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Film Studies Prof. Aubrey Anable Wins Society for Cinema & Media Studies First Book Award

Prof. Aubrey Anable
Dr. Aubrey Anable

Prof. Aubrey Anable of Film Studies has received the 2019 Society for Cinema & Media Studies First Book Award.

Aubrey’s bookPlaying with Feelings: Video Games and Affect (University of Minnesota Press, 2018) explores how video gaming intersects with systems like history, bodies, and code.  In Playing with Feelings, Anable offers readers an account of why video games compel us to play and how they constitute a sophisticated structure of emotion and meaning in our increasingly computerized lives.

“Winning the SCMS Best First Book Award reassures me that the kinds of questions I ask about video games, emotions, and aesthetics are resonant with concerns in film and media studies more broadly,” said Prof. Anable.

Playing with Feelings

“Making these kinds of connections, from the specific cases of video games to larger questions about how media work on us and work us over emotionally, was one of my main goals for writing this book. So, this award feels like an acknowledgement that I achieved that goal and it has given me a much-needed push to work on a second book!”

In her research, Anable focuses on digital media aesthetics, video games, affect, cybernetics, critical theory, gender and media technologies, experimental film and video, and queer web cultures.

About SCMS

The Society for Cinema and Media Studies is the leading scholarly organization in the United States dedicated to promoting a broad understanding of film, television, and related media through research and teaching grounded in the contemporary humanities tradition.

SCMS encourages excellence in scholarship and pedagogy and fosters critical inquiry into the global, national, and local circulation of cinema, television, and other related media. SCMS scholars situate these media in various contexts, including historical, theoretical, cultural, industrial, social, artistic, and psychological.

About the Best First Book Award

The Best First Book Award offers a cash prize in recognition of the best first book published in the field of film and media studies in a given year.