Stefan H. Simond

Philipps-University Marburg
 http://pixeldiskurs.de/

Stefan H. Simond (M.A.) is an academic employee and lecturer at the Institute of Media Studies at Philipps-University Marburg. His field of interest revolves around game studies, political and philosophical perspectives on video games specifically. He is currently working on his PhD project on the construction of mental illnesses and psychiatric institutions in video games. Before studying a B.A. degree in Media Studies and an M.A. degree in Media & Cultural Praxis in Marburg, Stefan underwent a job training as a nurse, which he completed and consecutively worked as a nurse in the emergency room of a university hospital. Further, Stefan is chief editor at pixeldiskurs.de and host of the weekly Pixeldiskurs-Podcast.

Selected Publications

Print

  • Psychiatrische Kliniken als totale Institutionen in digitalen Spielen. In: A. Görgen/S. H. Simond (Ed.): Krankheit im digitalen Spiel. Theorien, Themen, Analysen. [in Print]
  • Autonomy, Heternomoy and Representations of Illness in Digital Games. With Arno Görgen. In: A. Tillmann et al. (Ed.): Ethics and Games. Ethical Questions within Digital Gaming Cultures. [in Print]
  • Mental Health als Authentizitätsfiktion im digitalen Spiel. With Arno Görgen. In: M. Hennig et al. (Ed.): Spielzeichen III. [in Print]
  • Polit-Serien im Fernsehen. Gegenstandsbestimmung, Stand der Forschung und neue Perspektiven. With Andreas Dörner. In: N. Switek (Ed.): Politik in Fernsehserien. Analysen und Fallstudien zu House of Cards, Borgen & Co. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2018.
  • Let’s Play. Zwischen interpassiver Rezeption und subversiver Kulturpraxis. In: T. Bendels/B. Runzheimer/S. Strecker (Ed.): Playing in-between. Glückstadt: Verlag Werner Hülsbusch, 2016
  • Lara Croft und die Abenteuer des verlorenen Selbstbewusstseins. Eine komparative Analyse der didaktischen Methodik aus mediennostalgischer Perspektive am Beispiel von Tomb Raider. In: A.-M. Letourneur/M. Mosel/T. Raupach (Ed.): Retro-Games und Retro-Gaming. Glückstadt: Verlag Werner Hülsbusch, 2015.

Digital

  • Die Entgrenzung des Spiels. Kursorische Überlegungen zum unfreiwilligen und unwissentlichen Spielen (http://www.paidia.de/?p=11253, 2017)
  • Die Freiheit, sich nicht zu entscheiden (videogametourism.at, 2017)
  • Hype(r), Hype(r) – oder wie wir lernten, mit der Enttäuschung zu leben (spielkult.hypotheses.org, 2017)

Social Profiles

All Sessions by Stefan H. Simond

  • 19. Nov | Conference Opening

    The conference kick-off will include the opening keynote as well as the Young Academics Workshop

  • 10:00  - 10:25
    Mental illnesses have long since been an integral part of popular culture. As a field of interdiscourse (Link 1996, 50), popular culture picks up on scientific findings, social norms and ideals and the respective othering of the mentally ill as deviants. Digital games are no exception to this. Their constructions of mental illnesses range from stigmatising tropes in horror psychiatries to attempts of (self-)empowerment in autopathographic games. As the focus when analysing digital games and mental health has for a long time primarily rested upon potential media effects, the intricate and increasingly diversified constructions of mental illness within the game texts have largely flown under the radar. While the construction of mental illness in other forms of mass media, such as television or movies, has been studied and criticised with increasing persistence since the 1990s,1 there are few quantitative and qualitative studies that primarily focus on constructions of mental health in digital games. Drawing from a currently ongoing PhD project as well as previous conjunct research, we are working on a typology with the goal to make constructions of mental illness in digital games accessible for analysis. Based on individual interpretations, i.e. deep readings, of games such as The Sims 4 (Maxis 2014), Amnesia: Dark Descent (Frictional Games 2010), Outlast (Red Barrels 2013), Depression Quest (Zoë Quinn, Patrick Lindsey, Isaac Schankler 2013), The Town of Light (LKA 2016), and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (Ninja Theory 2017) we wish to propose six types and elaborate upon their relevance in our talk: (1) quantification, (2) objectification, (3) subjectification, (4) somatic externalisation, (5) spatial externalisation and (6) actional externalisation. These categories are not exclusive and in itself interconnected. In this context, we understand illnesses in games as “functional disruptions” (Görgen 2017), as productive elements serving a narrative and ludic structure. Our goal in mind is to reach an overarching understanding of how the construction of mental illness in digital games works and to which degree it ties in with medical epistemology, social discourse and popular culture in a broad sense.
    19. Nov | Young Academics Workshop
    Where
    room 204

  • 11:15  - 11:30
    Panel 1 - Representation
    19. Nov | Young Academics Workshop
    Where
    room 204




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Stefan H. Simond