Laura op de Beke is a game scholar at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages. Her dissertation looks at recent, single-player video games, asking how they give us access to the ways in which our conceptions and experiences of temporality have accrued new meanings and feelings in an age deeply impacted by climate change and other signs of environmental crisis. This focus on temporality is based on the assumption that our experience of time influences how we inhabit the world. Everyday rhythms, the felt trajectories of our lives, and the ways in which we experience the past, present, and future are all crucial in the establishment of a sense of agency and subjectivity.
Laura op de Beke successfully defended her dissertation on 3 February 2023.
Trial lecture
Designated topic: "Three sides of Frostpunk: Representation and meaning-making in Frostpunk, using three approaches to game analysis"
Evaluation committee
Associate Professor Alenda Y. Chang, University of California (first opponent)
Associate Professor Torill Elvira Mortensen, Nord University (second opponent)
Professor Dirk Johannsen, University of Oslo (committee administrator)
Chair of the defence
Head of research Jacob Høigilt
Supervisors
Associate Professor Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, University of Oslo
Dr. Merlin Seller, University of Edinburgh