Dr Karen Cross

 

Job Title: Lecturer Qualifications: BA(hons), MA(Econ), MRes, PhD Telephone: +44 (0)20 8392 3355 Email Address: K.Cross@roehampton.ac.uk

Biography and Research interests:

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. Karen is actively involved in the research culture of the school having presented work to the SeGs group. She co-organised the 2009 annual symposium sponsored by the Centre for Research in Film and Audio Visual Culture (CRFAC). 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.

Key and forthcoming publications:

(in preparation) ‘Cultural Studies and ‘The Cult of the Amateur’ Journal paper

(in preparation) ‘The Materiality of the Amateur: The Lost of ‘Found Photography’’ Journal paper

(2008) ‘Narrating Home’ essay in Ania Dabrowska and John Nassari Into the Open Exhibition Catalogue, Four Corners Gallery, London. (Arts Council Funded).

(2006) ‘Book review Judging the Image: Art, Value, Law by Alison Young,’ Crime, Media, Culture: an International Journal 2(2), 232-4.

Conferences and talks:

‘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.

Event organisation:

‘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).

Qualification details

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).

Undergraduate courses taught at Roehampton:

Media and Culture

Postgraduate courses taught at Roehampton:

Media & Cultural Studies