Scholars@Hallwalls: Cody Mejeur, “Boots Made For Walking: Embodied Storytelling By/With/For Trans People in Video Games”

Scholars@Hallwalls is a monthly series featuring talks by Humanities Institute Faculty Fellows. Please join us in the cinema space at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center!

Complimentary wine and light fare will be served for a brief, pre-talk mingling session at this free and open-to-the-public event.

“Boots Made For Walking: Embodied Storytelling By/With/For Trans People in Video Games”

This talk presents the design of Trans Folks Walking, a video game anthology of trans community stories, including plans for a new volume of stories currently under development. In a shift from game development projects that usually bring in diversity consultants to help in telling marginalized stories, Trans Folks Walking is a game developed by, with, and for trans communities with values of reciprocity and social justice at its center. The talk will also examine the very real limitations and difficulties of this work, particularly in a moment of ascendent anti-trans activism and attacks.

This event will be simultaneously live-streamed via the Hallwalls website. The talk will begin at ~4:45 pm.

About Cody Mejeur, Assistant Professor, Department of Media Study and Director, Amatryx Gaming

Cody Mejeur is Assistant Professor of Media at University at Buffalo, SUNY, and Director of the Amatryx Gaming Lab & Studio there. Their work uses games to theorize narrative as an embodied and playful process that constructs how we understand ourselves, our realities, and our differences. They are currently the game director for Trans Folks Walking, a narrative game about trans experiences. They are an Executive Council member for the International Society for the Study of Narrative and work with the LGBTQ Video Game Archive on preserving and visualizing LGBTQ representation.