Taylanumut Dogan

Taylan has a background in English literature and media studies, having studied at Bilkent University in Ankara for his undergraduate and master’s degrees.

For several years, his primary field of interest has been game studies, which is what he has been focused on for his PhD. More recently, they have been interested in world-building, political agency, and the player’s positionality in digital games, especially from Marxist and biopolitical perspectives.

Their dissertation focuses on how role-playing videogames construct holistic settings, with a specific focus on their representation of class society and the agency afforded to certain socioeconomic classes within narratives and world-building.

In relation to his work in game studies, Taylan is also interested in representations of modernity, postcolonialism, and climate change. As part of different research groups in MLab in Concordia University, they have been involved with different studies on cultural representations in videogames.

Taylan is also a member of the Technoculture, Art and Games Research Centre. Beyond academic studies and writing, Taylan especially enjoys playing and scribbling about cRPGs, strategy games, visual novels, and point-and-click adventure games, as well as creative writing.