Current Projects

• Transregional Game Studies, Folk Worlds and Folk Mechanic
  • Ensslin, forthcoming articles in de Leon et al. and Pötzsch et al.
  • Videogames as Folk Worlds Symposium (Vielberth Foundation funded), April 11-12, 2024
• De Gruyter Handbook of Language and Digital Culture (ed. Astrid Ensslin and Carmen Lee, University of Hong Kong) – under contract
• Bodies in Digital Media
  • Writing New Bodies / Body Worlds: digital-born body image bibliotherapy and (re-) fictionalizing body image (SSHRC-funded)
    • Translating the Voices story app into German (Simone Blessing and Christine Wilks)
  • Menstruation / Menopause Tracking Apps, Bodies & Identities  (Marsden/NZ funded)
• Empirical reader research on VR fiction and “distance design” for critical empathy studies, memory spaces and medial reading (Bell and Ensslin, ch.6 in Reading Digital Fiction, forthcoming; Ensslin & Bell in Lutostański, forthcoming; Ensslin & Ceuterick in DLA Marbacher Schriften, ed. Kinder & Çakir)
• Death and Failure in Games: Existentialism and Social Action (Sebastian Richter, PhD project)
• “The Hard Core of Games – Narratological and Persuasive Potential in Reading Formal Game Elements” (FS Schönberg, PhD project, working title)
• Metareference, Bookishness and Literary Gaming (Richter, Aksay, Blessing, Schönberg & Ensslin)
• AI and Digital-born Fiction (Ensslin & Nelson, forthcoming in Liveley & Slocombe)