Anne Marie Balsamo (born January 7, 1959)
is a writer who focuses on the connections between art, culture, gender, and technology.
[Facultylist]
NewSchoolFaculty.
/ref>
Education
Balsamo attended graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...
where she earned her Ph.D. in Communications Research.[
]
Career
Anne Balsamo is the former Dean of the School of Arts Technology and Emerging Communication at the University of Texas at Dallas, she still serves as a Professor at the school. Previously she was Professor of media studies as well as Dean of the School of Media Studies at The New School for Public Engagement
The Schools of Public Engagement is one of the academic divisions that compose The New School, a private research university located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. The college is split into five schools; Milano School of ...
in New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. Prior to that, Balsamo had concurrent appointments at the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism and the Interactive Media Division of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California
The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...
, where she taught courses on interactive media, design, and technology. Also, at the Annenberg Innovation Lab, she oversaw Emergent Technologies. She was also the editor for an ebook series, Imprint, associated with Annenberg Press.
Previously she was a member of a research group called RED (Research on Experimental Documents) at Xerox PARC
PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...
, where she worked on new kinds of reading devices, among other projects. An interactive exhibit on RED's work for which she was project manager and media designer toured U.S. science and technology museums from 2000 to 2003. She went on to co-found Onomy Labs, a Silicon Valley firm that designs interactive cultural technologies.
Balsamo has been an entrepreneur, author, educator, and new media designer at various times in her life but is best known as a writer who analyzes technology and culture from a feminist perspective. One of her books, ''Technologies of the Gendered Body'', notoriously begins with the sentence: "My mother was a computer," underlining the fact that before 'computer' became a term for a machine, it was the term used for the people (mainly women) who kept the machines running and, in some cases, wrote programs for them. In particular, she addresses the technological control of women's bodies through, for example, cosmetic surgery or the medicalization of pregnancy.
Balsamo advocates for educational initiatives that expand access to the spheres in which future technologies are imagined and defined; along these lines, she and Alexandra Juhasz
Alexandra Jeanne "Alex" Juhasz (born March 12, 1964) is a feminist writer and theorist of media production.
Education
Juhasz received her B.A. in American Studies and English at Amherst College in 1986. Shortly after graduating she participated ...
co-founded FemTechNet
FemTechNet (FTN) is a feminist network of scholars, artists, and activists known for its feminist, decentralized pedagogy experiments. FemTechNet became the focus of various media outlets when it broadcast its efforts to "storm" Wikipedia under its ...
, a network of scholars and artists who work on issues related to technology and gender. John Seely Brown
John Seely Brown (born 1940), also known as "JSB", is an American researcher who specializes in organizational studies with a particular bend towards the organizational implications of computer-supported activities. Brown served as Director of Xer ...
, former chief scientist of Xerox Corporation and Director of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) argues that Balsamo "portrays both the necessity and the challenge of cultivating the technological imagination in all of us...Her insights into expanding the traditional considerations of socio-technical design to consider issues of culture are coming at a critical time." Lawrence Grossberg
Lawrence Grossberg (born December 3, 1947) is an American scholar of cultural studies and popular culture whose work focuses primarily on popular music and the politics of youth in the United States. He is widely known for his research in the phil ...
, author of ''Studies In the Future'', argues that "Balsamo maps the concrete complexities of specific design processes, and opens up new ways of thinking about and teaching technocultures in relation to broader socio-political fields."[''Designing Culture'' website]
>
Selected bibliography
Books
*
*
Chapters in books
*
*
*
*
Journal articles
*
*
References
External links
Profile page: Anne Balsamo
The New School for Public Engagement
Profile page: Anne Balsamo
Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California
{{DEFAULTSORT:Balsamo, Anne
1959 births
Cyberpunk culture
Living people
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Media alumni
The New School faculty
University of Southern California faculty
Scientists at PARC (company)