Designing Culture: The Technological Imagination at Work in the Creation of Cultural Heritage

Anne Balsamo (Media Studies, The New School) is a scholar and media-maker whose work explores the connections between culture, art, gender, and technology. Her work encourages scholars to contemplate the move from traditional text-based digital platforms to new kinds of public scholarship designed for diverse audiences. Balsamo is the author of Designing Culture: The Technological Imagination at Work (2011), a transmedia book that synthesizes and theorizes the links between her cultural studies scholarship and digital media projects, and Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women (1996). She is currently Dean of the School of Media Studies at the New School for Public Engagement in New York City. She has also held appointments at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and the University of Southern California.  At USC, she served as the Director of the Institute for Multimedia Literacy where she created one of the first academic programs in multimedia literacy across the curriculum. She has been a leader in the growth of digital humanities nationally, serving on the Advisory Board of HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance & Collaboratory) since its founding in 2003.

In addition to her public talk, Balsamo will hold a week-long residency at the UW, contribute to a micro-seminar for graduate students, and participate in a research colloquium.