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Dr Rob Gallagher

Lecturer

My profile

Biography

I’m a Lecturer in Film and Media, and a member of the Manchester Metropolitan Game Centre. My research focuses on digital cultures, online communities and interactive media. I’m particularly interested in how videogames reflect and shape popular understandings of identity, embodiment and subjectivity, and much of my recent work has centred on auto/biographical games, and on how digital gameplay is represented in life-writing and literature. I’ve also researched and written about a range of other digital forms, from animated gifs to grime music, memes to ASMR videos. Alongside my published research I’ve explored these topics and technologies through podcasts, performances, digital animations and other creative outputs, working with a range of collaborators.

Since joining MMU I’ve taught on the level 4 unit Metropolis and the level 5 unit Media Platforms.

Academic and professional qualifications

  • 2021 Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice in Teaching and Learning, Royal Holloway University of London
  • 2013 PhD Humanities and Cultural Studies, The London Consortium
  • 2008 MSt. English Literature, University of Oxford  
  • 2007 BA English Language and Literature, University of Oxford

Reviewer for Academic Publishers and Journals

I have reviewed maunscripts and prospectuses for Bloomsbury, Routledge and the MIT Press, and act as a peer reviewer for journals including Games and Culture, Surveillance & Society, Game Studies, Convergence, SoundEffects, Biography, Visual Communication and Television and New Media  

Get in touch

G.01 Bellhouse
Tuesdays 10-11am

Research outputs

Monographs

2017 Videogames, Identity and Digital Subjectivity (London; New York: Routledge)

Peer-reviewed articles

2022 ‘Humanising gaming? The Politics of Posthuman Agency in Autobiographical Videogames.’ Convergence April 2022. doi:10.1177/13548565221083485

2020 ‘Dirty Footprints and Degenerate Archives: Tabitha Nikolai’s Impure Walking Sims’. Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds 12(11): 105-122. https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/intellect/jgvw/2020/00000012/00000001/art00007

2019 ‘’The game becomes the mediator of all your relationships’: Life Narrative and Networked Intimacy in Nina Freeman’s Cibele’. European Journal of Life Writing 8. https://doi.org/10.21827/ejlw.8.35549

2019 (with Clare Brant). ‘Digital Media: Life-Changing Online Introduction’. European Journal of Life Writing 8. https://doi.org/10.21827/ejlw.8.35545

2019 ‘Volatile Memories: Personal Data and Posthuman Subjectivity in The Aspern Papers, Analogue: A Hate Story and Tacoma’. Games and Culture. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412019841477

2018 ‘“ASMR” Autobiographies and the (Life-)Writing of the Networked Self’. Convergence 25(2), 260–277. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1354856518818072

2018 ‘Minecrafting Masculinities: Gamer Dads, Queer Childhoods and Father-Son Gameplay in A Boy Made of Blocks’. Game Studies 18(2). http://gamestudies.org/1802/articles/gallagher

2018 ‘‘All the Other Players Want to Look at my Pad’: Grime, Gaming and Digital Identity Work’. GAME 6. https://www.gamejournal.it/all-the-other-players-want-to-look-at-my- pad-grime-gaming-and-digital-identity-work/

2017 (with Carolyn Jong and Kalevo Sinervo). ‘Who Wrote the Elder Scrolls? Modders, Developers, and the Mythology of Bethesda Softworks’. Loading… 10(16). http://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/article/view/169

2016 ‘Eliciting Euphoria Online: The Aesthetics of “ASMR” Video Culture’. Film Criticism 40(2), 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/fc.13761232.0040.202

2015 (with Ana Parejo Vadillo). ‘Animating Sight and Song: A Meditation on Identity, Fair Use and Collaboration.’ 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 21, 2015. http://doi.org/10.16995/ntn.754

2014 ‘Careless Whispers: Hints of Queer Possibility in the Spaces of Dishonored.’ Media Fields 8. http://mediafieldsjournal.org/careless-whispers/2014/5/30/careless-whispers-hints-of-queer-possibility-in-the-spaces-o.html

2014 ‘From Camp to Kitsch: A Queer Eye on Console Fandom’. GAME: The Italian Journal of Game Studies 3. https://www.gamejournal.it/3_gallagher/

2012 ‘No Sex Please, We’re Finite State Machines: On the Melancholy Sexlessness of the Videogame’. Games and Culture 7(6). https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1555412012466287

Chapters in Edited Collections

2022 ‘That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore (Or Is It?): On Hitman’s Humour(lessness)’ in Games and Comedy, ed. Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone, Tomasz Z. Majkowski and Jaroslav Švelch. Palgrave.

2018 ‘Plotting the Loop: Videogames and Narratability’ in The Edinburgh Companion to Contemporary Narrative Theories, ed. Zara Dinnen and Robyn Warhol. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

2017 (with Ashley ML Brown). ‘Gaming and Sex’ in Sex in the Digital Age, ed. Paul G. Nixon and Isabel K. Dusterhoft. London; New York: Routledge.

2015 ‘Intergenerational Tensions: Of Sex and the Hardware Cycle’ in Rated M for Mature: Sex and Sexuality in Videogames, ed. Evan Lauteria and Matthew Wysocki. New York: Bloomsbury.

2012 ‘’Faux Raccord’: Mismatch, Noise and Transformation in the work of Jean-Luc Godard’ in Godard’s Contempt: Essays from the London Consortium, ed. Colin MacCabe and Laura Mulvey. London: Wiley.

Reviews

2020 ‘High Performance Theory: A Review of Darshana Jayemanne’s Performativity in Art, Literature and Videogames.’ The Journal of Games Criticism.

Podcasts, Exhibitions, Performances and Creative Collaborations

2021 Reactionary Digital Politics. Eight-part podcast series reporting on the findings of a research project investigating the political ideologies, rhetorics and aesthetics shaping the age of digital politics. Featuring interviews with leading scholars including Whitney Phillips, Becca Lewis and Bharath Ganesh https://reactionarydigitalpolitics.podbean.com/

2020 ‘Live Action Dating Sim’ text for artist Marija Bozinovska-Jones’ Fabricated Intimacies project, exhibited at Chronus Arts Centre Shanghai’s ‘Crypto Manifold’ exhibition https://fabricatedintimacy.tech/articles/live-action-dating-sim

2018 ‘Treebour.’Immersive audio installation created with Marija Bozinovska-Jones, featured in Furtherfield gallery’s Playbour: Work, Pleasure, Survival exhibition and the Serpentine’s 2018 Work Marathon

2016 ‘Moving Past Present: Reanimating the Gaiety Girls.’ Collaboration with artist Janina Lange resulting in a ‘pop-up’ motion capture studio where early film performances by Gaiety theatre stars were remediated as 3D animations

2015 ‘An Archive of Tingles.’ Radio show and podcast exploring ‘ASMR’ culture created with YouTubers WhispersRed and Muted Vocal, supported by the Arts and Culture Unit and Resonance FM https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/modulations-26th-june-2015/

2015 ‘Animating Sight and Song.’ Illustrated online edition of an 1892 poem by Michael Field, created with Ana Parejo Vadillo

2014 ‘Waiting for You at San Bartolo Island.’ Audiovisual performance at Videofag gallery Toronto for the Vector Videogame Arts Festival

Press and media

Media Interviews

2020 Interview for DiGRA and Critical Distance’s Keywords in Play podcast 

2018 Interview with New York Times journalist Jamie Lauren Keiles on ASMR research

2018 Interview for ‘Algorithms, Aesthetics and ASMR’ episode of Think: Digital Futures podcast

2018 Interview for Radio Deutschland segment ‘The ASMR Trend: Making Money from Noise’

2016 ‘In conversation’ with artists Daniel Rourke and Gretchen Andrew for Arebyte gallery podcast

Newspaper and Magazine Articles

2021 ‘Adventures in the Asset Store.’ Article in The Architectural Review issue 1483.

2021 ‘Building Virtual Worlds.’ Article in The Architectural Review issue 1481.

2018 ‘World of Wardrobecraft.’ Article in Dirty Furniture magazine, issue 4.

2017 ‘If They Are to Understand our Digital World, MPs Should Play Videogames.’ Guardian editorial. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/25/mps-play-videogames-tech-gaming-industry

2013 ‘Playing withDeath.’ Article for The New Inquiry. https://thenewinquiry.com/playing-with-death/