The Institute
for Gender\, Race\, Sexuality\, and Social Justice Noted Scholars Series (
co-sponsored by Green College\, UBC Critical Play Lab\, &
UBC Pop Cult
ure Cluster) presents:
WHEN & WHERE
Wednesday January 28\, 2026
12-1pm< /p>
Buchanan Tower\, Room 323
Please RSVP below in advance
A light lunch will be served at 1:00pm
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Abstract:
Settler colonial studies and Indigeno us studies are often assumed to be the same intellectual project. In In digenomicon\, Jodi A. Byrd examines the differences between the two fi elds by bringing video game studies and Indigenous studies into conversatio n with Black studies\, queer studies\, and Indigenous feminist critique. By rd theorizes “the image of the law of the Indigenous” as structuring dispos session in games including Assassin’s Creed\, Animal Crossing< /em>\, BioShock Infinite\, and Demon Souls. They demonstr ate how games and play might reveal histories of slavery\, genocide\, and t heft of Indigenous lands even as their structures obscure Indigenous spatia l and embodied practices that prioritize relationships with land\, water\, plants\, and spirits. With ground and relationality defined as key concepts \, Byrd centers Indigenous visions of dystopias to reveal how game spaces e ncode settler structures of governance even as the design of games might ye t provide vital modes of resistance to Indigenous erasure.
About Dr. Jodi A. Byrd
Jodi A. Byrd is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and professor of Race\ , Diaspora\, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago. Their first book The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism (University of Minnesota Press\, 2011) won the 2013 Best First Book of the Year award from the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association\, and the 2012 Word craft Circle Award for Academic Work of the Year. Byrd co-edited the collec tion Colonial Racial Capitalism with Susan Koshy\, Lisa Marie Cacho\, and B rian Jefferson published by Duke in 2022 and also co-edits the Northwestern University Press’ Critical Insurgencies series with Michelle Wright. Their book\, Indigenomicon: American Indians\, Video Games\, and the Structures of Dispossession is forthcoming from Duke in early November. Prior to joini ng the University of Chicago\, they were a professor in Literatures in Engl ish at Cornell University. They also helped build the American Indian Studi es at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2006–2015\, and s erved as Acting Director of AIS during the 2013–2014 academic year. They ha ve held an appointment in Indigenous Politics at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa and they received their PhD in English from the University of Iowa in 2002.
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