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Lecturer (Cultural Studies)

Telephone : +44 020 8392 3355
Email : K.Cross@roehampton.ac.uk
Department : Media, Culture and Language
Office location : Richardson 25

Send a message to Dr Karen Cross

Qualifications

2007, PhD ‘Training the eye of the photographer: the education of the amateur’, University of East London (full-time and funded).

2003, MRes Social Research Methods (with Distinction), Open University (full-time and funded).

1999, MA(Econ) Women’s Studies and Feminist Research, University of Manchester.

1996, BA(Hons) English Studies (Upper Second), Ripon and York St John (degree awarded by Leeds University).

About

Karen Cross joined Roehampton University in 2008 as Lecturer in Cultural Studies after receiving a PhD in Cultural Studies from the University of East London. Prior to this she gained a MA in Research Methods (with Distinction) from The Open University (2003) and also an MA in Women’s Studies and Feminist Research from the University of Manchester (1999). Her undergraduate degree was in English Studies, specialising in English Literature, particularly autobiographical representations in literature and photography.

Karen co-organised the 2009 annual symposium sponsored by the Centre for Research in Film and Audio Visual Culture (CRFAC), leading to the publication of a special issue of 'Photographies' on ‘Photography Archive and Memory’.

Research Interests

Karen is interested researching broadly on media and culture and has experience of a wide range of social, cultural and visual research methodologies. Her specific research interests include: amateur, snapshot and personal photography; found photography and image appropriation, approaches to everyday and popular culture; theories of archive; visual culture and memory; visual culture research methodologies; ethnographies of photography; histories and analyses of photography education, particularly amateur training and education both formal and informal; taste and distinction; theories of amateur cultures; and uses of new technologies including user cultures of the web and discourses of participation.

Karen is currently working on a monograph entitled 'The Work of the Amateur: Photography, Materiality and the Everyday' – a reflection on the cultural value attributed to amateur forms of photography within the contexts of popular culture, art practice and theory.

Publications

(2010) ‘Photography Archive and Memory’ Special Issue of Photographies, 3(2) co-edited with Julia Peck. 
(2008) ‘Narrating Home’ essay in Ania Dabrowska and John Nassari Into the Open Exhibition Catalogue, Four Corners Gallery, London. (Arts Council Funded). 
(2006) ‘Judging the Image: Art, Value, Law by Alison Young,’ Book review for Crime, Media, Culture: an International Journal 2(2), 232-4.
Keynote address: ‘Photography and ‘The Cult of the Amateur’’ Presented at Photography Now, Tomorrow! Symposium, Moderna Museet Stockholm, Sweden, 18th March 2010.
‘‘The Cult of the Amateur’ a Radical Insurance?’ MeCCSA, London School of Economics, 12-14th January 2010.
‘Cultural Studies and ‘The Cult of the Amateur’’, Centre for Cultural Studies Research, University of East London, 28th May 2009.
'The Shifting Value of Snapshot and Family Photography: The Possibilities of a Feminist Response', Centre for Research in Sex, Gender and Sexuality, 4th March 2009. http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/researchcentres/segs/seminarsevents/index.html 
Guest speaker at ‘Research and Writing: Inter-disciplinary Research Workshop’ School of Social Sciences Media and Cultural Studies, University of East London, 15 May 2008.
Guest speaker at Four Corners Gallery, London, for the exhibition Into the Open: Ania Dabrowska and John Nassari 4 April – 17 May 2008, 1 May 2008.
‘The ‘cultural value’ of amateur photography’ Photography: Theory, Practice and Debate, Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London, 3 March 2008.
‘The politics of photography: the objects and focus of Visual Culture’ Cultural Studies Now, University of East London, 19-22 July 2007. 
‘‘The cult of distinction’ Amateur Photography and Photography Education’ ‘Social Connections: Identities, Technologies, Relationships’ British Sociological Association Annual Conference, University of East London, 12-14 April 2007. 
‘Photographic training: what kind of ‘capital’?’ Estranged Realities, University of Wales, Newport, 29-30 June 2006.
‘Photography education: art and the mediation of memory’ Technologies of Memory in the Arts, University Nijmegen, Netherlands, 18-20 May 2006.
‘Disciplining photography: the constitution of photographic practice within non-vocational photography courses’, MeCCSA, The University of Leeds, England 13-15 January 2006.
‘Training the eye to behold the body: the reproduction of practice in photography education’, International Visual Sociology Association ‘Re-Viewing Bodies: Embodiment, Process, and Change’, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland, 3-5 August 2005.
Home Truths? Video Production and Domestic Life, David Buckingham , Maria Pini, Rebekah Willett, University of Michigan Press, 2011 and Video Cultures: Media Technology and Everyday Creativity, David Buckingham and Rebekah Willett, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Book review for Screen(forthcoming). 
‘Photography, Archive and Memory’ CRFAC annual symposium at Roehampton University, 5th June 2009. http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/researchcentres/crfac/events/index.html
‘Contexts, Fields, Positions: Situating Cultural Research’ International postgraduate conference, School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies, University of East London, 26-27 May 2006, AHRC funded, (Chaired special debate between heads of research for the ESRC and AHRC).
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