Braxton Soderman

Picture of Braxton Soderman
Associate Professor, Film & Media Studies
School of Humanities
Ph.D., Brown University, 2011, Modern Culture and Media
M.F.A., California Institute of the Arts, 2002, Writing - Critical Studies
Phone: (949) 824-3532
Email: asoderma@uci.edu
University of California, Irvine
2124 Humanities Gateway
Irvine, CA 92697
Research Interests
Digital and New Media Studies, Video Games, Networks, Digital Art & Electronic Literature, Media Archaeology, Critical Theory
Short Biography
Soderman's book Against Flow: Video Games and the Flowing Subject critically examines the use of psychological flow theory within video games. His second book, Intellivision: How a Videogame System Battled Atari and Almost Bankrupted Barbie, with UCI Professor Tom Boellstorff, tells the story of the Intellivision game system (1979-1984). See a short article about Soderman's research by Christine Byrd, "(Don't) Just go with the Flow""
Publications
Books:

Intellivision: How a Videogame System Battled Atari and Almost Bankrupted Barbie, co-authored with Tom Boellstorff (MIT Press, forthcoming 2024)

Against Flow: Video Games and the Flowing Subject (MIT Press, 2021)

Selected Articles and Book Chapters:

“Play.” The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Visual Culture. Eds. A. Joan Saab, Aubrey Anable, and Catherine Zuromskis. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell Inc., p. 275-292, 2021.

“The Lure of the Ticker.” The Routledge Companion to Media Technology and Obsolescence. Ed. Mark P. Wolf. New York, NY: Routledge. p. 74-89, 2019.

“A Critique of Surprise in Generative Art” Leonardo Electronic Almanac 22, no. 4, 2019. w/ Daniel Howe.

“Transplatform: Culture, Context, and the Intellivision/Atari VCS Rivalry” Games & Culture 14(6), p. 680-703, 2019. w/ Tom Boellstorff.

“No Time to Dream: Killing Time, Casual Games and Gender,” in Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games. Eds. Jennifer Malkowski and TreaAndrea M. Russworm. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017.

“Don’t Look…or It Takes You: The Games of Horror Vacui,” Journal of Visual Culture, Vol 14. No. 3, p. 311-316, 2015.

“Every Game the Same Dream? Politics, Representation, and the Interpretation of Video Games” Dichtung-Digital: A Journal of Digital Aesthetics, Vol. 40, 2011.

“The Aesthetics of Generative Literature: Lessons from an Electronic Writing Workshop” Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures, Vol. 6, 2009. w/ Daniel Howe

“Intrinsic Motivation: Flow, Video Games, and Participatory Culture” Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol. 2, 2009.

“The Auto Salvage: A Space of Second Chances,’” Space and Culture: International Journal of Social Space, Vol. 11 No. 1, p. 20-38, 2008.

“The Index and the Algorithm,” differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, Vol. 18 No. 1, 2007.

Co-Edited Special Issues:

"The Multiple Lives of Permadeath" Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, Volume 9, Number 2, 1 June 2017. w/ Alenda Chang and Jesús Costantino

“Network Archaeology” Amodern Journal, Vol. 2, Fall 2013. w/ Nicole Starosielski and cris cheek.

Other Selected Publications:

Intellivision in the Archive. Blog Post for The Strong Museum of Play, 2019. w/ Tom Boellstorff

“Unbalancing Act: The Art and Games of Eddo Stern” In Eddo Stern: Games After Life. The Beall Center of Art + Technology, UC Irvine. Exhibition Essay for Eddo Stern: New Works, 2014, p. 9-16, 2018.

“mémoire involuntaire no. 1,” Electronic Literature Collection Vol. 2, 2010.

“A Dialogue Between Two Eyeballs” Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures, Vol. 4, 2007.

Works included at I Love E-Poetry, database edited by Leonardo Flores.
Graduate Programs
Visual Studies
Last updated
05/07/2024