Melissa Kagen

Melissa Kagen holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University (2016) and has spent the last several years as a lecturer in Digital Media & Gaming at Bangor University in Wales. She has published work in Game Studies, Convergence, The German Quarterly, The Opera Quarterly, and The Year’s Work in Nerds, Wonks, and Neocons, as well as a forthcoming article in Gamevironments. She is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds. Her research focuses on walking simulators, postcolonial play, gendered gaming, and intersections between participatory theater and videogames​. Wandering Games​, her current book project, considers the different ways that bodies can wander (and players can be wanderers) depending on the game world. She is excited to spend this year in collaboration with the Game Lab, working on transgressive, counter-colonialist play of board games and video games.