Professor Soraya Murray is an interdisciplinary scholar who focuses on contemporary visual culture, with particular interest in contemporary art, cultural studies and games. Murray holds a Ph.D. in art history and visual studies from Cornell University, and an MFA in Studio Art from the University of California, Irvine. An Assistant Professor in the Film + Digital Media Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, she is also principal faculty in the Digital Arts + New Media MFA Program, and the Art + Design: Games + Playable Media Program.
Murray researches and teaches in the following areas:
- Visual culture studies including contemporary art, film, and electronic games
- Critical game studies
- New media art, theory, and criticism
- Theories of technology and globalization
- History of art and technology
- Representations of otherness/race/class/gender/sexuality
Selected CV
BOOK: ON VIDEO GAMES
Selected Writing
“Race, Gender, and Genre in Spec Ops: The Line,” Film Quarterly, Vol. 70, Iss. 2, (Dec 2016)
“Upending Militarized Masculinity in Spec Ops: The Line” in Pat Harrigan and Matthew Kirschenbaum, eds., Zones of Control: Perspectives on Wargaming (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016).
Conversation with Artist in Kori Newkirk: Sometimes Always Perhaps Never [artist monograph] (Los Angeles: LM Projects, 2015)
“Threeview: Thief reviewed by a critic, an analyst, and an academic” in VentureBeat, http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/21/threeview-thief-reviewed-by-a-critic-an-analyst-and-an-academic/, March 21, 2014.
“Threeview: Grand Theft Auto V reviewed by a critic, an analyst, and an academic” in VentureBeat, http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/30/threeview-grand-theft-auto-v-reviewed-by-a-critic-an-analyst-and-an-academic/September 30, 2013.
“Threeview: The Last of Us reviewed by a critic, an analyst, and an academic” in VentureBeat, http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/01/threeview-the-last-of-us/, July 1, 2013.
“Theorizing New Media in a Global Context; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love New Media” in FILE Festival Catalog, Electronic Language International Festival, 2013, organized by Paula Perissinotto e Richard Barreto (São Paolo, Brazil: Thaïs Costa, 2013), 10-23. [translated into Portuguese]
“Theorizing New Media in a Global Context; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love New Media” in CTheory, http://www.ctheory.net /articles.aspx?id=713, published November 13, 2012.
“Seeing Differently” Book Review of Amelia Jones’ Seeing Differently: A History and Theory of Identification and the Visual Arts, in Third Text, Vol. 26, Issue 6 (November, 2012): 781–783.
“Threeview: Call of Duty: Black Ops II reviewed by a critic, an analyst, and an academic” in VentureBeat, http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/04/threeview-call-of-duty-black- ops-ii/#mrJK2hur6sr24lMI.99, December 4, 2012.
“Threeview: Assassin’s Creed III reviewed by a critic, an analyst, and an academic” in VentureBeat, http://venturebeat.com/2012/11/20/threeview-assassins-creed- iii/, November 20, 2012.
“Public Ritual: William Pope.L and Exorcisms of Abject Otherness,” in Public Art Review, 2010
“Digital Aesthetics: Two Handbooks” Book Review of Christiane Paul, New Media in the White Cube and Beyond and Victoria Vesna, Database Aesthetics in Art Journal, Vol. 68, No. 3 (Fall 2009): 112-115.
“Cybernated Aesthetics: Lee Bul and the Body Transfigured” in PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 88 Vol. 30, No. 1 (May 2008): 38-50.
“On Art and Contamination: Performing Authenticity in Global Art Practices,” Co-authored with Derek Conrad Murray, in Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art 22/23 (Spring/Summer 2008): 88-93.
“Uneasy Bedfellows: Canonical Art Theory and the Politics of Identity,” Co-authored with Derek Conrad Murray, in Art Journal, Volume 65, Number 1 (Spring 2006): 22-39.
“Scratching the Surface” Book Review of Rhythm Science by Paul D. Miller a.k.a. Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid, Art Journal, Volume 64, Number 4: 133-135.
“High Art/Low Life: Playing Grand Theft Auto” in PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, Volume 80 (May 2005): 91-98.
