[ecrea] iMedia. The gendering of objects, environments and smart materials

iMedia. The gendering of objects, environments and smart materials

http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137374844#aboutBook

This is a short format, provocative intervention that combines the 
conventions of the monograph, manifesto and novel in order to retell 
smoke and mirror tales about intelligent, invisible, information 
infrastructures.

The book asks what queer feminist writing strategies such as parody and 
irony can do to outsmart the sexism of smart objects, environments and 
materials and open out the new dialecticism of structure and scale, 
critique and creativity? Drawing on science and technology studies and 
feminist theory, this book examines the gendering of current and future 
media technologies such as smart phones, Google glass, robot nurses, 
tablets and face recognition. Kember argues that there is a tendency to 
affirm and celebrate the existence of smart and often sexist objects, 
environments and materials in themselves; to elide writing and other 
forms of mediation; and to engage in disembodied knowledge practices. 
Disembodied knowledge practices tend towards a scientism that currently 
includes physics envy and are also masculinist. Where there is some 
degree of convergence between masculinist and feminist thinking about 
objects, environments and materials, there is also divergence, conflict 
and the possible opening towards a politics of imedia. Presenting a 
lively manifesto for refiguring imedia, this book forms an often 
neglected gender critique of developments in smart technologies and will 
be essential reading for scholars in Communication Studies, Cultural and 
Media, Science and Technology and Feminism.

Sarah Kember
Professor of New Technologies of Communication
Director of Goldsmiths Press
Convenor of MA Digital Media


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