- speculative and postapocalyptic fiction - feminist theory - game studies - representation of motherhood in literature and media
Talks at Conferences and Workshops
2024/September. "Othering Mothers, Mothering Others: Mothers and the Experience of Othering in End of the World Game Narratives." at Video Game Cultures: The Other Conference, City University Birmingham, UK.
2024/July. "Mothers, Clones and Brain-Children: The Maternal as Political Force in Guerilla Games’ Horizon Series." at Playing the Field IV: Video Games and Politics, TU Dortmund.
2024/April. Shared Paper with Carolin Becklas: "Ecological Motherhood(s) and Surrogacy in Post-Apocalyptic Video Games." at Narrativising Surrogacy: Transnational and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg.
2023/October. "Maternal Markers: Representing Maternal Agency in Horizon Zero Dawn and The Last of Us Part II." at CEEGS 2023: Meaning and Making of Games, Macromedia University of Applied Sciences Leipzig.
2023/October. "American Studies and Game Studies: An Introduction." at "Introducing Game Studies" as part of the Oldenburg School for the Social Sciences and the Humanities 2023, Schlaues Haus Oldenburg.
2023/August. "Dystopia and Disruption: On Maternal Identity in The Last of Us Part II." at Disruptive Imaginations: Annual Conference of Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA) and Gesellschaft für Fantastikforschung (GfF) 2023, TU Dresden.
2023/June. "Postapocalyptic Margins, Motherhood, and Feminist Identity in Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part II." at DiGRA 2023: Digital Games Research Association Conference - Limits and Margins of Games, University of Seville.
2022/November. “Environmental Storytelling and Impending Catastrophe in Final Fantasy VII.” at Playing the Field III: Video Game Ecologies & American Studies, Amerikahaus Munich & KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.
2022/April. "Representations of Parenthood and Childrearing in Post-Apocalyptic 21st Century Literature." at the Annual CAPAS Conference: "Worlds Ending - Ending Worlds?", University of Heidelberg.
2022/March. "“From Zero to Hero?” – The Outcast-Heroine’s Descent Narrativein Contemporary Video Games." at Culture at Play: Spaces - Colours -Stories, University of Freiburg. Online event.
Teaching
S All that you change changes you": African-American Women Writers and the Postapocalypse
S Mothers, Lovers, and Others: Feminist Theory and Contemporary Postapocalyptic Film and Fiction
S As the World Falls Down: Representing Culture in the American Postapocalyptic Novel
SÜ Key Concepts in Cultural Studies
SÜ Introduction to the Critical and Scholarly Discussion of Literature
Publications
Articles
“On (In)fertile Ground: Postapocalypse and the Maternal in The Last of Us Part II, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Horizon Forbidden West.” Video Game Ecologies and Culture. Ed. Nathalie Aghoro. De Gruyter. 2025. 127-146.
“Myths of Future Past: Horizon Zero Dawn’s Representation of the Descent Narrative.” Broadening Horizon: Essays on Environment, Culture, Identity and Myth in the Game Franchise. Ed. Matthew Kapell. McFarlane. 2024. 212-225.
