Sherry Turkle

Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology
Director, MIT Initiative on Technology and Self
Program in Science, Technology, and Society
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Program in Science, Technology, and Society
E51-296C
Cambridge, MA 02139

sturkle@media.mit.edu


Sherry Turkel

 

Sherry Turkle received her Bachelors of Arts summa cum laude in Social Studies from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in Sociology and Personality Psychology from Harvard University.

 

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS, PRESENTATIONS, AND ACTIVITIES

 

Publications

Books

Falling for Science: Objects in Mind
Edited and with an introduction by Sherry Turkle.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, forthcoming Spring 2008.

The Inner History of Devices: Technology and Self
Edited and with an introduction by Sherry Turkle.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, forthcoming Fall 2008.

Evocative Objects: Things We Think With
Edited and with an introduction by Sherry Turkle.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Fall 2007.

The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit
Twentieth Anniversary edition, including new introduction, epilogue, and notes.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.

Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.
Paperback edition, New York: Touchstone, 1997.
(Also published in a British edition and Chinese, German,
Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish translations.)

Psychoanalytic Politics: Freud's French Revolution
New York: Basic Books, 1978.
Paperback edition, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981.
Second edition with new Preface and Afterward,
New York: Guilford Press, 1992.
(Also published in a British edition and French,
Italian, and Spanish translations.)

 

Reports

"A Nascent Robotics Culture: New Complicities for Companionship," AAAI Technical Report Series, July 2006.

Information Technologies and Professional Identity:  A Comparative Study of the Effects of Virtuality,” with Co-PI's: H. Gusterson, J.Dumit, D. Mindell, S. Silbey (and Research Assistants: N. Myers, Y. Loukissas, and J. Ferng), December 2005.

“Relational Artifacts, Children, and Elders: The Complexities of CyberCompanions," 2002.

 

Chapters in Books

“Always-on/Always-on-you: The Tethered Self.” In Mainstreaming Mobiles: Mobile Communication and Social Change, James Katz (ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, forthcoming.

"The Immeasurables." In What Are You Optimistic About?: Today's Leading Thinkers on Why Things Are Good and Getting Better, John Brockman (ed.).  New York: Harper Perennial, 2007.

“Simulation Versus Authenticity.” In What is Your Dangerous Idea?: Today’s Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable, John Brockman (ed.). New York: Harper Perennial, 2007.

“Tethering”.  In Sensorium:  Embodied Experience, Technology, and Contemporary Art, Caroline A.  Jones (ed.).  Cambridge, MA:  List Visual Art Center and MIT Press, 2006.

Computer Games as Evocative Objects:  From Projective Screens to Relational Artifacts." In Handbook of Computer Game Studies, Joost Raessens and Jeffrey Goldstein (eds.), MIT Press, 2005.

“First Encounters with Kismet and Cog: Children’s Relationship with Humanoid Robots.” With Cynthia Breazeal, Olivia Dasté, and Brian Scassellati. In Digital Media: Transformations in Human Communication, Paul Messaris and Lee Humphreys (eds.). New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2005.

"The Objects of Our Lives." In When We Were Kids, John Brockman (ed.). New York: Pantheon, 2004. (Also published in Curious Minds, John Brockman (ed.). New York: Pantheon, 2004.)

 

Articles

Authenticity in the Age of Digital Companions.” Interaction Studies, Vol. 8 No. 3, 2007.

The Secret Power of Things We Hold Dear.” New Scientist,  9 June 2007.

Can You Hear Me Now?" Forbes (90th Anniversary issue), May 2007.

Relational Artifacts with Children and Elders: The Complexities of Cybercompanionship” (with Will Taggart, Cory D. Kidd, and Olivia Dasté).  Connection Science, Vol.18 No. 4, December 2006.

"Diary." London Review of Books, Vol. 28, 8, April 2006.

Whither Psychoanalysis in Computer Culture?Psychoanalytic Psychology: Journal of the Division of Psychoanalysis, American Psychological Association, Winter 2004.

"How Computers Change the Way We Think."  The Chronicle of Higher Education: Information Technology, January 30, 2004.

Technology and Human Vulnerability.” Harvard Business Review,  September 2003.

From Powerful Ideas to PowerPoint.” Convergence: The Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 9, 2, Summer 2003.

“Our Split Screens.” In Etnofoor, December 2002. 

Lord of the Hackers.”  New York Times, Op-Ed, 7 March  2002.

 

Also of Note:

"Multiple Subjectivity and Virtual Community at the End of the Freudian Century." Sociological
Inquiry, 67, 1, Winter 1997.

"Seeing Through Computers: Education in a Culture of Simulation." The American Prospect, no. 31, March-April 1997.

"Who am We?" Wired, 4, 1, January 1996.

"Virtuality and Its Discontents." The American Prospect, no. 24, Winter 1996.

"Constructions and Reconstructions of Self in Virtual Reality." Mind, Culture, and Activity, 1, 3, Summer 1994. (Reprinted in Electronic Culture: Technology and Visual Representation, Timothy Druckrey (ed.). Aperture Foundation, 1996 and Culture of the Internet, Sara Kiesler (ed.). Hilldale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997.)

"Epistemological Pluralism and the Revaluation of the Concrete." In Constructionism, Idit Harel and Seymour Papert (eds.).  Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1991. (Reprinted in Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 11, 1, March 1992.)

"Artificial Intelligence and Psychoanalysis: A New Alliance." Daedalus, 17, 1, Winter 1988.

"Computational Reticence: Why Women Fear the Intimate Machine." In Technology and Women's Voices, Cheris Kramerae (ed.). New York: Pergamon Press, 1986.

 

Invited Lectures and Conference Papers

Oxford University
Keynote address: Cyberintimacies
Conference on Artificial Companions in Society
Oxford, England,  October 2007

University of Oregon
David and Tracey Kohen Lectureship
“Cyberintimacies”
Eugene, October 2007

MIT Museum
Transrobotism (Of Human-Robot Bonds)
Panelist
Cambridge, April 2007

American Museum of Natural History
Art/Sci Collision: Of Human-Robot Bondage
Discussion Moderator
New York City, April 2007

Association of Family and Conciliation Courts
Annual Conference
Keynote address: The influence of e-technology on child custody issues
Regis College
Weston, MA,  April 2007

The 2007 Marshall McLuhan Lecture
New York University/Consulate General of Canada
 Cyberintimacies/Cybersolitudes
New York City,  March 2007

New Scientist Magazine
50th Anniversary Celebration ("Shaping the Future")
Keynote: Tethered Souls and Cyborg Intimacies
New York Academy of Sciences
New York City, December 2006

List Gallery
Curatorial Lecture, Troubles that Try the Tethered Soul
Cambridge, December 2006

Stanford University
Institute for the Humanities
Cyberintimacies
Stanford, November 2006

Stanford University
Program in Science, Technology, and Society
New Complicities for Companionship: A Nascent Robotics Culture
Stanford, November 2006

American Sociological Association
101st Annual Meeting
Transgressing the Human and Non-human Boundary
The Complexities of CyberCompanionship: When Nurturance is the "Killer App"
Montreal, August 2006

American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)
21st National Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Human Implications of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)
A Nascent Robotics Culture: New Complicities for Companionship
Boston, July 2006

Dartmouth College
Dartmouth Artificial Intelligence Conference
Artificial Intelligence: The Next 50 Years
Artificial Intelligence at 50: From Building Intelligence to Nurturing Sociabilities
Hanover, NH, July 2006

2006 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
Humanitarian Robotics
A Sociable Robot to Encourage Social Interaction Among the Elderly
Orlando, Florida May 2006

Eastern Sociological Society
2006 Annual Meeting
Cyber Places in Our Lives
Tethered:  Cyberplaces Always on/Always on You
Boston, February 2006

ArtSpace
Can We Fall in Love with a Machine?
Love and Authenticity:  After We Love Our Machines, What Next?
Boston, February 2006

AAAI Symposium, November 2005
American Association for Artificial Intelligence
Caring Machines: AI in Eldercare
Relational Artifacts and the Elderly
Washington, DC (Crystal City, Arlington, VA)

Cog-Sci Workshop
Toward Social Mechanisms of Android Science
Relational Artifacts, Children, and Elders:  The Complexities of CyberCompanions
Stresa, Italy, July 2005

Society for Personality and Social Psychology 6th Annual Meeting
Other Minds? How People Perceive Non-Human Agents
Relational Artifacts and Life-Practice Sociabilities: What ‘Counts’ as Alive Enough to Matter?
New Orleans, January 2005

Humanoids 2004
Encounters with Kismet and Cog: Children’s Relationship with Humanoid Robots
Los Angeles, November 2004

American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Teens on Screens: Development and the Technology of Play
Adolescents in Cyberspace (And Other Places in Digital Culture)
Washington, DC, October 2004

Milken Institute
Global Conference: Prospering in a Changing World
The Long View: Imagining the Future
Los Angeles, April 2004

American Psychoanalytic Association
92nd Annual Meeting
Whither Psychoanalysis in Digital Culture?
Boston, June 2003

Yale University
Institute for Social and Policy Studies
Ethics and Technology Working Research Group
Robots, Virtual Worlds, and the Evolution of Social Sensibilities
New Haven, May 2003

Harvard University Kennedy School of Government
Program on Science, Technology and Society
Science and Society Colloquium Series
Mediated Citizenship: Representation in a Digital Age
Cambridge, February 2003

Camden Technology Conference
POP!Tech 2002:  Artificial Worlds
How Artificial Worlds Are Leading Us to Redefine Ourselves
Camden, October 2002

Harvard University Graduate School of Education
Harvard-Ross Seminar on Globalization and Education
Globalization and New Ways of Knowing
Cambridge, October 2002

Sigmund Freud Museum
30th Anniversary Freud Lecture
Psychoanalytic Culture and Computer Culture
Vienna, May 2002

World Economic Forum
Identity in a Global World
Science: A Source of Security of Vulnerability?
New York City, February 2002

Institute for Advanced Study
School of Social Science
Lecture series on Information Technology, New Media and the Social Sciences
Intimate Machines: Human Identity and "Affective" Computing
Princeton, March 2001

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Toys of Tomorrow: Thinking Outside of the Toybox Symposium
How Gender and Licensing Concerns Affect How Toys Are Designed
Cambridge, May 2000

World Economic Forum
Digital Brainstorming
Individuals, Community, and the Network Society
Technology Malign? Danger Zones in the Network Society
Self-identity in the Network Society
Davos, Switzerland,  February 1997

Art Futura
Conference on “Global Mind”
Computers, Art, and the Culture of Stimulation
Barcelona, March 1992

 

Selected Affiliations and Accomplishments

1987-Present

Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute
Graduate and Affiliate Member

1978-Present Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Licensed Clinical Psychologist
2002,1997 World Economic Forum Fellow
2002 Named one of the Top Ten Wired Women by ABC News.com
2000 Named one of Time Magazine's Innovators of the Internet
1997 Named one of top 50 Cyber Elite by Time Digital Magazine
1997 Selected member of "Computer 200", an exhibit of the leaders of the computer industry. Exhibited at the Association of Computing Machinery's 50th Anniversary meeting and exhibited and archived at the Boston Computer Museum.
1985 Selected Member of Esquire Register "America's New Leadership Class," Esquire Magazine.
1984 Selected "Woman of the Year," Ms. Magazine
1999-Present Harvard College Visiting Committee on Information Technology
1998-2003 AAUW Educational Foundation
Co-chair of Commission on Technology, Gender, and Teacher Education

 

Other Professional Activities (partial listing)

2007-present                Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society
                                             Editorial Board

2007-present                The Public Eye
                                             Editorial Board

2000-present                The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences

2000-present                MacArthur Foundation
                                           Committee on Information Technology 

1995-present                 Massachusetts Women's Forum

1994-present                 Science, Technology, and Human Values
                                             Editorial Advisory Board.