Skip to main content

Online Symposium 20 January 2026 Video Game Utopianism: Narrative, Form, Representation

13 January 2026

Online Symposium: 20 January 2026

Colleagues and students are welcome to attend the online Video Game Utopianism: Narrative, Form, Representation symposium. This symposium is part of the programme of events for Newcastle University's Games Studies Network.

Speakers are presenting ten-minute papers (works in progress) for a forthcoming issue of Utopian Studies. 

How to register

If you would like to attend, please reach out to stacy.gillis@ncl.ac.uk for the Teams invitation. 

Agenda

13.00-13.10 Opening Remarks  

Stacy Gillis (Newcastle University) & Jon Quayle (Newcastle University) 
  

13.15-14.45 Panel One (including Q&A)  

Chair: Jon Quayle 

  • Clayton Beasley (Duke University) - “Virtual Zoos, Utopian Animals: Reimagining Zoological Gardens Through Video Games”
  • Forrest Bor (SOAS) - “A Haunting Player: The Utopian Impulse in Pausing Shin Megami Tensei IV”
  • Stacy Gillis (Newcastle University) - “Objects and Ideals: The Politics of (Re)Production in The Legend of Zelda”
  • Nataliya Gorbina (University of Konstanz) - “Biophilic Ruins: Videogame Visions of the Greener USA”
  • Valentina Romanzi (University of Turin) - “Utopian Play: Death Stranding’s Ambiguous Communities”
  • Alexander Popov (Sofia University) - “Embodying the Event: Heteroglossia and Iridescent Utopianism in Disco Elysium”
  • Burak Sezer (TU Dortmund) - “Disruptive Rapture: The Dystopian Imagination of Tech-Bro Utopianism and Dark Enlightenment in Bioshock” 
     

14.45-15.00 Break 
  

15.00-16.30 Panel Two (including Q&A) 

Chair: Stacy Gillis 

  • Luke Ford (The New School) - "Waiting on the Beach: Utopia and the Possibility of Leisure in Video Games"
  • Ofer Ideals (University of Calgary) - “Turning Dystopia into Utopia: Peacemaker and the Narrative of Nonviolent Play”
  • Claire Kim (Concordia University) & Abbie-Jean Gertridge (Concordia University) - “The Romantic Sublime of Hollow Knight, Disco Elysium, and Annihilation”
  • Alexandra Petrus (University of South California) - “Cozy Games’ Apocalyptic Time: The Millenarian Speculations of Play”
  • Jon Quayle (Newcastle University) - “‘Try again. Fail again. Fail better’: Roguelite Perfectibility”
  • Fabian Schwarz (Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences) - “Playing with Time: Systemic and Ludic Temporalities in Video Game Utopianism” 

 
16.30-16.40 Break 

16.40-17.00 Respondent Comments 

Nick Robinson (University of Leeds)