Recently, Emerging Media Design and Development Graduate Student Ian Gonzales’s research paper: Overlapping Expectations: Studying the Genre Relationship of Ecocritical Genres was accepted by the 17th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling which will take place in Barranquilla, Colombia this December. We spoke with Ian about his research, process, co-authoring a paper with faculty member Dr. Josh Fisher, and overall EMDD journey.
Q: What exactly is your paper about?
Ian: It’s tough to describe, sometimes. So, it’s really about genre. It’s about the ways that we use genres and the way that we think about genres. [Recently,] we shifted from thinking of genres as discrete lists of features towards thinking of them as socially constructed tools…but that those developments haven’t made their way to video games and game scholarship. And so this paper is basically trying to explore and apply these concepts in the games scholarship field.
Q: So what inspired you to kind of write about and research this topic?
Ian: I was writing a paper originally for a conference here at Ball State and I coupled together some research about a game called “Horizon Zero Dawn” and then I decided that, well, you know, we already kind of have half a paper, so we might as well just continue onward and we saw an opportunity to publish with ICIDs. And so we thought that we should just write this paper together.
Q: So how does it feel to be presenting at such a well-known conference?
Ian: It seems weird because I still feel like I don’t know anything. And I think that’s how I approach a lot of life is, “I don’t know a lot.” And so it’s weird sometimes to be, you know, receiving some kind of praise for that or like some acknowledgement of that. But also it’s really nice to think that, “oh, the things that I’ve been learning or things I’ve been doing actually have legitimate meaning,” that they’re recognized by the community they need to be recognized by.
Q: What parts of EMDD or other parts of your academic journey have been the most impactful while going through this process of writing and getting published and now presenting?
Ian: What’s really nice about my EMDD cohort is you get really tight knit close relationships with lots of different students and faculty members and staff, and so, you know, the biggest influence for me, obviously, is my relationship with my mentor Josh Fisher. But also, Jenn Palilonis and Kevin Moloney helped me become a better writer and storyteller. And Tong Li gave me insight into the way that he thinks about academia and research. All those diverse opinions have all been really informative and I don’t think you get a lot of those personal relationships with people in different departments. And I think a huge mark of success for anyone in university is relationships with others.
Q: What has it been like to collaborate with people or get help from people that have previously published work?
Ian: There are many scholars who talk about academic papers as their own genre. They have their own unique purpose and task and so in their own language and their own customs and conventions and all this kind of stuff that I don’t have access to. I mean, obviously you read them, but when you’re producing it, you don’t, you don’t really know the subtleties. And so it’s been really nice to have a collaborator. A lot of what happens I think is I will write an idea and Josh will say well, but here’s how you can elevate it. Here’s how you can highlight you know the better part of this and recognize what’s really good about this piece and what needs to be left behind. I think it’s really nice to have someone who has a lot of that background and history so I can write ideas and then have them elevated to that level and also watch how that’s elevated and watch his thought process and that’s been really great.
Q: What has been your favorite part of the process? What’s been your favorite thing that you’ve learned?
Ian: I really love reading articles. I think it’s really interesting. I like putting ideas together. I think of it like a big old puzzle. And so it’s interesting to see disparate traditions of information and try to find a way to connect them. I think the best part honestly was getting it to a point of submission and understanding you get an initial score and then you get to have a small rebuttal period or a revision period. It was nice to get those, those initial scores and have someone say. “I accept this paper.” That makes me feel really nice that I’m accepted in that.
Q: What advice would you have to either potential EMDD students or first-year students who might want to take the route of research with the hopes of publication?
Ian: I think the easiest thing is just finding something that you’re really passionate about. You know EMDD isn’t a game scholarship program, right? It’s about lots of interactive and digital narratives more broadly. But I was passionate about video games and knew a lot about video games. I knew a lot about game culture and so I was able to convert that passion into a meaningful purpose through EMDD. I think it was about just finding something you like and then finding a professor that’s willing to be engaged with you. I don’t know if Josh was ever truly interested in genre studies before but via the course of this, I think he’s really learned a lot so that we could have meaningful conversations and that he could help me elevate my work. And that’s really great. I think finding something you’re passionate about and finding someone that’s willing to join you on your journey is great and what EMDD is all about.
We want to thank Ian for taking time to share about his journey while completing this project. We wish him luck at the ICIDS Conference in December!