Biography
Brief Biography and List of Publications
Julie Wosk is Professor Emerita of English, art history, and studio painting at the State University of New York, Maritime College in New York City. Her email address is jwosk@sunymaritime.edu A native of Evanston, Illinois, she has a B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis (graduating magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa). She also has a MA degree from Harvard and Ph.D from the Univrsity of Wisconsin, Madison. Before becoming a professor, she began her career working as a writer in the Press and Promotion department of Playboy Magazine at their corporate headquarters in Chicago, and later was the managing editor of Contemporary Literature, a journal of literary criticism. There is more about her writing and career on the Wikipedia page for Julie Wosk.
She is the author of six books: ARTIFICIAL WOMEN: SEX DOLLS, ROBOT CAREGIVERS, AND MORE FACSIMILE FEMALES (April 2024); MY FAIR LADIES: FEMALE ROBOTS, ANDROIDS, AND OTHER ARTIFICIAL EVES ( July 2015); ALLURING ANDROIDS, ROBOT WOMEN, AND ELECTRONIC EVES (2008); WOMEN AND THE MACHINE: REPRESENTATIONS FROM THE SPINNING WHEEL TO THE ELECTRONIC AGE (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), and BREAKING FRAME: TECHNOLOGY AND THE VISUAL ARTS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (Rutgers University Press, 1992; Authors Guild reprint edition BREAKING FRAME: TECHNOLOGY, ART, AND DESIGN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 2013) . Essays on her experience as a promotion writer for Playboy are in her book PLAYBOY, MAD MEN, AND ME--AND OTHER STORIES.
She has lectured widely on gender and technology, female robots and other artificial females, the social impact of new technologies, and art and technology, throughout the United States and Europe, and her lecture "Alluring Androids and Robots" was taped by PBS Television Channel Thirteen in New York as part of their "Best Lectures in New York" online series.
She received a State University of New York Chancellor's Award for Scholarship and Creative Activities and a State University of New York Chancellor's Award for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
She iwas the curator and writer of the exhibit "Picturing Female Robots and Androids" on exhibit at the New York Hall of Science in New York City from April-October 22, 2017 and the exhibit "Alluring Androids, Robot Women, and Electronic Eves" which was first held at the New York Hall of Science in 2007. This exhibit also appeared at the The Cooper Union gallery in New York, and is available for hosting at other venues. It is an exhibit Tof large digital images, and more information about them can be obtained by contacting her. She is also the curator of "Imaging Women in the Space Age" on view at the New York Hall of Science in Queens through May 2024. This also is a traveling exhibit and will be at the Berkshire Museum in PIttsfield, MA from June-September 2024.
She has twice been a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow in art history, and received early studio art training at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and the Parsons School of Design in New York. Her paintings and photographs, many of which incorporate images of artificial women, have been exhibited in American museums and galleries, and she is a member of the Guild of Berkshires Artists
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Her articles on art and technology, literature, and design have appeared in DESIGN ISSUES, LEONARDO, TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE, TECHNOLOGY REVIEW, MS. MAGAZINE, and more. Her articles on robots, art exhibits, New York plays, and film reviews have appeared in THE HUFFINGTON POST.
SELECTED WORKS by Julie Wosk
BOOKS
ARTIFICIAL WOMEN: SEX ROBOTS, ROBOT CAREGIVERS, AND MORE FACSIMILE FEMALES (April 2024, Indiana University Press).
MY FAIR LADIES: FEMALE ROBOTS, ANDROIDS, AND OTHER ARTIFICIAL EVES (2015, Rutgers University Press)
WOMEN AND THE MACHINE: REPRESENTATIONS FROM THE SPINNING WHEEL TO THE ELECTRONIC AGE (Johns Hopkins University Press). Artists and photographers, advertisers and writers reveal the impact of new technologies on women's lives.
BREAKING FRAME: TECHNOLOGY AND THE VISUAL ARTS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (Rutgers University Press, 1992); new Authors Guild edition BREAKING FRAME: TECHNOLOGY, ART, AND DESIGN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 2013. Nineteenth-century artists and designers capture the dramatic and often traumatic impact of new machines and technologies on American and European society.
ALLURING ANDROIDS, ROBOT WOMEN, AND ELECTRONIC EVES (Images of Artificial Women in Film, Photography, Art, Anime, Video games and more, Fort Schuyler Press). Written to accompany her 2008 exhibit at the New York Hall of Science in Queens, New York City.
SELECTED JOURNAL AND MAGAZINE ARTICLES:
Chapter Six, "Pixturing Women in the Space Age" in After Apollo: Cultural Legacies of the Race to the Moon, eds. J. Bret Bennington and Rodney F. Hill, Univ. of Florida Press, 2023.
“Picturing Female Robots and Androids.” Ms. Magazine Blog, August 30, 2017.
“Exhibit Raises Provocative Questions About Female Robots.” Huffington Post, August 29, 2017.
“Marjorie Prime”—A Film Where Technology Lets Loved Ones Live Forever.” Huffington Post, August 22, updated August 23 2016.
“Ghost in the Shell: This Cyborg Gets Closure.” Huffington Post, April 3, 2017.
“Turner’s Dazzling Port Paintings in New Exhibit at the Frick.” Huffington Post, February 23, updated February 24, 2017.
“Cyborgs at the Whitney Museum.” Huffington Post, February 2, 2017.
“The New Curvy Barbie Dolls: What They Tell Us About Being Overweight.” Huffington Post February 12, 2016, updated February 11, 2017.
"The Off-Broadway Play "Marjorie Prime" and Today’s Technologies: Talking Robots That May Someday Keep Us Company (and Make Us Immortal Too). Huffington Post, January 18, 2016, updated January 17, 2017.
"Update on the Film Metropolis.” Technology and Culture 51: 4 (October 2010): 1061-1062.
“On the Cover: Metropolis.” Technology and Culture 51: 2 (April 2010): 403-408.
“Catastrophe Chic: A Commentary.” Design Issues 23:4 (Autumn 2007): 93-97.
“Designing For Safety: Safe: Design Takes on Risk” (exhibit review essay, Museum of Modern Art, New York). Technology and Culture 47:4 (October, 2006): 791-798.
“Perspectives on the Escalator in Photography and Art.” Catalogue essay for the exhibition "Up Down and Across: Elevators, Escalators, and Moving Sidewalks. “ Washington, D.C.: National Building Museum/Merrell Pub. Co., 2003: 140-171.
“The Escalator in Art.” BLUEPRINTS. National Building Museum (Fall 2003): 12-14.
“Photographing Devastation: Three Photography Exhibits of 11 September 2001.” Technology and Culture, 43: 4 (October 2002): 771-76.
"Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design." Design Issues (Spring 1996): 63-39.
"Brunel Meets Brunelleschi" (ornamented machines in America). American Heritage of Invention and Technology (Summer 1995): 58-63.
"Manhole Covers and the Myths of America." Design Book Review (MIT Press), (Winter\Spring 1995): 54-56.
"The Electric Eve: Galvanizing Women in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century
Literature, Film, and Art." Research in Philosophy and Technology 13 (1993): 43-56.
"The P.U.L.S.E. Exhibit." Leonardo(June 1988): 318-20.
"The Impact of Technology on the Human Image in Art." Leonardo (9, No. 2, 1986): 145-52.
"The Impact of Technology on Art and Art on Technology: A College Course Design," in The State University of New York, The New Liberal Arts--Curriculum in Transition (Albany: State Univ. of New York, 1986): 67-71.
"The Distancing Effect of Technology in Twentieth Century Poetry
and Painting." San Jose Studies (Spring, 1985): 22-41. Awarded "Best Article
of the Year" by San Jose Studies editors.
"The Aeroplane in Art." Art and Artists (London) (December 1984):24-28.
“The Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage: A Unique Exhibition Space." Technology and Culture, (April 1984): 292-93.
"The Explosive Emergence of Technology in Art." Art and Artists (London) (December 1982): 11-15.
"Picasso, Car Classics, and the Engineers." Art Education (journal of the National Art Education Association) (July 1982): 16-19.
"Humanities and the Machine: Responses to Technology." Technology and Culture ( July 1982): 435-38. (Report on the State University of New York Conversations in the Disciplines Conference held at SUNY Maritime College, 1981.)
"Lawrence Durrell: The Poet As Pygmalion." Deus Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Quarterly (1981): 158-75.
"The New American Classicism" (technology and American design).
USA Today Magazine, September 1980): 26-28.
"Artists on Technology." Technology Review (MIT Press) (January 1980): 66-75.
NEWSPAPER STORY:
“Waiting For Dr. King” published as “Hearing A Call to Action in a Hymn.” New York Newsday, Editorial/Opinion Page (January 16, 2007) [story about Julie Wosk’s summer experience as a young civil rights worker teaching English to African-American students for Dr. Martin Luther King’s SCLC organization in Alabama].