Senior Lecturer in Critical Studies: Digital and Interactive Art
Dr Ewan Kirkland teaches on the Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity strand of the Comics and Concept Art degree programme. As a researcher, Ewan is interested in digital games as media texts, the politics of media for children, and the relationship between contemporary fandom and the culture industries.
Bio
Ewan studied media at the University of Sussex in the early 1990s, which is also where he also completed his PhD thesis entitled The Politics of Children’s Cinema. Before joining UCA, Ewan worked at a number of institutions, leading BA programmes in Media and Cultural Studies, Film and Screen Studies, Animation and Games Art & Design. Ewan’s most recent publication, Videogames and the Gothic, details how horror games draw upon tropes and traditions of Gothic fiction.
Research statement
A substantial body of Ewan’s research explores survival horror videogames. In exploring this genre Ewan has considered issues of narrative, gender and racial representations, ethics, discourses of art, self-reflexivity and immersion. Of particular interest are the ways digital games transform aspects of horror literature, film and television.
Ewan also writes on children’s culture, researching the histories of media aimed at young readers, audiences and players. He has also published scholarly articles on cartons and animation. Much of Ewan’s current research details the adult fandom surrounding Hasbro’s My Little Pony franchise. This involves discussing issues of cultural appropriation, gender politics, animation history, broadcasting regulation, cult and quality television, internet culture and the overlap between adult and children’s media.
Research outputs
- 2021: Videogames and the Gothic, London: Routledge.
- 2020: ‘Contextualising the bronies: cult, quality, subculture and the contradictions of contemporary fandom’, The Journal of Popular Television, 8 (1): 87-104
- 2019: ‘Handmade aesthetics in animation for adults and children’. In Caroline Ruddell and Paul Wells (eds.) The Crafty Animator: Handmade, Craft-based Animation and Cultural Value. Palgrave Macmillan.
- 2017: Children’s Media and Modernity: Film, Television and Digital Games, Oxford: Peter Lang.
- 2015: ‘Restless dreams and shattered memories: psychoanalysis and Silent Hill’. Brumal: Research Journal on the Fantastic 3 (1): 161-182,
- 2012: ‘Gothic videogames, survival horror and the Silent Hill series’. Gothic Studies 14 (2): 106-122
Research supervision
Ewan Is Interested In supervising candidates interested In critical exploration of digital games, children’s media, popular culture, fandom, science fiction and fantasy.