Dr. Persephone Blue Berge (“PB,” they/she) is an award-winning media scholar, game designer, teacher, and self-described ludoarsonist . We found them buried beneath an altar to the frog god, covered in dice and death metal albums. An Assistant Professor of Experimental Game Design jointly appointed in the Media and Technology Studies program and Department of Women’s & Gender Studies at The University of Alberta, she researches trans play , tabletop roleplaying games , toxic technocultures , and the so-called “unplayable.” She is also the Co-Director of the Game Development Certificate Program. Their ongoing research projects explore emergent/speculative play—including fantasy consoles, speedrunning, and anti-game design—anti-trans hate networks, the Discord app, and self-immolating games. Her work broadly asks: How can we live in the unlivable and play in the unplayable?

Her published research can be found in journals such as The Journal for Cinema & Media Studies, The Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies, Games & Culture, Game Studies, and New Media & Society as well as in the proceedings at FDG (Best Paper Award), ICIDS, ACM Hypertext, DiGRA, and elsewhere. She is also the director and cofounder of the Discord Academic Research Community, a cofounder of Tabletop Research in Practice, and Directs the CRYPT LAB—a critical “breakerspace”—at the University of Alberta. 

And this isn’t even her final form—just wait until she collects the remaining chaos emeralds!