Dr Paul Wake

My work contributed to one of Manchester Metropolitan University’s impact case studies for REF2021.

Viddying with Fresh Glazzies: Promoting New Public and Creative Engagement with the Cultural Legacy of Anthony Burgess

Professor Andrew Biswell and Dr Paul Wake’s work on Anthony Burgess has revived and significantly broadened the cultural appeal of the writer’s legacy among twenty-first-century audiences and artists, extending public and creative engagement well beyond A Clockwork Orange and the written word. These publications have created new worldwide audiences for Burgess’s work, making it available in countries where it had been censored, with translations into Maltese, Chinese, Malay, Turkish, and Romanian appearing for the first time. Moreover, their work on Burgess (and that of the Burgess Foundation, of which Biswell is the director) has stimulated the proliferation of new cultural productions across various genres and media, including theatrical performances, films, music, and public artworks.

Sustainable Transition for Europe’s Game Industries (2024-2028)

STRATEGIES - Sustainable TRAnsiTion for Europe’s Game IndustrIES is a Horizon Europe funded project that supports Europe’s game industries in realising their potential as drivers of sustainable innovation, contributing to achieving the goals of the European Green Deal and delivering an economy that works for people.

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 (ISFE and EGDF, 2022). 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.

The STRATEGIES consortium comprises TH Kohn – University of Applied Sciences, Aalborg University, the University of Warsaw, University of Malta, games advisors SpielFabrique, industry incubators Dutch Game Garden, game developers Goat Gamez, indie game studio Charles Games, board game development studio Mighty Boards, non-profit association for the Finnish games industry Neogames, climate action charity Possible, platform Charisma Entertainment, and indie games developer Tabletop Playground.

Games Imagining the Future (2021-2022)

Funded by Game in Lab and the Libellud Foundation

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.

1. The project poses the following research questions:
2. How can board games support young people’s understanding of the climate crisis?
3. How can board games support young people in communicating their ideas about the climate crisis?
4. How can young people’s ideas and expertise about climate change help improve board game design on these themes?

SMOG – co-creating a card game with primary school children to explore indoor air quality (2022)

Funded by HCI Skills Gateway

The aim of the SMOG project is to engage children and young people in discussions of indoor air quality. Working with Natalie Bain-Reguis, (Edinburgh Napier University) Dr Sam Illingworth and Tony Pickering (Pick-Art), my role in the project is to design and test a game that can be used to raise awareness and develop dialogue about indoor air quality amongst primary school children (plus their parents and teachers). The impact of the game will be evaluated using a mixed-methods survey, and a print-and-play version of the game will be made freely available online. This work builds on my research on games and science communication, and previous game design projects on environmental topics (Carbon City Zero and Catan: Global Warming).

The Irwell Edition of the Works of Anthony Burgess (2017-)

I am General Editor, with Professor Andrew Biswell, of The Irwell Edition of the Works of Anthony Burgess, a series for which I edited Burgess’s science fiction novel Puma. The series takes its title from a collected edition outlined by Anthony Burgess himself in the 1980s but never achieved during his lifetime. Each volume is edited by an expert scholar, presenting an authoritative annotated text alongside an introduction detailing the genesis and composition of the work, and the history of its reception. The appendices will make available previously unpublished documents from the Anthony Burgess archives held at institutional libraries in Europe and North America, in addition to rare and out-of-print materials relating to Burgess’s writing. The Irwell Edition is designed for students, teachers, scholars and general readers who are seeking accessible but rigorous critical editions of each book. The series as a whole will contribute to the ongoing task of encouraging renewed interest in all aspects of Anthony Burgess’s creative work.

Carbon City Zero (2020-2021)

Carbon City Zero: World Edition is a collaborative deck-building game commissioned by the climate action charity Possible and co-created with key stakeholders to generate dialogue about decarbonisation. The game was released in 2020, followed by a second (collaborative) edition, Carbon City Zero: World Edition, in 2021. Since its release on Kickstarter (where it raised over £30,000 from over 1,000 backers) Carbon City Zero has been made available as a free Print and Play game on PNP Arcade where it has been downloaded over 5000 times, and as an online game on Tabletopia. The game was presented at the 2021 Now Play Thisfestival, and has featured in the science journal Nature Energy (here), on numerous blogs (e.g. here and here) and podcasts (e.g. here and here), and in high profile media publications such as Wired and has been translated into Dutch and Italian.  The game has been used in universities across the world (including The University of Manchester, The University of Western Australia, and TU Delft in the Netherlands) as part of higher education teaching and learning for climate change and sustainability.  

Postgraduate teaching

I am interested in supervising work on games and gaming, narrative theory

I am currently supervising the following PhDs:

Charlotte Gislam, Video Games and Space. [DoS]

Chris Neilan, Narrative Structure in Crime Cinema.

Jack Warren, Performing Reality: Role-Play, Queer Theory and New Materialism’ [DoS]

I have been on the supervisory teams of the following completed PhDs:

Christopher Thurley, Responses to the Culture and Politics of the United States of America in the Novels and Non-Fiction of Anthony Burgess, 1960–1993. Conferred 2022.

Matthew Graham, Frustrated Fictions: Literary Extremity & Disillusionment with Postmodernity in 20th Century American Writing. Conferred 2021.

Siobhan O’Connor, Literary Representations of the Tudors, the Neoliberal Imagination and English National Identity. Conferred 2021. [DoS]

Rachel Lichtenstein, Contemporary British Place Writing: Origins, Definitions, New directions. Conferred 2020. [DoS]

Spencer Meeks, Corrective Lenses: Reading the Neuro-Turn. Conferred 2020.

Jean Sprackland, Creative Writing on Place and Nature. Conferred 2016. [DoS]

Aaron Jackson, The Construction and (Re)negotiation of End-of-Empire National Identity in JRR Tolkien. Conferred 2015.

Jonathan Mann, Intertextual Poetics: Modernism and the Poet-Figure in the Work of Anthony Burgess. Conferred 2013.

John Rowe, Absolute Risk and the Challenge of Responsibility. Conferred 2013.

Paul Wake has published on game studies; narrative and literary theory; interactive fiction; children’s literature; late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century fiction. He is also a game designer and has published a number of games on environmental topics.