Matthew Austin

I’m Matthew Austin, a PhD student in the Department of English at Michigan State University. I study video games, digital cultures, and contemporary ethics and politics with respect to the U.S. literary and mass media currents of the past century or so. I direct my research with broad questions like “How are games textual, and texts playful?” and specifics like “How does a game draw from, allude to, and modify cultural and textual artifacts to articulate an ethical position to its player(s)?” As such, my work is eminently comparative and transmedial. I have concomitant interests in adaptations, franchises, infrastructure, radical and socialist literature, and poetry. Outside of academia, I write fiction, make tabletop games, and enjoy as much time as possible with my amazing wife and our pet bird.