Imogen Kaufman

Thesis title:

The lived experience of gaming in the UK, from 2005 to the present, and its insidious intersection with right-wing ideologies

My project is in collaboration with the National Videogame Museum and explores a lived experience of gaming in the UK; looking at gamer subjectivities, performativity and ideologies through an oral history lens. My research interests also include the intersection of the alt-right and gaming spaces and considering how we deal with the problem(s) they present.

Research Area

Media

Publications

Velvet Spors and Imo Kaufman, ‘Respawn, Reload, Relate: Exploring the Self-Care Possibilities for Mental Health in Games through a Humanistic Lens’, Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 5, no. CHI PLAY (5 October 2021): 1–31.

Kaufman, Imo. ‘To the (Fictional) Concentration Camp: Wrestling with Jewish Pain and Emptiness in Brenda Romero’s Train,’ Game Studies 23, no. 1 (March 2023). https://gamestudies.org/2301/articles/kaufman.

Kaufman, Imo. 'Silence, Distance and Disclosure. The Bleed Between the Far-Right and Gaming,' gameenvironments 18, (2023): 1-37. https://journals.suub.uni-bremen.de/index.php/gamevironments/article/view/232

Conferences

BEYOND Conference 2020: Spoke about the National Videogame Museum's Animal Crossing Diaries Project which you can read more about here: https://thenvm.org/the-animal-crossing-diaries/

SXSW Festial 2021: Spoke about the National Videogame Museum's Animal Crossing Diaries Project, talking about our initial findings from the open call and plans moving forward.

M4C Research Festival 2021: Produced a game about my initial research experiences of oral history interviews on Twine: "Searching for Identity, Ideology and the 'I' in Oral History Interviews."

British DiGRA 2021: Presented a paper: "“– why do you need a game to make you give a s#@! -?”: Looking at Train and researcher positionality through a Jewish lens."

Hidden Conference 2021: Was part of the team that helped deliver the conference and also presented a paper: “– why do you need a game to make you give a s#@! -?”: Looking at Train and researcher positionality through a Jewish lens."

BEYOND Conference 2021: Peer reviewed posters.

ChiPlay 2021: Presented research paper: "Respawn, Reload, Relate: Exploring the Self-Care Possibilities for Mental Health in Games through a Humanistic Lens."

Multiplay Conference 2022 on the theme of Identity: Presented a paper: "Gamer as a paradoxical place, performance and problem: disaggregating the term gamer through an affective oral history."

Hosted the Multiplay Sex and Romance Conference, February 2022.

Spoke at Nottingham Trent's 'Challenging Heteronormitvity' event for LGBTQ+ History month. Presented paper: "Masculinity in Gaming: A Promise and a Problem."

Oral History Society Conference 'Making Histories Together,' June 2023. Presented paper: "Resistance and Resurgence: Recovering narratives of ‘Gamer’ in UK Gaming spaces."

Public Engagement & Impact

Self-Care Jam, 2021: Ran a Game Jam on the theme of mental health and self-care in collaboration with Velvet Spors and the National Videogame Museum.

Community Organisation

I started up and run a Discord Server for students in the M4C cohort. If you would like a link to join it please contact me via email or twitter.