Kathryn Fedchun

Click here for CV.

Hello!

I am a PhD candidate at Carleton University in the School of Journalism and Communication. My dissertation focuses on the Queer Games Bundles as affective, archived snapshots of a queer, indie game scene. I am generally interested in queer theory, game studies, comic studies, & affective media.

A little bit about me: I completed my undergraduate degree at Queen’s University, majoring in sociology and minoring in philosophy. I then moved to Toronto to complete a two-year diploma program at George Brown College to become an assaulted women’s and children’s counsellor & advocate (AWCCA). I spent a few years in Toronto working as a woman’s counsellor in women’s shelters and at a crisis helpline.

Then, I decided to move to Ottawa to pursue an MA in sociology with a specialization in feminist and gender studies at the University of Ottawa. During this degree, my interests expanded into the world of video games. My master’s thesis, A Feminist Autoethnography: On Hegemonic Masculinity, Failure, and Subversive Play in League of Legends, explores these elements through the lens of feminist and queer game studies. 

I have presented at several conferences, including:

• Queerness and Games Conference (QGcon)
• Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference (SCMS)
• Canadian Communication Association Conference (CCA)
• Console-ing Passions International Conference on Television, Video, Audio, New Media, and Feminism
• The Comic Arts Conference at San Diego Comic Con
• Canadian Society for the Study of Comics (CSSC)
• Music and Gaming Education Symposium (MAGES) at the Music and Gaming Festival (MAGfest)

I wrote a piece in the book Showing theory to know theory: Understanding social science concepts through illustrative vignettes (2022) called May the force be with you: Illustrating affect through the force in Star Wars (with testimonial here).

I am a RoCCET fellow at the Research on Comics, Con Events, and Transmedia Laboratory (RoCCET Lab). The lab, based in Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication, is a hub for interdisciplinary social-science research on comic books and related media. In this role, I was involved in the Swarming SDCC project and co-published the Con Polizine, a zine about our convention policy research. I have presented at at the Comic Arts Conference at San Diego Comic Con and at the Music and Gaming Festival (MAGfest) as part of the Music and Gaming Education Symposium (MAGES) programming track. I have co-taught the Comics and Cartooning mini-course, where students between grades 8-10 dove into the history and cultural impact of comics, explored different styles and forms of comics, and ultimately created and showcased their own mini-comics and zines.

I live in Ottawa with my partner Colin and our rescue dog Chris.