I am a game scholar and PhD fellow in cultural studies at the University of Oslo. This site features all my latest projects. Feel free to get in touch at lauraodbeke[ad]gmail.com
And if you’re wondering how to cite my last name, you’re not the only one! –> (op de Beke, Laura).
Recent work
TBA. Ecogames. Playful Perspectives on the Climate Crisis. Amsterdam University Press. https://greenmedia.sites.uu.nl/ecogames-aup-2023/
(Book Review) Tom Tyler’s Game: Animals, Video Games and Humanity. Media+Environment. https://doi.org/10.1525/001c.67945
“Griefing the Climate Apocalypse in Eco” 27 July 2022. First Person Scholar. http://www.firstpersonscholar.com/griefing-the-climate-apocalypse-in-eco/
Long Story: a Deep Time LARP. Nominated for an IndieCade live action award 2022. Available for free on itch.io
(with the Lifetimes Research Collective) Fossilization, or the Matter of Historical Future. History & Theory, 1 March 2022. http://doi.org/10.1111/hith.12250
“Pastoral Videogames: Industry, Entropy, Elegy.” Ecocene: Cappadocia Journal of Environmental Humanities, vol. 2, no. 2, 2021. pp. 177–191. https://ecocene.kapadokya.edu.tr/index.php/ecocene/article/view/78
“Pipe Dreams: the lifetimes of petro-infrastructures in science fiction literature” Bøygen 2/21: Framtid. https://boygen.net/2021/2-2021-framtid
“Premediating Climate Change in Videogames: Repetition, mastery, and failure.” Nordic Journal of Media Studies vol. 3, 2021. https://www.doi.org/10.2478/njms-2021-0010
“Procedural Futurism in Climate Change Videogames.” Alluvium vol. 9.no. 3: Futurity in Crisis. 2021. np. here.
“Anthropocene Temporality in Gaia Games” Kronoscope, vol. 20, no. 2, 2020, pp. 239–259. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685241-12341470 and here.
“Lockdown, Labour, and Leisure: Gaming in Quarantine” Times of Covid-19, April 2020. (blogpost here).
“The Rise of Green Games” EdgeEffects, April 2019. https://edgeeffects.net/green-games/
Projects
Playing With Deep Time
At the University of Oslo I was the principal investigator of the collaboratory ‘Playing with Deep Time’ which brought together people interested in the exploration of deep time using playful storytelling practices like Nordic LARP and other forms of role-play. As part of this project I developed a deep time themed hypertext, as well as a LARP, which was nominated for an IndieCade live action award in 2022. You can find the published LARP booklet available for free on my itch account: https://lodbeke.itch.io/long-story-a-deep-time-larp
My Dissertation
My doctoral thesis looks at what I call “Anthropocene temporalities” in video games in order to understand a new structure of feeling particular to these times that is expressed using particular temporal narratives and affects. This research is part of a larger interdisciplinary project called Lifetimes: a Natural History of the Present. I hope to defend the thesis in the spring of 2023. Abstract: “Anthropocene Temporalities in Videogames: The Anthropocene as a Structure of Feeling in Popular Gameplay” The Anthropocene describes a new geological epoch that is marked in an enduring, material way by the impact of humankind, which has led to disastrous changes…
Un-Earthed
On the side, I co-organize a monthly online environmental humanities reading group that I founded called un-earthed. You can find us at http://www.un-earthed.group. Check the event descriptions for a record of our discussion. In the past (2019-2020) I collected a record of the group’s meetings on my blog: https://environmentalhumanitiesreadinggroup.blogspot.com/
Laura op de Beke 