Dr Chloe Germaine
Reader
My profile
Biography
I am a Reader in the Department of English, researching and teaching across the disciplines of Literature, Creative Writing and Game Studies. I am Co-Director of the Manchester Game Centre, a cross-faculty research group that brings together work on games from the Arts, Humanities, Social Science, Business and Management, Environmental Sciences and Computer Science.
Interests and expertise
My innovative research investigates how culture, creativity, and play can tackle climate change and other social issues. Working across Game Studies and Literature I develop new approaches to address the imaginative challenge represented by environmental crisis and attendant feelings of powerlessness among marginalised groups. Since gaining my PhD in literary studies (2016), I have developed expertise in several areas: literary criticism and theory, which I have deployed in the areas of Gothic Studies and Children’s Literature; co-production and participatory research methods, which I have developed to support young people’s politics on climate change; and Game Studies, where I am building a reputation in game design for sustainability and social impact. Though these research areas are distinct, my work forges cognate connections between them.
I am also a creative working in the indie game design space. My original games have been published with indie game distributors and I am currently putting together a kickstarter campaign for a new roleplaying game, Rooted in Crisis. This work is underpinned by academic research and seeks to bridge academia and the creative industries.
University roles and affiliations
- Co-director of the Manchester Game Centre
- Co-lead of STRATEGIES: A Sustainable Transition for Europe’s Game Industries
- Affiliate Member of the Manchester Centre for Youth Studies
- Carbon Literacy Champion
Academic and professional qualifications
- MA by Research (Literary Studies)
- PhD English
- PGCE English
- Fellow of the HEA
External roles
- Chair of Game in Lab Scientific Committee.
- External Examiner (Research Degrees) at Sheffield Hallam University, University of York, Australian National University
- External Examiner (BA and MA Taught Programmes) at The University of Stirling, Falmouth University.
- Peer Reviewer for Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, Fantastika Journal, Journal of Victorian Culture, Feminist Media Studies, Feminist Theory, Revenant, Studies in Gothic Fiction, International Journal of Role-Playing, International Journal of Young Adult Literature, Gothic Nature, Meaningful Play, Fafnir, Journal of Commonwealth Literature
- Expert Reviewer for the University of Mississippi Press, the University of Wales Press, Bloomsbury Academic.
Projects
Current Projects
I have been working with a team of game designers, climate scientists and activists on a new creative project, Rooted in Crisis – an eco-horror Game Anthology for tabletop play. It is rules-light, focussed on storytelling and rooted in the award-winning horror game Trophy, designed by US Game Designer, Jesse Ross. The project was conceived through discussions between climate scientists, game studies academics, and game designers about the possibility of roleplaying games as a teaching tool in the environmental sciences, specifically to counter the feelings of powerlessness that come up when facing the climate crisis. The result is six diverse but interconnected games exploring different facets of humanity’s impact on the ecosystem. In her contribution, which frames the collection, ‘A History of the Future in Five Rings’, Chloé Germaine explores a meta-history of the future of climate crisis through a series of tipping points and moments of crisis. Rooted in Crisis will launch on Kickstarter in 2024.
STRATEGIES: A Sustainable Transition for Europe’s Game Industries, 2024-2028
3.9M Euro project, co-funded by Horizon Europe and Innovate UK
Europe’s game developers are a vital cultural and creative industry (CCI) whose capacity to meet climate goals must be achieved as a matter of urgency. There are over 4,900 video game developer studios in Europe, employing 98,000 people, with a combined revenue of €23.3bn. Although smaller in size, Europe’s board game industry is also a significant CCI, with revenues projected to reach $4 billion by 2023. In both video and analogue game development, micro and small enterprises represent over 90% of the industries. This presents specific challenges in the climate transition for the game industries. STRATEGIES will provide the support needed to facilitate decarbonization and move towards sustainable production practices in which games and game technologies are fully recyclable. STRATEGIES also supports game developers as first movers among Europe’s CCIs, paving the way in green technological developments. Game development is an innovative design practice that can be harnessed to drive an inclusive societal climate transition. STATEGIES therefore not only addresses the challenges faced by the game industries, but seizes on the opportunities for game developers, and on the unprecedented reach of games among European citizens.
To address the challenges and opportunities facing Europe’s game developers, the STRATEGIES project offers a programme of research devised by small and micro game developers at the forefront of green transformations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) supporting business development of the game industries in Finland, Germany, and the Netherlands, experts working at the intersection of policy and sustainability science, and academics working at the leading-edge of the study of games and climate change.
STRATEGIES develops policy recommendations and business model analysis to unlock the potential of the game industries to drive societal change. We are developing leading-edge carbon accounting tools for both analogue and video game production and carbon literacy training for game developers.
The reach of games is huge: 52% of the population between the ages of 6 and 64 plays video games. Recognising this, our research will develop and promote improved game design for sustainability, helping the game industries make games to support the behavior changes among citizens that will be key to the success of policy aimed at societal transformation.
Previous Projects
Young Climate Imaginaries (2020-2022)
Funded by the Independent Social Research Foundation
How do young people orient themselves towards climate change and debates on climate change responses? This interdisciplinary group project investigates how literature and politics enrich one another, leading to new understandings of the relation of young people to the climate crisis. This project brings together the co-investigators, Dr Chloé Germaine and Dr Benjamin Bowman, who have expertise in youth literature and politics, with a small group of young people as co-researchers to analyse the role of creative fiction in the development of political subjectivities and attitudinal transformation.
We investigate the use of fiction particularly as it pertains to young people, those who are its object of representation and readership but, rarely, its authors. By constructing a research group that draws on the expertise and experiences of young people we aim to further academic and popular understanding on the question of young people’s orientation towards the climate crisis and the narratives that surround it. We propose imaginative fiction written for and by young people as a resource to transform political discourse around youth and the climate crisis beyond limiting questions of participation and civic engagement.
Games Imagining the Future (2021-2022)
Funded by Game in Lab and the Libelled Foundations
The aim of this project is to examine how board games can support young people’s understanding of, and action on, the climate crisis. The project contends that the climate crisis is a social problem and an imaginative challenge, especially for young people whose futures are most affected by it. This project thus includes a consideration of board games as a tool for climate education, but also self-consciously investigates them as a means for young people (aged 16-19) to explore and communicate their ideas about climate change, social transformation and the future. In this project, young gamers are co-actors in an exchange of knowledge between games, game designers, academics and young people themselves.
The project poses the following research questions:
1. How can board games support young people’s understanding of the climate crisis?
2. How can board games support young people in communicating their ideas about the climate crisis?
3. How can young people’s ideas and expertise about climate change help improve board game design on these themes?
Previous Projects
- Europe and the Child: Crisis, Activism, Culture (2020) - Funded by the Jean Monnet Centre for Excellence
- Young Adult Book Clubs (2019-2020) - Funded by the Siobhan Dowd Trust
- Beyond Twilight (2014-2016) - Funded by Lancaster University
Teaching
Subject areas
Game Studies
Analogue Game Studies
Environmental Humanities
Children’s and YA Literatures
Supervision
I am interested in supervising projects related to the following themes
- Children’s and Young Adult Fiction and the Environment
- Children’s and Young Adult Fiction and decolonisation
- The Literatures and Media of Fantastika
- Literature and Philosophy, specifically Speculative Realisms and New Materialisms
- Game Studies, specifically role-playing games, LARP, and/or board games
- Game Studies, specifically the crossover with gothic and/or horror
- Game Studies and Ecology/ the Environment
- Material Game Studies/ Analogue Game Studies
Previous and Current PhD Students
- Leone Betts, A Creative Writer’s Investigation into the Functions of Paternal Characters in Young Adult and Children’s Fiction (Creative/Critical)
- Fredrik Blanc, ‘In Deep Waters’: Thalassophobia and Oceanic Transcorporealities in Modern and Contemporary Horror Fiction
- Melissa Chatterton, Exploring Gender and Sexuality Identities in and through Live Action Roleplaying Games (Creative/Critical)
- Nicole Dittmer, Wilderness and Female Monstrosity: A Material Ecofeminist Reading of Victorian Gothic
- Alice Durocher, Gothic Cities: Manchester, Edinburgh and Paris in Contemporary Literature and the Cultural Imagination
- Peter Chukwunonso Ezeiyoke, The Evolution of Anglophone West African Speculative Fiction
- Kirsten Flournay, Cycle: A Feminist Gothic Novel (Creative/Critical)
- Charlotte Gislam, Artificial Intelligence and Dynamic Spatial Storytelling in Digital Games
- David Griffiths, Gendering in Paranormal Young Adult fiction (Creative/Critical)
- Connie Hamilton, Whitewashing, White Supremacy and White Saviours: Young Adult Fantasy (Creative/Critical)
- Esther Hudson, The Banshee: A Gendered Reading and Writing of Anglo-Irish History (Creative/Critical)
- Alexandra Peilober-Richardson, Young Adult Climate Fiction (Creative/Critical)
- Victoria Smith, Technology and Posthuman Evolution in Young Adult-focused Post-millennial Narratives
- Jack Warren, Performing Reality: Queering Role-Play and Subjectivity in Virtual Spaces
- Isobelle Whinnett, We Build Our Girls Grieving: Queer Female Voices in Gothic YA (Creative/Critical)
Research outputs
My research expertise spans English Literature, especially the Gothic and other modes of the Fantastic in fiction, the Environmental Humanities and Game Studies.
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Artefacts
Germaine, C. (2022) The Bureau of Irregularities. The Gauntlet's Codex Magazine: Time.
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Books (authored/edited/special issues)
Germaine, C. (2023) The Dark Matter of Children’s 'Fantastika' Literature Speculative Entanglements. Bloomsbury Perspectives on Chi.
Germaine, C., Wake, P. (2022) Material Game Studies: A Philosophy of Analogue Play.
Germaine, C. (2019) The Cthulhu Hack: Mother's Love. Just Crunch Games.
Germaine, C. The Dark Matter of Children's "Fantastika" Literature Speculative Entanglements. Bloomsbury Academic.
Buckley, C.A. (2017) Twenty-First-Century Children's Gothic. Edinburgh University Press.
Ilott, S. (2017) “Telling it Slant”: Critical Approaches to Helen Oyeyemi. Sussex Academic Press.
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Chapters in books
Germaine, C., Bowman, B., Kishinani, P., Balchin, C. (2024) 'The Climate Imaginary: Reading Fiction to Make Sense of the Climate Crisis.' In Atkinson, J.W., Ray, S.J. (ed.) The Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators: How to Teach in a Burning World. University of California Press, Berkeley,
Germaine, C., Wake, P. (2024) 'Imagining the future: game hacking and climate action.' In op de Beke, L., Raessens, J., Werning, S., Farca, G. (ed.) Ecogames: Playful Perspectives on the Climate Crisis. Amsterdam University Press, pp. 483-504.
Germaine, C. (2023) 'Uncanny Globalgothic Ecologies: Animate Intimacies.' The Edinburgh Companion to Globalgothic. Edinburgh University Press,
Germaine, C. (2023) ''Nature' games in a time of climate crisis.' In Germaine, C., Wake, P. (ed.) Material Game Studies: A Philosophy of Analogue Play. Bloomsbury, pp. 143-162.
Germaine, C., Wake, P. (2022) 'Introduction: Material Game Studies.' Material Game Studies A Philosophy of Analogue Play. Bloomsbury, pp. 1-18.
Germaine, C. (2021) 'Unhuman Entanglement: Onto-Ethics and the Fiction of Frances Hardinge.' In Smith, M.J., Moruzi, K. (ed.) Young Adult Gothic Fiction: Monstrous Selves/Monstrous Others. University of Wales Press, pp. 199-217.
Germaine, C. (2020) 'Gameful Interactions: The ‘Ludification’ of Zombie Fiction.' Death, Culture & Leisure Playing Dead. Emerald Publishing Limited,
Germaine, C. (2020) 'Encounters with the ‘Hidden’ World in Modern Children’s Fiction.' The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan,
Germaine, C. (2020) 'Encountering Weird Objects: Lovecraft, LARP, and Speculative Philosophy.' Diseases of the Head: Essays on the Horror of Speculative Philosophy. Punctum Books,
Germaine Buckley, C. (2019) 'Weird History/ Weird Knowledge: H. P. Lovecraft versus Sherlock Holmes in Shadows over Baker Street.' Sideways in Time Critical Essays on Alternate History Fiction. Liverpool University Press,
Germaine Buckley, C. (2018) '“You Don’t Think I’m Like Any Other Boy. That’s Why You’re Afraid”: Haunted/Haunting Children from The Turn of the Screw to Tales of Terror.' The Palgrave Handbook to Horror Literature. Palgrave Macmillan,
Germaine Buckley, C.A. (2018) 'Metamorphosis of the Blood: Vampiric Femininity in Contemporary Children’s Fiction.' Growing up with Vampires: Essays on the Undead in Children's Media. McFarland,
Germaine Buckley, C.A. (2018) 'Jeremy Dyson's The Haunted Book (2012), the Gothic Child and the West Yorkshire Moors.' Gothic Britain Dark Places in the Provinces and Margins of the British Isles. University of Wales Press,
Ilott, S.E., Germaine Buckley, C.A. (2017) 'Introduction.' Telling It Slant: Critical Approaches to Helen Oyeyemi. Sussex Academic Press,
Germaine Buckley, C.A. (2017) 'Gothic Children in Boy Snow Bird, The Opposite House and The Icarus Girl.' Telling It Slant Critical Approaches to Helen Oyeyemi. Sussex Academic Press,
Ilott, S.E., Germaine Buckley, C.A. (2017) 'Conclusions.' Telling it Slant: Critical Approaches to Helen Oyeyemi. Sussex Academic Press,
Buckley, C.A. (2017) '"Do Panic. They’re Coming:" Remaking the Weird in Contemporary Children’s Fiction.' New Directions in Gothic Children's Literature. Routledge,
Germaine Buckley, C.A. (2016) 'Young Adult Horror.' Horror Literature through History: An Encyclopedia of the Stories that Speak to Our Deepest Fears. ABC CLIO GREENWOOD,
Germaine Buckley, C.A. (2016) 'Gender, Sexuality and the Monsters of Literary Horror.' Horror Literature through History: An Encyclopedia of the Stories that Speak to Our Deepest Fears. ABC-CLIO GREENWOOD,
Buckley, C.A. (2013) 'The Gothic and the Child Reader 1850 - Present.' The Gothic World. Routledge,
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Reports
Bowman, B., Germaine, C. (2021) Not (just) a protest: the Youth Strike for Climate as cultural exchange and collaborative text. British Council.
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Internet publications
Germaine, C. (2024) The Play of Classrooms, in Contemporary Literature from the Classroom. https://post45.org/2024/05/the-play-of-classrooms/.
Bowman, B., Byrne, E., Germaine Buckley, C. (2019) Climate change: children are carving out a place in politics – now adults must listen and act. https://theconversation.com/climate-change-children-are-carving-out-a-place-in-politics-now-adults-must-listen-and-act-123704.
Buckley, C.A. (2015) Crimson Peak – a gothic romance that takes us back to the feminine early days of horror. http://theconversation.com/crimson-peak-a-gothic-romance-that-takes-us-back-to-the-feminine-early-days-of-horror-49396.
Buckley, C.A. (2015) Helen Oyeyemi: The Opposite House in The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: Postwar and Contemporary English Writing and Culture , 1945-present.. http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35616.
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Journal articles
Hayes, T., Walker, C., Parsons, K., Arya, D., Bowman, B., Germaine, C., Lock, R., Langford, S., Peacock, S., Thew, H. (2023) 'In it together! Cultivating space for intergenerational dialogue, empathy and hope in a climate of uncertainty.' Children's Geographies, 21(5) pp. 803-818.
Germaine, C. (2022) 'The Magic Circle as Occult Technology.' Analog Game Studies, 9(4)
Germaine, C. (2022) 'Book review: Fear and Nature: Ecohorror Studies in the Anthropocene.' Gothic Nature, (3) pp. 317-324.
Bowman, B., Germaine, C. (2022) 'Sustaining the old world, or imagining a new one? The transformative literacies of the climate strikes.' Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 38(1) pp. 70-84.
Germaine, C., Dodd, K. (2021) 'Introduction: Adapting Lovecraft in Weird Times.' Studies in Gothic Fiction, 7(Special Issue) pp. 4-8.
Germaine, C., Mitchell, L. (2021) 'Weird Experience: Transformations of Space/Place in Lovecraftian LARP.' Studies in Gothic Fiction, 7(Special Issue) pp. 30-40.
Nunn, C., Germaine, C., Ogden, C., Miah, Y., Marsh, J., Kitching, R., Kathrada, N., Hough, K., Harper, I. (2021) 'Precarious Hope: Situated Perspectives on the COVID-19 Pandemic from Undergraduate Students in Manchester, UK.' Journal of Applied Youth Studies, 4(5) pp. 429-444.
Germaine Buckley, C. (2019) 'Witches, 'Bitches' or Feminist Trailblazers? The Witch in Folk Horror Cinema.' Revenant: Creative and Critical Studies of the Supernatural, (4) pp. 22-42.
Germaine Buckley, C. (2019) 'A tale of two women: the female grotesque in Showtime’s Penny Dreadful.' Feminist Media Studies, 20(3) pp. 361-380.
Buckley, C.A. (2018) 'Reading ‘Fundamental British Values’ Through Children’s Gothic: Imperialism, History, Pedagogy.' Children's Literature in Education, 51(1) pp. 21-40.
Germaine Buckley, C.A., Ilott, S. (2017) 'Feminist Rewritings of the Spiritual and Physical Wilderness of the Bush.' Fantastika, 1(2) pp. 32-35.
Ilott, S., Buckley, C. (2016) 'Fragmenting and becoming double": Supplementary twins and abject bodies in Helen Oyeyemi's the Icarus Girl.' Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 51(3) pp. 402-415.
Buckley, C.A.G. (2016) 'How monsters are made: ‘No remorse, no pity’ in Shelley, Dickens and Priestley’s Mister Creecher.' Horror Studies, 7(1) pp. 25-40.
Buckley, C.G. (2015) 'Psychoanalysis, “Gothic” Children’s Literature, and the Canonization of Coraline.' Children's Literature Association Quarterly, 40(1) pp. 58-79.
Buckley, C. (2014) 'The twilight of the gothic, joseph crawford (2014).' Horror Studies, 5(2) pp. 265-272.
Buckley, C. (2014) '“Hatcht up in Villanie and Witchcraft”:.' Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural, 3(1) pp. 85-109.
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Non-peer reviewed articles / reviews
Germaine, C. (2018) Roger Luckhurst, H. P. Lovecraft: The Classic Horror Stories. Edited with an Introduction and Notes..
Germaine, C. (2018) Emma McEvoy, Gothic Tourism.
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Conference papers
Germaine, C. (2023) 'Dark forests and doomed adventurers: an ecocritical reading of horror roleplaying games.' In Generation Analog: the Tabletop Games and Education Conference 2021. Online, 27/7/2021 - 28/7/2021. Torner, E., Jones, S., Chang, E., Condis, M., Trammell, A. (ed.) Pittsburgh, PA: ETC Press, pp. 129-140.