Young Academics Workshop – Speaker
Matthias Heider
Institute for Democracy and Civil Society (IDZ)
Matthias Heider is a media scholar and works as a research associate at the Institute for Democracy and Civil Society in Jena. His research focusses on right-wing extremism in gaming and knowledge transfer among prevention actors in this field. His previous work has focussed on right-wing extremist communication strategies and political opinion leadership on online video platforms. In addition to his research, Matthias is also dedicated to education. He led the ‘Games machen Schule’ project for the Foundation for Digital Games Culture and brought video games into the classroom of Berlin schools. As a lecturer for digital teaching and research, he offers courses on the use of AI in research and education as well as the use of educational videos at the TU Berlin, among others.
Selected Publications:
Heider, Matthias. 2022. „Rechtsextremes Framing Auf YouTube: Darstellungsformen und Ästhetik von Influencern der Identitären Bewegung“. MedienPädagogik: Zeitschrift für Theorie und Praxis der Medienbildung 18 (Jahrbuch Medienpädagogik):267-90. https://doi.org/10.21240/mpaed/jb18/2022.02.27.X
Wegener, Claudia; Heider, Matthias. 2019. “Wie politische YouTuber arbeiten: Auszüge einer Explorativen Studie”. TelevIZIon 32/2019/1
Matthias Heider. 2021. “Influencer*innen der Identitären Bewegung”. Fachtagung des Netzwerks Forschung Kulturelle Bildung & DGfE-Sektion Medienpädagogik, Nürnberg
Matthias Heider. 2018. “Politische Influencer? Meinungsbildung auf YouTube”. Fachtagung Jugendmedienarbeit NRW, Bielefeld
Contact:
Institute for Democracy and Civil Society: https://www.idz-jena.de/ueber-das-institut/mitarbeitende/matthias-heider
Bluesky: @derheida.bsky.social
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthias-heider-0445a11b9/
Alexandra Petrus, M.A.
University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts
Alexandra Petrus is a PhD student in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Southern California and a lecturer of German Cinema at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB). Her scholarship resides mostly in interactive media and its intersections with historiography, sociology, and activism, performed through a hybrid of research, technology, and art. She received her MA in Game Development and Research at the Cologne Game Lab (Technische Hochschule Köln) in 2021 and her BA in Film Production (Directing) and German Studies from CSULB in 2017. In 2020, she co-founded Achtung Autobahn Studios with Rüdiger Brandis, a games studio specialising in social-realist games. With funding from the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, she partook in the development of Berlin Maniacs, an action/adventure game about the 1968 student protest movement in West Berlin. Achtung Autobahn is now being developed into an employee-owned cooperative studio. Her developing dissertation consists of a research-led practice toward developing a “mid-apocalypse farming game,” experimenting with the dynamic forms that labour, leisure, and subsistence take on a warming planet.
Selected Publications:
Brandis, Rüdiger / Petrus, Alexandra. “Geschichte als Prozess: Digitale Spiele und die Dekonstruktion von historischem Wissen”, in Geschichte als Kritik, ed. Philipp McLean and Jörg van Norden (Bielefeld: Universität Bielefeld, 2024). [under review]
Petrus, Alexandra. “I Started a Garden and Ended Up with a Global Industry: The Neoliberal Ethos of Cozy Games.” Spectator 44.1 (2023).
Contact:
https://www.alexandrapetrus.com
Rüdiger Brandis, M.A.
Playing History GmbH; University of Göttingen
Rüdiger Brandis studied history, literature, cultural anthropology and game development. He worked at the University of Göttingen and the TH Köln in the fields of historical theory and game studies before moving into the game industry as a game designer and producer. For five years he worked as a game designer and later lead producer at Flying Sheep Studios on over 40 HTML-5 games. He also co-founded the game studio Achtung Autobahn together with Alexandra Petrus, which aims to specialise in the development of social-realistic games. Achtung Autobahn is currently being rebuilt into a cooperative structure to enable everyone working at the studio to collectively own it and develop games at their own pace with less economic pressure. Rüdiger currently works at the indie game studio Playing history as producer, where he works on political and educational games, while doing his PhD on the influence of historical theory on the development of digital historical games at the Chair for Theory and Methods of Historical Studies at the University of Göttingen.
Selected publications:
Brandis, Rüdiger. “Industrial Memory Culture In Fantasy Games: Remnants Of The Ruhr In The Gothic And Elex Series”. Historical Games Network Blog, online: 09.09.2023. https://www.historicalgames.net/remnants-of-ruhr/
Brandis, Rüdiger and Bozkurt, Can Mert. “Player Agency in Audience Gaming”. Paratextualizing Games: Investigations on the Paraphernalia and Peripheries of Play, edited by Benjamin Beil, Gundolf S. Freyermuth and Hanns Christian Schmidt, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2021, pp. 165-180. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839454213-007
Brandis, Rüdiger. “Tracing the Past with Digital Games. Historical Procedural Rhetorics”. History in Games, edited by Martin Lorber & Felix Zimmermann, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2020, pp. 93-114. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839454206-006
Brandis, Rüdiger and Boccia, Alex. “Designing Rituals Instead of Ceremonies. The Meaningful Performance of Violence in Video Games”. Violence | Perception | Video Games: New Directions in Game Research, edited by Federico Alvarez Igarzábal, Michael S. Debus and Curtis L. Maughan, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2019, pp. 93-104. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839450512-009
Contact:
https://rbrandis.eu/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rbrandis/
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ruediger-Brandis
https://x.com/rueBrandis
https://bsky.app/profile/ruebrandis.bsky.social
Zubair Ashraf
Freelancer
Hailing from Karachi, Pakistan, Zubair Ashraf is a journalist, researcher and communications specialist who focuses on using interactive media for storytelling on political, economic, environmental and social issues from inclusive viewpoints. He began his reporting career in 2014 by covering the Baldia garments factory fire case in-depth, analyzing the responsibilities of states and firms towards workers within transnational supply chains.
This experience led him to study labor policies and globalization at Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Recht Berlin. He later earned a Master’s degree in Digital Narratives from Internationale Filmschule Köln, where he designed a mini-game prototype titled Resist, inspired by ongoing unionization efforts within Amazon Inc.
Zubair holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication from the University of Karachi. His current research focuses on using mini-games to tell stories about labor movements in the gig economy and create meaningful social impact. He has worked with The News, The Express Tribune and other major media outlets in Pakistan, covering topics related to politics, crime and the criminal justice system.
In addition to journalism, Zubair has supported labor unions, NGOs and tech startups in marketing campaigns. He managed LabourStart’s Twitter presence and developed projects to amplify labor narratives across South Asia.
Contact:
https://x.com/zubairrashraf
Finja Walsdorff, M.A.
University of Siegen and Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany
Finja Walsdorff is a German media scholar specializing in gender, gaming culture, eSports, as well as the intersection of gaming and mental health. She is currently employed at the University of Siegen and HHU Düsseldorf, where she conducts research and teaches seminars in the field of game studies. Her PhD thesis addresses the topics of equality and inclusivity in eSports and includes a status-quo analysis of the German eSports scene, as well as an extensive interview study with female players, coaches, and managers.
Since 2020, Finja Walsdorff has been the spokesperson for the working group AG Games of the German Society for Media Studies (GfM), where she organizes, among other things, a PhD colloquium related to Game Studies. Together with the Siegen-based research collective GamesCoop, she has been publishing the open-access journal Spiel|Formen for Play & Game Studies since 2020. In 2024 and 2025, she is be part of the jury for the German Computer Game Award (DCP), and since 2020, she has been a jury member for the nationwide youth competition GamesTalente. Furthermore, Finja Walsdorff is a council member of the German Equal eSports Initiative, which advocates for greater equality, diversity, and inclusion in eSports, specifically supporting female and non-binary players.
Selected publications:
Walsdorff, Finja (2025): Modding, Pleasure, and the Female Gaze: How Women-created Mods Challenge In-game Portrayals of Sexuality and Sex, in: The Bloomsbury Handbook of Sex and Sexuality in Game Studies. (forthcoming)
Bogen, Cornelia, Niels Brüggen, Anja Hartung-Griemberg,
Dagmar Hoffmann, Steven Meenen, Sandrine Tausche, Finja Walsdorff (2024): Impulse für eine geschlechtergerechte Digitalpolitik. Ergebnisse aus dem Projekt Digitales Deutschland | Monitoring zur Digitalkompetenz der Bevölkerung. München: kopaed.
Walsdorff, Finja, Max Kanderske, Claudius Clüver (2022): Digital Biedermeier. Praktiken der Fürsorge in Tend-and-befriend-Spielen, in: Psychologie & Gesellschaftskritik, Jg. 46, Nr. 184. https://www.psychologie-aktuell.com/journale/praxis/bisher-erschienen/inhalt-lesen/2022-4-184.html
Walsdorff, Finja (2022): Mods, Gender & Empowerment: Modding als Diversitätsstrategie, in: PAIDIA, Sonderausgabe Play(his)story. https://www.paidia.de/mods-gender-empowerment-modding-als-diversitaetsstrategie/
Walsdorff, Finja (2022): Video Game Modding and Money: From Precarious Playbor to Reimbursed Labor of Love, in: Spiel|Formen, Special Issue Ludomaterialities. https://mediarep.org/handle/doc/20171
Walsdorff, Finja, Claudius Clüver, Max Kanderske (2022): Digital Biedermeier. (Self-)care in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, in: Journal of Games, Self, & Society, Jg. 3, Nr. 1.
https://press.etc.cmu.edu/index.php/product/journal-of-games-self-society-vol-3-no-1/
Walsdorff, Finja (2020): Vergütungsinteressen in Fan-Gemeinschaften. Eine Analyse der Bethesda-Modding-Szene, in: Navigationen, Jg. 20, Nr. 1, S. 133-146.
https://mediarep.org/handle/doc/15309
Contact:
https://ag-games.de/
https://www.gamescoop.uni-siegen.de/
https://www.gamescoop.uni-siegen.de/spielformen/index.php/journal
Tom Teufer
Tom Teufer (they/them) recently graduated from the University of Cologne, with a Bachelor of German language and literature studies, as well as media culture studies. Their academic field of interest includes video- and tabletop role-playing games as well as television studies, subcultures, queer studies and social justice. After four years of working at and managing the campus radio station Kölncampus, they now host their own podcast, featuring important characters and issues from the world of punk and hardcore music. In their free time, Tom can be found in front of stages, inside cinemas or between the pages of a good book.
Diego A Mejía-Alandia, PhD
Universidad de Sevilla, Spain
Diego A. Mejía-Alandia holds a PhD in Philological Studies from the Universidad de Sevilla (Spain) and MAs in ‘Literary and Cultural Studies,’ ‘Translation and Interculturality,’ and ‘Scriptwriting, Narrativity, and Audiovisual Creativity.’ An award winning author, he has published the books: COMA Paralírico (Editorial Gente Común, 2009), Bijeuterie Finee. Un catálogo trans-barroso (Plural Editores, 2011), and appeared in poetry anthologies and short story collections. His research centers on the phenomena of memory and identity intertwined with cultural processes stemming from national history, such as generational trauma, interculturality, migration, and nostalgia. He also investigates the connections between cultural and national memory and individual and collective identity within the context of material and popular cultures.
As a Postdoctoral Researcher, he has expanded his expertise into Game Culture Studies, integrating interactive narratives that playfully connect lesser-known national histories with globalized nostalgia built on popular culture and personal and collective memory. Recently, he was awarded a two-year Margarita Salas grant, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Universities and the European Union’s NextGenerationEU initiative, to conduct an individual postdoctoral research project. This project began in collaboration with the Game Research Lab at Tampere University’s Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies (Finland) and the Universidad de Sevilla. Characterized by an interdisciplinary approach, combining insights from Game Studies, Cultural Studies, Literary Criticism, and Memory Studies, the project intends to provide a nuanced understanding of contemporary representations of post-communist nostalgia in video games, VR, and digital experiences.
Selected publications:
Mejía-Alandia, D. A. (2024). A Lantern Called Desire: Time Travel, Space Nostalgia, and Desiring-Machines in The Great Perhaps. In L. Vale Costa, N. Zagalo, A. I. Veloso, E. Clua, S. Arnab, M. Vairinhos, & D. Gomes (Eds.), Videogame Sciences and Arts. VJ 2023 (pp. 202–216). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51452-4_15
Mejía-Alandia, D. A., Navarrete-Cardero, L. (2023). «Mops blocking the way» Walking simulators, playful nostalgia, and the aesthetics of unresolved authoritarian pasts in online gaming communities. AdComunica. Revista Científica de Estrategias, Tendencias e Innovación En Comunicación, 26, 51–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.6035/adcomunica.7335
Mejía-Alandia, D. A. (2023). Kosmonaut’s log: Field notes on the politics of nostalgia in ludic representations of Soviet space exploration. 2023 DiGRA International Conference “Limits and Margins of Games,” (pp. 1-5). DiGRA. https://dl.digra.org/index.php/dl/article/view/2021/2020
Contact:
dmejia@us.es
Hannes Ribarits
Cologne Game Lab / TH Köln
Hannes Ribarits is a Berlin-Cologne based artist and curator working in painting, collage and video, who holds an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, London. His installation “The Void” was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries, and in recent years, his work has been exhibited in venues such as, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art (Sunderland, UK), memphis (Linz, AT), Kunstbunker (Nurnberg, DE), The Hayward Gallery (London), Cornerhouse (Manchester) and HEDAH (Maastricht). After relocating from London to Berlin, he started organizing exhibitions and since then has been continuously working on curatorial projects running alongside – yet often correlating with – his practice as visual artist.
Ribarits is also a gamer, and his output has been greatly influenced by a socialization with interactive narratives. He employs a medially multifarious approach to follow a subversive legacy early digital games left in linear pop-culturally dominant media, such as film and television, but also music video and art. He utilizes transmedial narrative gadgets such as “prank narratives”, “time-travel storylines”, and “red herrings” but is most fascinated by Digital Easter Eggs and their endless potential for introducing plotlines running detrimental to their main story-arcs; operating as quasi “generators of narrative ambiguity and representational complexity” from within more mainstreamed frameworks.
Consequentially, Ribarits last year decided on a long-overdue shift in perspective from linear to interactive and is currently learning the “nuts and bolts” of Game Design, sounding out the intersections of art, gaming, and writing in the Master’s programme “Game Development & Research” at Cologne Game Lab (CGL).
Selected exhibitions:
2023 I saw you staring out in space (cur. by Sadie Weis), P6, Berlin 2022 About That Walkout, Next Visit, Berlin (duo)
2021 Stampede (cur. by carrick bell), Horse & Pony, Berlin
2019 REUNION, memphis (cur. by Kai Maier-Rothe), Linz, Austria 2014 Tools and Ghosts, PINA, Vienna (solo)
2012 I’m With You (Sundown School House of Queer Home Economics), The Hayward Gallery, London
2011 Wonders of the Visible World, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland/UK
SELECTED CURATORIAL PROJECTS
2023 Magic Position (curator) Millco Studios, London
2019 JAM, BLOCK, STUCK (curator), Continental Baths, Berlin
2015 credit in the real world (curator/ with Li Tasser), Horse & Pony, Berlin
2015 Tschumi Alumni – Maruša Sagadin (curator), Horse & Pony, Berlin
2014 Been Caught Stealing (curator/ with Li Tasser), Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna
Benjamin Strobel
Yoonjung Kim
a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School / University of Cologne
Yoonjung Kim is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Cologne, Germany. Her master’s thesis explored emerging online relationships between humans and nonhuman animals in South Korea, focusing on how viewers constantly monitor and engage with the lives of animal protagonists. For her doctoral research, she plans to conduct ethnographic studies on the intimate relationships between women and wildlife in South Korea,
examining how their multispecies care practices extend into political engagement and create societal change. Her research interests include the anthropology of gender, care, and kinship and studies of the Anthropocene.
Selected publications:
Journal Article
Kim, Yoonjung. 2023. Virtual animal lovers in South Korea: Lan-cable butlers, their practices,
and affective networks. In Emerging Voices: The Proceedings of Anthrozoology as
International Practice (AIP) 2021 Conference, The Exeter University as Symbiotic Ethics
(EASE) Working Paper Series.
Book Reviews
Kim, Yoonjung. 2023. “Book review: Human-Animal Research Network 인간-동물 연구 네
트워크, eds. 『관계와 경계: 코로나 시대의 인간과 동물』 [Relationship and boundary:
Humans and non-human animals in the COVID-19 era]. Okcheon: Podobat Publishing
Company 포도밭출판사, 2021; 260pp. ISBN 9791188501151.” Korean Anthropology Review
7: pp.171 – 176.
https://kiss.kstudy.com/ExternalLink/Ar?key=4007682.
Conference Proceedings
Kim, Yoonjung. 2021. “사이버스페이스와 젠더: 인터넷에서의 현장연구 그리고 여성 공
간의 형성과 함의,” Anthropia vol 2, Department of Anthropology, Seoul National University.
URL: https://cafe.naver.com/anthropia/41
Other Publications
Column
Kim, Yoonjung. 2022. “귀여움이 열어젖히는 세계 [The World that Cuteness Opens Up],”
magazine 『한편』 [Hanpyeon], 민음사 [minumsa].
Contact:
Instagram: @yoonjung_127
Young Academics Workshop – Team
Katja Aller
Cologne Game Lab | University of Cologne
Katja Aller is the program manager for the interdisciplinary MA Game Development and Research. She holds a joint master’s degree in German and Comparative Literature from both Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn (Germany) and St Andrews University (Scotland) and is a co-organizer of the Young Academics Workshop. As a former literature scholar, she has a soft spot for narrative-heavy games and so-called walking simulators. In 2020, she became a PhD candidate in media studies at Cologne University. Her dissertation “The Narrative Capacities of Spaces and Objects in Walking Simulator Games” explores the connections and relationships between player, narrative(s), and in-game environments in walking simulators. Her research interests include (transmedial) Narratology, Theory of Space, Object/Thing Studies, and Horror in games and film.
Selected publications:
Aller, Katja. “I Don’t Feel at Home in this Game Anymore. A Closer Look at Uncanny Atmospheres in Walking Simulators.” Mental Health | Atmospheres | Video Games: New Directions in Game Research II, edited by Rodríguez, Jimena Aguilar (et al.), transcript,2022, pp. 177-193.
Open Source Download via: https://www.transcriptverlag.de/media/pdf/f4/1c/33/oa9783839462645BAr27EzFPXy5k.pdf
Contact:
ka(at)colognegamelab.de
@katjaaller.bsky.social
Su-Jin Song
Cologne Game Lab
Su-Jin Song is a PhD student at the Kunstuniversität Linz and teaching and research associate in the field of media and game studies at the Cologne Game Lab of TH Köln. Su-Jin Song’s research in media and game studies explores the close connection between storytelling, design, and theory with a special focus on topics such as migration, gender, identity and mental health. In her PhD thesis, she is researching on migration, identity and gender images – Asian female filmmakers in German cinema and their cinematic representation of female characters. Su-Jin Song organized and curated the Young Academics Workshop as part of the Clash of Realities Conference (2019-2022) and since 2025 as an independent format, a two-day conference with a workshop day and a game jam.
In addition to her academic work, Su-Jin Song also works as a film producer and director. She studied Creative Producing at the IFS Cologne and Game Development and Research at the Cologne Game Lab/TH Köln. After working as a producer on international productions and in the Korean film industry, she founded autumn song production, a studio focusing on films, series and games and European-Asian co-productions. Her works have been shown and awarded at festivals such as the Berlinale, Sitges and Palm Springs. Su-Jin Song was nominated for the German Short Film Award, was awarded the Wim Wenders Scholarship and is an alumna of the Robert Bosch Prize, the Rotterdam Producers Lab and the EAVE Ties That Bind program.
Publication
Aguilar Rodríguez, J., Alvarez Igarzábal, F., Debus, M. S., Maughan, C. L., Song, S. J., Vozaru, M., & Zimmermann, F. (2022). Mental Health| Atmospheres| Video Games: New Directions in Game Research II (p. 262). transcript Verlag.
https://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-6264-1/mental-health-atmospheres-video-games/
Contact:
sjs(at)colognegamelab.de
René Lang
a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School / University of Cologne
René Lang is a scholarship holder at the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne and is a co-organizer of the Young Academics Workshop. In his PhD project, he is working on a critical and self-reflexive practice of playing, which he describes as “Mehr-Spielen”. He completed his Bachelor’s degree (B.A.) in Cultural Studies at the University of Koblenz. Afterwards, he studied Media Cultural Studies (M.A.) at the University of Cologne with special interests in the fields of (Queer) Game Studies, discourse analysis, and critique of representation. He was also involved as a Research Master at the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne and in the DFG Research Training Group 2661 ‘anschließen – ausschließen’. In addition to his studies, he worked part-time as a research assistant at the German Economic Institute in Cologne.
Selected publications:
Lang, René. 2024. “(Un-)Sicht- und Spielbarkeiten der Game Culture: Zum kritischen Umgang mit Repräsentation(en) in digitalen Spielen” _Spiel|Formen Gender & Spielkultur_, Nr. 3 (2024). URL: [https://www.gamescoop.uni-siegen.de/spielformen/index.php/journal/issue/view/4](https://www.gamescoop.uni-siegen.de/spielformen/index.php/journal/issue/view/4)
Lang, René. 2022. „Experiencing his-story through her body – Ambivalenzen der Repräsentation im Computerspiel.“ _PAIDIA – Zeitschrift für Computerspielforschung_. URL: [https://paidia.de/experiencing-his-story-through-her-body-ambivalenzen-der-repraesentation-im-computerspiel/](https://paidia.de/experiencing-his-story-through-her-body-ambivalenzen-der-repraesentation-im-computerspiel/)
Further information on the PhD project: https://artes.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/en/forschung/dissertationsprojekte-im-integrated-track/profilseiten-it/3398
Contact:
re.lang94(at)gmail.com