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UCI University

Braxton Soderman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Film & Media Studies and co-chairs the Humanities Center’s Digital Humanities Exchange (DHX), a group of faculty, staff, and graduate students who share interests in developing digital avenues for humanities research at UCI.  He researches videogames, critical theory, new media aesthetics, and theories of play. He is the author of Against Flow: Video Games and the Flowing Subject (MIT Press, 2021) which critically analyzes Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of psychological flow in relation to game studies and the concept of play. He recently completed a co-authored book on the Intellivision videogame system, developed by the toy company Mattel in the late 1970s. Intellivision: How a Videogame System Battled Atari and Almost Bankrupted Barbie™ will be published within MIT’s Platform Studies Series in Fall 2024. In addition to his books, Professor Soderman has published articles in differences: a Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, The Journal of Visual Culture, Games and Culture, and elsewhere. He is excited to be working with the Digital Humanities team at UCI and extending its work through a new critical data studies initiative.

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20th Jan 2025, Education in Contemporary Society PhD Programme: Introductory Lecture by Prof. Soderman

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20th Jan 2025, Education in Contemporary Society PhD Programme: Introductory Lecture by Prof. Soderman

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Prof. Soderman held his first lecture entitled 'Flow Theory and Videogame studies for educational research' inspiring PhD students. The professor conducted also an engaging workshop introducing students to interactive exercises.

Chair: Francesca Antonacci.

This seminar critically examined the concept and experience of psychological flow within games, play, and digital cultures. The seminar introduced and analyzed the history, theory, and politics of flow, including its development by the Hungarian American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and its widespread use within the fields of game and play studies. In particular, the seminar offered a critical reading of flow as an ideology, an ideology that privileges individual and personal change over collective forms of social transformation. There is a danger to see flow experiences as offering personal solutions to social problems instead of embracing collective, political solutions to issues of social alienation. Indeed, the seminar analyzed how flow can become a strategy to cope with social alienation instead of solving the underlying issues that cause alienation in society. The seminar also examined contemporary digital media culture as a form of “flow culture,” as media scholar Jay Bolter terms it. Within digital culture, flow is commodified as it is integrated into digital games, tools, algorithmic products, and apps to sustain attentive use by consumers. As a form of flow culture, contemporary digital media perpetuate problems of social alienation. Transforming society to reduce alienation, social inequality, and the addictive effect of contemporary technology requires a critical understanding and rethinking of flow. Once the ideological and detrimental effects of flow theory are understood, we can imagine more positive, social uses of flow, games, and digital technologies to create a more free society.

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27th Jan 2025: Internationalization Days

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27th Jan 2025: Internationalization Days

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This seminar, held with prof. Maresa Bertolo (Politecnico of Milano) and Prof. Federica Pallavini (University of Milano-Bicocca) as discussants, and Francesca Antonacci (University of Milano-Bicocca), as chair, explored methodologies within the digital humanities, particularly in relation to the emergence of platform studies which seeks to understand the importance of the technological structures of new media and “black box” systems. Through a discussion of the recent co-authored book, Intellivision: How a Videogame System Battled Atari and Almost Bankrupted Barbie, seminar participants examined how technology shapes the aesthetics and meaning of digital media products, such as games, and how social, historical, and cultural forces also shape technological development. Focusing on the often-hidden technological structures of media—including hardware, code, and platform architectures—offered a rich perspective through which to understand a technology’s impact on history and culture. As illustrated through research conducted in the book Intellivision, technical perspectives helped scholars reinterpret the “black box” of the history of videogames, understanding digital transformations in new ways such as the influence of analog games and toys on the history of digital games or how social and gendered inequalities in game culture are historically founded and perpetuated.

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11st March 2025: Permanent Seminar: Digital transition and social inequalities. Flow as a strategy of social alienation

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11st March 2025: Permanent Seminar: Digital transition and social inequalities. Flow as a strategy of social alienation

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This seminar, held with Prof. Andrea Galimberti and Prof. Paolo Monti (University of Milano-Bicocca), critically examined the concept and experience of psychological flow within games, play, and digital cultures. The seminar analyzed the history, theory, and politics of flow, offering a critical reading of flow as a neutral ideology. Gamification, virtual reality, and simulations use flow as a strategy to balance skill/challenge and completely absorb the subject in performance. The seminar also linked the experience of flow to individualistic and alienating experiences that contribute to people's self-exploitation in contemporary society. If freedom depends on the possibility of controlling the conditions of our actions, the experience of flow deprives people of their own agency.

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12nd March 2025:  Seminar Flow and Its Twists and Turns in the World of Video Games

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12nd March 2025:  Seminar Flow and Its Twists and Turns in the World of Video Games

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Prof. Soderman with PhD Alan Mattiassi (Game Science Research Center) held a seminar to discuss Game Studies studies and perspectives.

This seminar introduced the psychological experience and theory of flow, particularly in relation to the design and interpretation of games and play. Students learnt what flow experiences are and how flow is discussed and used in contemporary culture. They learnt about the historical emergence of psychological flow theory, its relationship to theories of immersion, and its use within game design to sustain player engagement and enjoyment. Seminar participants also were introduced to problems associated with flow theory, including its use to commodify games and new media. Through hands-on activities with games—including playing the videogame Flow and the popular card game The Mind—students had the opportunity to analyze the implementation of flow in games and the production of both individual and social enjoyment. We also played and discussed other games in relation to flow theory, in order to understand the diversity of flow experiences and how game designers are thinking about flow in the contemporary period.

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17the march 2025: Seminar Critical Play, Francesca Antonacci & Braxton Soderman

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17the march 2025: Seminar Critical Play, Francesca Antonacci & Braxton Soderman

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The seminar examined the relationship between critical theory and play and games, which has been an understudied topic in the history of critical theory.

Critical theory is important to understand the connections between work and play, leisure and labour. Games and play have been theorized as a complete waste and unproductive use of time and effort, so they could be undervalued as cultural objects and, at the same time, used by capitalism and neoliberalism as a way to control our productivity, attention and values. Neoliberalism intensifies and colonizes energies that are inherent in play and games, and thinking critically about these issues could raise the awareness of players and gamers about their experiences. Moreover, critical theory helps us understand the importance of play to analyze processes of neoliberalism in the 21st century.

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Teoria Critica della Società - Università Bicocca

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TCS | Francesca Antonacci e Braxton Soderman "CRITICAL PLAY"

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17th March 2025, Meeting with the Laboratory of Pedagogical Computer Experimentation (LISP) team.

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17th March 2025, Meeting with the Laboratory of Pedagogical Computer Experimentation (LISP) team.

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https://www.formazione.unimib.it/it/dipartimento_eccellenza

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https://www.formazione.unimib.it/en

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Dipartimento di Scienze Umane per la Formazione "Riccardo Massa"

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Seminar report: “Digital Transition and Social Inequalities – Flow as a Strategy of Social Alienation”

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Seminar report now available for download

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Digital Transition and Social Inequalities – Flow as a Strategy of Social Alienation Report

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Digital Transition and Social Inequalities – Flow as a Strategy of Social Alienation Report

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https://www.formazione.unimib.it/it/news/exploring-key-moments-during-prof-sodermans-visiting-department-excellence-programme

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Thanks to (in alphabetic order)

Unimib's Team:

Marina Borghesan

Alessandro Boscardin

Andrea Brambillla

Anna Chinazzi

Davide Cino

Pier Daniel Cornacchia

Paolo Ferri

Andrea Galimberti

Stefano Malatesta

Paolo Monti

Bogdan Novakovic

Federica Pallavicini

Cristina Palmieri

Stefano Pippa

Paolo Pirillo

Mario Vergani

Guido Veronese

Guests:

Maresa Bertolo (Politecnico di Milano)

Alan Mattiassi (Game Science Research Center)

Gionata Soletti (La casa dei giochi)

Each one contributed to the success of the visiting period.

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Multiple Game Sessions at La Casa dei giochi

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Multiple Game Sessions at La Casa dei giochi