News/Research

Bo Ruberg Publishes Trans Games Studies

05 Feb, 2022

Bo Ruberg Publishes Trans Games Studies

Bo's Trans Games Studies was recently published in the Winter 2022 edition of University of Michigan's Journal of Cinema and Media and Studies. The Journal of Cinema and Media Studies is the peer-reviewed, scholarly publication of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) and aims to foster engaged debate and rigorous thinking in areas of film, television, digital media, and other audiovisual technologies. Bo's paper explores the place of trans identities and experiences in digital media. More specifically, Bo investigates the intersection of trans studies and game studies.

From the paper:

Rather than offer definitive answers, my goal is to pose questions that provoke thought and spark resistance. What should the relationship be between trans game studies and queer game studies? What might it mean to trans game studies itself? These questions recall other, equally pressing concerns about topics such as race and disability in games, subjects that similarly draw attention to identity and the body as key sites of cultural meaningmaking. When I call on game studies scholars to engage more meaningfully with trans studies, I am admonishing myself as much as anyone else. I am a non-binary person with a complicated relationship to my own transgender identity whose scholarship has not yet sufficiently foregrounded trans issues. Game studies needs more trans studies, destabilizing the default centrality of normatively gendered people. And trans studies needs more game studies, drawing out the value of ludic spaces for identity exploration and trans worldmaking. Envisioning a trans game studies is only the beginning.

Read the entire paper here!