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Doctor of Philosophy - Arts (University of Melbourne)
Benjamin Nicoll is a Chief Investigator in the Digital Media Research Centre and a Senior Lecturer in Media Studies in the School of Communication. He is also Study Area Coordinator of the Entertainment Industries major in the Bachelor of Communication.
Benjamin's research focuses on the critical theory of media and technologies, particularly videogames. His main theoretical influences are psychoanalytic theory, cultural studies, critical social theory, and queer theory. He is the author of Minor Platforms in Videogame History (Amsterdam University Press, 2019) and co-author, with Brendan Keogh, of The Unity Game Engine and the Circuits of Cultural Software (Palgrave, 2019). He is a Chief Investigator on the ARC Discovery project, "Artistic Practice in Australian Videogame Development". His research has appeared in journals such as Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, Social Media + Society, Games and Culture, and Thesis Eleven.
He is currently working on a project that develops a psychoanalytic theory of the jouissance, or enjoyment, of videogame play. His recent publications in Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities and Games and Culture establish the theoretical stakes of this project.