Creating Alternative Worlds: How Play Produces Queer Times and Spaces in Dungeons & Dragons

This dissertation removes queerness from strict identity practices to look at how spaces and times can be queered during moments and movements when players interacted with the fantasy role playing game Dungeons & Dragons. I conducted 7 semi-structured interviews with avid players of Dungeons &am...

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Main Author: Wistow, Hollie
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/72050/
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author Wistow, Hollie
author_facet Wistow, Hollie
author_sort Wistow, Hollie
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description This dissertation removes queerness from strict identity practices to look at how spaces and times can be queered during moments and movements when players interacted with the fantasy role playing game Dungeons & Dragons. I conducted 7 semi-structured interviews with avid players of Dungeons & Dragons to investigate their relationships with play, time, and space. Throughout the dissertation I employ and build on the work of prominent queer scholars of time and space to create my own framework of queer space/time analysed in the context of play. I found numerous routes to queerness including, counter affective feelings in boredom, extreme success, player modifications, wandering of ‘course’ and boredom. These routes are united by their argument that individuals’ expressions and interactions with their play practices can create alternative locations, feelings, and desires - crafting queer worlds and inverting normativity.
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format Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
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institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
language English
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publishDate 2023
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spelling nottingham-720502025-07-31T04:30:07Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/72050/ Creating Alternative Worlds: How Play Produces Queer Times and Spaces in Dungeons & Dragons Wistow, Hollie This dissertation removes queerness from strict identity practices to look at how spaces and times can be queered during moments and movements when players interacted with the fantasy role playing game Dungeons & Dragons. I conducted 7 semi-structured interviews with avid players of Dungeons & Dragons to investigate their relationships with play, time, and space. Throughout the dissertation I employ and build on the work of prominent queer scholars of time and space to create my own framework of queer space/time analysed in the context of play. I found numerous routes to queerness including, counter affective feelings in boredom, extreme success, player modifications, wandering of ‘course’ and boredom. These routes are united by their argument that individuals’ expressions and interactions with their play practices can create alternative locations, feelings, and desires - crafting queer worlds and inverting normativity. 2023-07-31 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en cc_by_nc https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/72050/1/Dissertation%20Final.pdf Wistow, Hollie (2023) Creating Alternative Worlds: How Play Produces Queer Times and Spaces in Dungeons & Dragons. MRes thesis, University of Nottingham. role-playing role-playing games RPGs Dungeons & Dragons D&D queerness queer theory
spellingShingle role-playing
role-playing games
RPGs
Dungeons & Dragons
D&D
queerness
queer theory
Wistow, Hollie
Creating Alternative Worlds: How Play Produces Queer Times and Spaces in Dungeons & Dragons
title Creating Alternative Worlds: How Play Produces Queer Times and Spaces in Dungeons & Dragons
title_full Creating Alternative Worlds: How Play Produces Queer Times and Spaces in Dungeons & Dragons
title_fullStr Creating Alternative Worlds: How Play Produces Queer Times and Spaces in Dungeons & Dragons
title_full_unstemmed Creating Alternative Worlds: How Play Produces Queer Times and Spaces in Dungeons & Dragons
title_short Creating Alternative Worlds: How Play Produces Queer Times and Spaces in Dungeons & Dragons
title_sort creating alternative worlds: how play produces queer times and spaces in dungeons & dragons
topic role-playing
role-playing games
RPGs
Dungeons & Dragons
D&D
queerness
queer theory
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/72050/