Marita Sturken (born 1957) is an American scholar, author, professor, and critic.

Life and work

Marita Sturken is Professor and former Chair of the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development The New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development (commonly referred to as Steinhardt) is the secondary liberal arts and education school of New York University. It is one of the only schools in the world of i ...

, where she teaches courses on

cultural studies Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices re ...

visual culture Visual culture is the aspect of culture expressed in visual images. Many academic fields study this subject, including cultural studies, art history, critical theory, philosophy, media studies, Deaf Studies, and anthropology. The field of ...

popular culture Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...

cultural memory Because memory is not just an individual, private experience but is also part of the collective domain, cultural memory has become a topic in both historiography (Pierre Nora, Richard Terdiman) and cultural studies (e.g., Susan Stewart). These e ...

, and

consumerism Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to overproduction—the supp ...

. She focuses primarily on visual culture and the politics of cultural memory in American culture. Before coming to NYU she was an

associate professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. Overview In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a ...

at the Annenberg School for Communication 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 ...

. She has published essays in ''Representations, Public Culture, Social Text, Afterimage, Journal of Visual Culture, Memory Studies, International Journal of Communication, American Ethnologist, History and Theory,'' and ''Positions'', and was the editor of American Quarterly from 2003-2006. She has a Ph.D. (1992) from the

History of Consciousness History of Consciousness is the name of a department in the Humanities Division of the University of California, Santa Cruz with a 50+ year history of interdisciplinary research and student training in "established and emergent disciplines and fiel ...

program at the

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...

. In the 1980s and 1990s, she was a critic of independent film and video. She is author of ''Tourists of History: Memory, Kitsch, and Consumerism from Oklahoma City to Ground Zero'' (2007), and ''Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering'' (1997), and co-author of ''Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture'' (2001; Second Edition, 2009). While working as a critic in the 1980s she wrote a series of articles for ''Afterimage'' magazine documenting the early history of

video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting ...

and community video.

Works

* ''Tourists of History: Memory, Kitsch, and Consumerism from Oklahoma City to Ground Zero'' (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2007) * Co-Author (with

Lisa Cartwright Lisa Cartwright is a scholar, author, professor and critic best known for helping to found the field of visual culture studies and for coauthoring ''Practices of Looking'', a widely translated visual studies textbook with Marita Sturken that is rega ...

) of ''Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001; Second Edition, 2009). * Co-editor (with Douglas Thomas and Sandra Ball-Rokeach) of ''Technological Visions: The Hopes and Fears that Shape New Technology'' (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004). * ''Thelma & Louise'' (London: British Film Institute, 2000) * ''Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997)

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sturken, Marita 1957 births Living people New York University faculty University of Southern California faculty