Dr. Susan Murray

Professor

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Biography

Susan Murray is a media studies scholar and historian who uses television as an entry point to analyze technology, culture, design, aesthetics, and industry in the post-war era. She is a 2021 Guggenheim fellow, with her research having received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, American Council of Learned Societies, NYU Center for Humanities, and the American Association of University Women. Murray is the author of "Bright Signals: A History of Color Television" (Duke University Press, 2018), which was awarded the 2019 Katherine Singer Kovacs Book Award by the Society for Cinema and Media Studies and the 2019 Michael Nelson Book Prize from the International Association of Media History. Her work has been published in journals like Public Culture, Screen, and the Journal of Visual Culture, as well as in popular media outlets such as The Atlantic. Currently, she is exploring the history and development of closed-circuit television as an essential infrastructure for automation in diverse fields including medicine, education, business, manufacturing, and military applications. Her goal is to understand how technology fosters the expansion of the U.S. post-war consumer society and reflects upon the pre-history of our current moment characterized by the invasive deployment of digital surveillance and reliance on digital video communication due to social distancing.

Research Interests

Courses

Amateur Media Introduction to Methods in Media Studies Mediating Real

Requirements for New York University Steinhardt

Doctorate Program
Requirements
TOEFL
Total
Required:100
Prerequisites
Master's degree preferred but not required for 54-credit track
Application Checklist
  • Résumé/CV
  • MCC Essay (Research Area/Topic)
  • Writing Sample (Master's thesis or equivalent)
  • Three Letters of Recommendation
  • Official Transcripts
  • English Proficiency Exam (if applicable)
Specialization Notes

Department of Media, Culture, and Communication - PhD Program focusing on Global and Transcultural Studies, Technology and Society, and Visual Culture.