Poppy Wilde
Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication, Enterprise and CPD Coordinator for the College of English and Media
- Email:
- poppy.wilde@bcu.ac.uk
- Phone:
- 0121 331 5676
Dr Poppy Wilde is a Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication and Enterprise and CPD Coordinator for the College of English and Media. She is the author of Posthuman Gaming: Avatars, Gamers, and Entangled Subjectivities (Routledge, 2023) and has published extensively on critical posthumanism and game studies.
Her research explores how posthuman subjectivities are enabled and embodied in a variety of contexts, particularly through gaming, zombie studies, and affective and autoethnographic methodologies. She is also co-editor of Working Women on Screen: Paid Labour and Fourth Wave Feminism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024).
She teaches media, communication, and cultural theory, often focusing on new / digital / social media communities, contexts and practices. Her research interests are critical posthumanism, postanthropocentic and digital cultures, embodiment, affect, performance in online contexts and the lived experience in research methods.
Areas of Expertise
- Critical posthumanism
- Digital cultures
- Game studies
- Cultural theory
- Embodiment
- Affect
- Autoethnography
- Postapocalypse
- Postanthropocentrism
- Social media
Qualifications
- Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (2021)
- Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice in Higher Education: Distinction, Coventry University (2018)
- Doctor of Philosophy, Coventry University (2017)
- BA Joint Honours Performance Studies and Drama: First Class, Aberystwyth University (2012)
SEDA Accreditations:
- Embedding Sustainability in the Curriculum (2021)
- Community of Practice (CoP) around Research Supervision (2020)
- Supporting Technology Enhanced Learning (2019)
Memberships
-
Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
-
Member of MeCCSA – Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association
-
Women in Games (WIGJ) Ambassador, March 2022 – present.
Teaching
Poppy is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication contributing to BA and MA teaching.
Module leadership has included:
- Collaborative Project (BA 1st year module)
- The New Media Industry (BA 2nd year module)
- Digital Storytelling (BA 2nd year module)
- Creativity in the Media (BA 3rd year module)
- Understanding Social Media (BA 3rd year module)
- Digital Futures (BA 3rd year module)
- Social Media as Culture and Practice (MA module)
- Research in Practice (MA Module)
Module contributions and workshop leadership has included:
- Researching the Media and Communications (BA 1st year module)
- Media and Influencer Engagement (BA 1st year module)
- Understanding Media Texts, Industries and Audiences (BA 1st year module)
- Professional and Academic Development (BA 2nd year module and BA 3rd year module)
- Media Activism (BA 3rd year module)
Poppy also supervises a range of undergraduate and postgraduate dissertation projects in all areas of media. She is a personal tutor to students across all three years of undergraduate study as well as postgraduate study.
Research
Dr Wilde’s work focuses on what it means and how feels to be posthuman, by exploring how posthuman subjectivities are emergent and embodied. She has conducted autoethnographic projects exploring the lived experience of gaming with particular focus on the avatar-gamer as an embodiment of posthuman subjectivity. In her games work she has explored posthuman conceptions of acting, empathy, boredom, motivation, death, species hybridity, moralism, tomboyism, and agentic cutscenes.
She has also published on zombies, considering them as a posthuman fascination and a rejection of neoliberal and capitalist expectations; on storytelling, and the posthuman “I”; on music artists and posthuman performance; and on new materialism in make-over shows.
Postgraduate Supervision
- Andrew Bell, PhD project “Making Monsters: Exploring the Potential of Queer Game Design Methodologies in the Creation of Non-Human Avatars”, based in the Faculty of Art, Design and Media.
- Kieron Oakland, PhD project “Toxicity within competitive versus non-competitive online gaming environments”, based in the Faculty of Business, Law and Social Sciences. [Advisor]
Publications
Books
- Wilde, P. (2023) Posthuman Gaming: Avatars, Gamers, and Entangled Subjectivities. London: Routledge.
Edited books/special issues
- May, L. and Wilde, P. (eds.) (2024) Playing the posts: post-Anthropocene, posthuman, post-apocalypse. Special issue – Journal of Games Criticism, 6:A. https://gamescriticism.org/issue-6-a/ [Open Access]
- Wilde, P. Sylvia IV, J. J. (eds.) (2024) Posthumanism and Media Studies. Special Issue – Journal of Posthumanism, 4:3. https://journals.tplondon.com/jp/issue/view/227 [Open Access]
- Tomsett, E., Weidhase, N., and Wilde, P. (eds.) (2024) Working Women on Screen: Paid Labour and Fourth Wave Feminism. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Journal articles/book chapters
- Wilde, P. (2024) ‘Posthumanist, post-apocalyptic, and post-anthropocentric possibilities: Kantian morals and posthuman ethics in My Friend is a Raven’. Journal of Games Criticism, 6:A, pp. 1-19. Available at: https://gamescriticism.org/2024/10/09/wilde-6a/ [Open Access]
- Wilde, P. (2024) 'Who’s in Control?: Negotiating Hierarchies, Neoliberal Subjectivation, and Feminist Resistance in the World of Work' in Working Women on Screen: Paid Labour and Fourth Wave Feminism, ed by. Ellie Tomsett, Nathalie Weidhase, and Poppy Wilde. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 169-191.
- Wilde, P. (2023) ‘Moral Ambiguity and the Zombie Scapegoat in Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare’ in Red Dead Redemption: History, Myth, and Violence in the Video Game West, ed. by Esther Wright and John Mills. Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, pp. 164-182.
- Wilde, P. (2023) ‘Posthumanism in play: Entangled subjects, agentic cutscenes, vibrant matter, and species hybridity’, in Posthumanism in Practice ed. by Christine Daigle and Matthew Hayler. London, Bloomsbury Academic: pp. 133-146.
- Wilde, P. (2022) ‘Diffractively Watching Queer Eye: difficult knowledge through critical posthumanism and neoliberalism’. Interconnections: Journal of Posthumanism, 1:2, pp. 24-38. Available at: https://journals.library.brocku.ca/index.php/posthumanismstudies/article/view/3422 [Open Access]
- Wilde, P. (2022) ‘Beyond Good and Evil… and gender and humanism? Exploring Jade as a Posthuman Protagonist’ in Reclaiming the Tomboy: The Body, Representation, and Identity, ed. by Erica Joan Dymond, Jen Harrison, Holly Wells. Lanham, Maryland, Lexington Books: pp. 187-208.
- Wilde, P. (2022) ‘Zombies, Deviance and the Right to Posthuman Life’, in Theorising the Contemporary Zombie: Contextual Pasts, Presents, and Futures, ed. by Scott Eric Hamilton and Conor Heffernan. Cardiff, University of Wales Press (Horror Series): pp. 19-36.
- Wilde, P. (2022) ‘Storytelling the Multiple Self: Posthuman Autoethnography as Critical Praxis’, in Children and the Power of Stories: Posthuman and Autoethnographic Perspectives in Early Childhood Education ed. by Carmen Blyth and Teresa K. Aslanian. Singapore, Springer Press: pp. 1-16.
- Weidhase, N. and Wilde, P. (2020) ‘“Art’s in pop culture in me”: Posthuman Performance and Authorship in Lady Gaga’s Artpop (2013)’, Queer Studies in Media and Popular Culture, 5:2&3, pp. 239–257.
- Wilde, P. (2020) ‘Lady Gaga’ in Genealogy of the Posthuman. Available at: https://criticalposthumanism.net/lady-gaga/
- Wilde, P. (2020) ‘I, Posthuman: A deliberately provocative title’. International Review of Qualitative Research special issue, “Cyber Autoethnography, Cyber Culture, and Cyber Identities”. DOI: 10.1177/1940844720939853
- Wilde, P. (2019) ‘Transforming exhaustion with affirmation: aspirational approaches to posthuman knowledge production’, Cultural Studies, DOI: 10.1080/09502386.2019.1703022
- Wilde, P. (2018) ‘Avatar affectivity and affection’. Transformations special issue, “Technoaffect” 31.
- Wilde, P. and Evans, A. (2017) ‘Empathy at Play: Embodying Posthuman Subjectivities in Gaming’.Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies (Online First).
- Broekhuizen, F., Wilde, P. and Mikelli, D. (2016) ‘Organiser’s Report on the MeCCSA-PGN Conference 2-3 July 2015’, Networking Knowledge, 9(1).
- Wilde, P. (2015) ‘The Empathic Gamer’, in Encountering Empathy: Interrogating the Past, Envisioning the Future [ebook] ed. by Wain, V. and Pimomo, P. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 139-149.
Invited talks
- ‘Jesse-Player-Polaris – posthuman subjectivities and postdualism in Control’, invited speaker for Digital Humanities Students Association at Shiraz University, Iran, June 2024, online.
- ‘Playing like a (posthuman) girl: Gender, empathy, and issues of representation and performance’, Keynote Speaker, Inclusive Gaming conference, May 2024, Jesus College Oxford, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
- ‘Post-apocalyptic negotiations of Stray: Imagining human extinction through the eyes of a cat’, invited speaker for Imagining Extinction in Video Games: An International Symposium, April 2024, CETAPS - Centre for English, Translation, and Anglo-Portuguese Studies, University of Porto, online.
- ‘Posthumanism and play: Embodying avatar-gamer entanglements’ invited speaker for the Association for Cultural Studies Virtual Lecture Series, March 2024, online.
- ‘The Posthumanism of Imagination in videogames and/as popular fiction’ invited speaker for Games and Genre Theory event, April 2023, Popular and Genre Fiction Research Network and the Centre for Digital Cultures at University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
- ‘Zombies, Necro-Power, and Fear in the Time of a Pandemic’, invited speaker (with Dr Scott Eric Hamilton) for the Midlands Network of Popular Culture Halloween Event, October 2021, online.
- ‘The Uberfication of Pest Control: Keeping up without cashing out’, invited speaker for the BPCA (British Pest Control Association) annual conference, March 2021, PestExtra.
- ‘Theoretical Thinking in Tech’, invited speaker for VRARA (Virtual Reality Augmented Reality Association) Birmingham Chapter, August 2020, virtual seminar series.
- ‘Avatar gamer zombie hybrids: the posthuman in apocalyptic play’, invited speaker for Digital Culture Research and Learning Group at University of Kent, August 2020, virtual seminar series.
Conference papers
- ‘Palatable vs. Poisonous Others: Aliens, AI, and mutants, oh my!’ Video Game Cultures 2024: The Other Conference. September 2024, Birmingham City University, UK.
- ‘A Stray Autoethnography: Becoming-animal, or Anthropomorphic Humanism?’, DiGRA 2024: Playgrounds. July 2024, University of Guadalajara, Mexico.
- ‘Playgrounds of Authority: Space, Power, and Agency in Dying Light’, co-authored with Will McKeown, DiGRA 2024: Playgrounds. July 2024, University of Guadalajara, Mexico.
- ‘Postanthropocenic, posthumanist, postapocalyptic play‘, workshop, co-convened with Lawrence May and Will McKeown DiGRA 2024: Playgrounds. July 2024, University of Guadalajara, Mexico.
- ‘Lifecycle of an Avatar: Shared Histories of Affective Experience’, History of Games 2024: Families of Games. May 2024, Birmingham City University, Birmingham UK.
- ‘The Posthumanism of Imagination in Videogaming’, British DiGRA 2024: IN-BETWEENNESS OF PLAY. April 2024. Staffordshire University London Digital Institute, London, UK.
- ‘Relatable Zombies: Entrepreneurial survival through gamification in Dying Light – Be the Zombie‘ (single-authored) and ‘Remnants and Prospects: place, play, and plague in the Dying Light videogame series’ (co-authored with Dr Will McKeown), Theorizing Zombiism III: The Derry Edition/Global Zombie Studies Symposium. October 2023, Ulster University, UK (hybrid conference).
- ‘Posthumanist postapocalyptic postanthropocentrism: Morals and Multiplicities in My Friend is a Raven‘, DiGRA 2023: Limits and Margins of Games. June 2023, University of Seville, Spain.
- ‘Beam me up Softboi – collective subjectivities and emotional masculinities in online spaces’, Emerging femininities and masculinities in 21st c. media and popular culture, September 2022, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece.
- ‘Avatar-gamer entanglements: Posthuman subjectivity at play’, Games, Culture, and Identity: The Multiplay Conference 2022. January 2022, University of Sunderland (online conference).
- ‘Bad taste humour as cultural critique of the British monarchy’, co-authored with Dr Nathalie Weidhase, Mixed Bill: Comedy in Crisis. January 2022, Birmingham City University, Birmingham (online conference).
- ‘Political control and perpetual quarantine: zombie Bio-Power in the Newsflesh series… and beyond’, Theorizing Zombiism 2: Undead Again. July 2021, Gothenburg University, Gothenburg (hybrid conference).
- ‘Red, Dead, Undead: the zombie other as (post)human threat’, Dark Economies: Anxious Futures, Fearful Pasts. July 2021, Falmouth University, Falmouth (hybrid conference).
- ‘Who cares? Thoughts on Facebook’s Care Reaction’, co-authored with Dr Jacob Johanssen, Affect and Social Media 4.5: Media Virality and the Lockdown Aesthetic, July 2020, virtual conference.
- ‘Fear, Death, and Exploitative Bio-Power in Mira Grant’s Newsflesh’, co-authored with Dr Scott Hamilton, Crisis in Contemporary Writing, British Association for Contemporary Literary Studies, June 2020, virtual conference.
- ‘Zombies, Deviance and the Right to Posthuman Life’, Theorizing Zombiism, July 2019, University College Dublin, Dublin.
- ‘Diffractively reading clothing in Queer Eye’, Culture Costume Dress, June 2019, Birmingham City University, Birmingham.
- “Art’s in Pop Culture in Me”: Breaking Boundaries with Lady Gaga’, co-authored with Dr Nathalie Weidhase, New Reflections in Fashioning Identities, June 2019, University of Roehampton, London.
- ‘Game Over: death and resurrection in online gaming’, CEDAR Day of Death Education, November 2018, University Centre Shrewsbury, Shrewsbury.
- ‘Emotional Digital Labour: Connecting, Sharing and Becoming’, co-authored with Francien Broekhuizen Work and Play: An Interdisciplinary Conference, July 2016, Futureworks Media School, Manchester.
- ‘I, Posthuman (a deliberately provocative title)’ [Poster presentation] Coventry Faculty of Arts and Humanities Postgraduate Research Symposium, April 2016, Coventry University, Coventry.
- ‘The Mundane Posthuman’, Reconfiguring Human and Non-Human: Texts, Images and Beyond, October 2015, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
- ‘Posthuman Empathy: the lived experience of gaming’, 2nd Annual Conference in Games and Literary Theory, November 2014, English Department University of Amsterdam and Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies (OSL), Amsterdam.
- ‘The Empathic Gamer’, 1st Global Conference on Empathy, November 2014, Inter-Disciplinary.net, Prague.
- ‘Autophenomenography, a media methodology?’, Creating Cultures, June 2014, King’s College London, London.
Work With Industry
Dr Wilde has been a STEAMhouse Academic Coordinator for the Digital Technologies Enabling Innovation project (April 2020 – March 2023). Leading workshops on immersive media, social media (practices and theories) and assisting SMEs with innovation and research generation.
Dr Wilde is also Enterprise and CPD coordinator for the College of English and Media, facilitating connections between industry and the College through KTPs, CPD, and consultancy.