: Regulating Robots in the Real World Boden, Margaret; Bryson, Joanna; Caldwell, Darwin; Dautenhahn, Kerstin; Edwards, Lilian; Kember, Sarah; Newman, Paul; Parry, Vivienne; Pegman, Geoff; Rodden, Tom; Sorrell, Tom; Wallis, Mick; Whitby, Blay and Winfield, Alan. 2017. Principles of Robotics: Regulating Robots in the Real World. Connection Science, 29(2), pp. 124-129. ISSN 0954-0091
- Why publish? Kember, Sarah. 2016. Why publish? Learned Publishing, 29(S1), pp. 348-353. ISSN 0953-1513
- Why Write? Feminism, Publishing and the Politics of Communication Kember, Sarah. 2014. Why Write? Feminism, Publishing and the Politics of Communication. New Formations: A Journal of Culture, Theory, Politics, 83, pp. 99-116. ISSN 0950-2378
Conference or Workshop Item
- 'A Case for Feminist Futurism' (with reference to doing smart media smarter) Kember, Sarah. 2013. ''A Case for Feminist Futurism' (with reference to doing smart media smarter)'. In: Opening Lecture for Centre for Feminist Research. Goldsmiths, Universirty of London, United Kingdom.
Project
- Friction and Fiction: IP, Copyright and Digital Futures, V&A Jefferies, Janis K.; Kember, Sarah; Papadimitriou, Irini Mirena and Sahin, Ozden. 26 September 2015 Friction and Fiction: IP, Copyright and Digital Futures, V&A.
Other
- CREATe (the Centre for Creativity, Regulation, Enterprise and Technology), Whose Book is it Anyway? Jefferies, Janis K. and Kember, Sarah. 2012. CREATe (the Centre for Creativity, Regulation, Enterprise and Technology), Whose Book is it Anyway?.
Research Interests
Sarah Kember is a writer and academic. Her work incorporates new media, photography and feminist cultural approaches to science and technology. Publications include a novel and a short story The Optical Effects of Lightning (Wild Wolf Publishing, 2011) and ‘The Mysterious Case of Mr Charles D. Levy’ (Ether Books, 2010). Experimental work includes an edited open access electronic book entitled Astrobiology and the Search for Life on Mars (Open Humanities Press, 2011) and ‘Media, Mars and Metamorphosis’ (Culture Machine, Vol. 11). Her latest monograph, with Joanna Zylinska, is Life After New Media: Mediation as a Vital Process (MIT Press, 2012).
She co-edits the journals of photographies and Feminist Theory. Previous publications include: Virtual Anxiety. Photography, New Technologies and Subjectivity (Manchester University Press, 1998); Cyberfeminism and Artificial Life (Routledge, 2003) and the co-edited volume Inventive Life. Towards the New Vitalism (Sage, 2006). Current research includes a funded project on digital publishing and a feminist critique of smart media.
