Katheryn Wright
Katheryn Wright
Affiliated with Division - Core, School of Social Innovation, Psychology
Biography

Katheryn Wright holds a Ph.D. from Florida State University, specializing in Media Studies. Her research focuses on the emergence of a global screen culture by examining the everyday uses of screen technologies at media events. She also studies the body and technology using critical frameworks including biopower, affect theory and the virtual. Her newest manuscript explores the integration of mobile screen technologies like the smartphone and tablet PC into the affective experience of a global sporting attraction, rock concert and even her own living room. She also has published articles and book chapters on new media, television, video games and popular music.

Dr. Wright teaches COR courses on the self, bodies, heroic narratives and globalization. She also collaborates with faculty from the Psychology and E-Game programs with the Senior Capstone. Her courses take more of a philosophical approach to interdisciplinary learning, where students examine theoretical concepts and critical perspectives in order to grapple with difficult questions about who we are and the world we live in. Students work on creative projects like photo essays, journey maps and interactive timelines where students learn how to make arguments using a wide variety of media tools. And, there's always a healthy dose of pop culture thrown into the mix!

An Object of Affection

I have a complicated relationship with my iPhone. It makes me feel safe when I'm in a strange place, but distances me from my surroundings. My iPhone helps me find restaurants, organize to-do lists, and make movies. I constantly worry about where it is and if the ringer is turned off. It records my life, but keeps a record of my life. For better or worse, my iPhone changes the way I encounter the world.

Select Publications
  • Wright, Katheryn. "Reaching for the Screen in Nine Inch Nails' Lights in the Sky." Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media. 21 (December 2012).
  • Wright, Katheryn. "Violent Entertainment, Popular Culture, and Technological Change: From the Arena to YouTube." Pop Culture Universe: Icons, Idols, and Ideas. ABC-CLIO, 2012.
  • Wright, Katheryn. "Revolutionary Art in the Age of Reality TV." Of Bread, Blood, and The Hunger Games: Critical Essays on the Suzanne Collins Trilogy. Eds. Mary Pharr and Leisa Clark. Jefferson: McFarland Press, 2012.
  • Wright, Katheryn. "Nine Inch Nails' Year Zero and the Biopolitics of Media Convergence." The Politics of Post-9/11 Music: Sound, Trauma, and the Music Industry in the Time of Terror. Eds. Joseph P. Fisher and Brian Flota. Farnum: Ashgate, 2011.
  • Wright, Katheryn. "Total Immersion and the Total Screen: The Simulated and Screened Realities of Video Games." Simulation in Media and Culture: Believing the Hype. Ed. Robin DeRosa. Lanham: Lexington, 2011.
  • Wright, Katheryn. "Urban Screen as Virtual Counterpoint." Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge. 17 (December 2008).

Select Presentations
  • Wright, Katheryn. "Connecting through Screens." Aesthetics and Politics in Television Studies. Flow Conference. University of Texas at Austin. 3 November 2012.
  • Wright, Katheryn. "Tactility and the Aesthetics of the Interface." New and Emerging Theories of Visual Culture. Popular Culture Association National Conference. Copley Marriot Hotel, Boston. 12 April 2012.
  • Wright, Katheryn. "Touch Screen Technology and the Cultural Politics of Framing in Contemporary Visual Culture." Media Textures: Haptical Themes Onscreen and Off. Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference. Boston Park Plaza Hotel and Towers, Boston. 22 March 2012.
  • Wright, Katheryn. "Negotiating the Possibilities and Limitations of Navigable Space in Contemporary American Cinema." Navigating Cinematic Space. Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference. Ritz Carlton Hotel, New Orleans. 10 March 2011.
  • Wright, Katheryn. "River's Gift: The Production of the Affective Body in Firefly and Serenity." Firefly and Serenity 1. The Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses 4. Flagler College, St. Augustine. 4 June 2010.]
  • Wright, Katheryn. "The Screen as Frame." Media Ecology Meets the 21st Century. National Communication Association Convention. Palmer House Hilton, Chicago. 14 November 2009.
  • Wright, Katheryn. "Screen Works: Biopolitical and Aesthetic Possibilities in Nine Inch Nails' Lights in the Sky Tour." Visual Culture I: Technology and New Media in Visual Culture. Popular Culture Association National Conference. New Orleans Marriott, New Orleans. 8 April 2009. 
  • Wright, Katheryn. "Aerie Tuesdays on the CW."  Gender and Media Studies IV. Popular Culture Association National Conference. San Francisco Marriott, San Francisco. 21 March 2008. 
  • Wright, Katheryn. "Between Closure and Contingency: Approaching Utopia in Mirtyu Dand (1997) and Main Hoon Na (2004)." Framing Asian and Asian American Issues in Media and Public Discourses. National Communication Association Convention. Chicago Hilton, Chicago. 16 November 2007.
  • Wright, Katheryn. "Creating the 'Other' in A Clockwork Orange." Violence and Psychoanalysis. National Communication Association Convention. Sheraton, Boston. 20 November 2005.
  • Wright, Katheryn. "From Site to Screen: Urban Screen Sites and the Production of Posthuman Landscapes."  Reception. 40th Annual UCLA Art History Graduate Student Symposium "On Collecting: Formation, Transmission, Reception."  Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. 28 October 2005. 

Personal Interests

Television and new media, ceramics, critical theory and cultural studies, women's rights, and food systems.