Juan Carlos Escobar-Lamanna is a Ph.D. candidate in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies.
His primary research interests focus on videogames, preferred player identities and forms of play, non-normative gameplay (playing games in ways unintended by game developers) and their intersection with critical disability studies. His other research interests include: communities created around videogames, live-streaming on Twitch.tv, and the voluntary digital labour undertaken by modders and other videogame-focused communities in relation to exploitable labour.
He
received his M.A. in Contemporary Art Histories: New Media from OCAD
University and has a B.A. in Cinema and Media Studies from York
University.
Refereed Publications
Escobar-Lamanna, Juan and Adan Jerreat-Poole. "Critical Play and Crip Game Design." In Digital Methods for Disability Studies, edited by Esther Ignagni, Adan Jerreat-Poole, Hannaford Edwards, and Tali Cherniawsky. Toronto: Toronto Metropolitan Unviersity, 2022. https://pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca/digitaldisabilitystudies/.
Escobar-Lamanna, Juan and Adan Jerreat-Poole. "Interactive Fiction/Twine Workshop." In Digital Methods for Disability Studies,
edited by Esther Ignagni, Adan Jerreat-Poole, Hannaford Edwards, and
Tali Cherniawsky. Toronto: Toronto Metropolitan Unviersity, 2022.
https://pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca/digitaldisabilitystudies/.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Conference Activity
Papers Presented
"Demons, Doom Slayers, and Twitter: Tweet2Doom as Critical Play on an Advertising Platform." Popular Culture Association National Conference (virtual), April 13-16, 2022.
"Poké Balls and Produsers: Free Labour and Twitch Plays Pokémon." Recuperating Joy: Symbiotic Connections, Optimisms, and Unproblematic Faves, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON (virtual), May 8-9, 2021.
Conference Organization
International conference co-organizer & moderator: "Communicating
Multi-Modally: Research and Expressive Culture" (ICA preconference).
International Communication Association, Paris, May 26, 2022.
Institutional conference co-organizer & moderator: "Networks of Experience: Art and (Dis)embodiment." OCAD University, Toronto, ON, Mar. 15-16, 2019.
Ontario Graduate Scholarship, Western University, 2022-2023, $15,000.
Western University Graduate Research Scholarship, Western University, 2022-2023, $6,000.
Ontario Graduate Scholarship, Western University, 2021-2022, $15,000.
Western University Graduate Research Scholarship, Western University, 2020-2021, $6,650.
Dean's Entrance Scholarship, Western University, 2020, $5,000.
Contemporary Art, Design, and New Media Art Histories Program Award: Honorable Mention, OCAD University, 2019, $400.
OCAD University President's Scholarship (CADN), OCAD University, 2017-2019, $18,750.
