Staff Profile

Background

I am Degree Programme Director for Digital Cultures & Media (BA Hons)

I research and teach in the areas of digital cultures, taking a practice-based and theoretically informed approach to interactive digital media. I particularly focus on digital games and landscapes, drawing from ethnographic, phenomenological, feminist and practice-based approaches.

Qualifications

PhD, University of Durham

• Rush-Cooper, N. (2013) Exposures: Exploring Selves and Landscapes in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Doctoral thesis, Durham University. Available at: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/8490/

MA, University of Durham

BA(hons), University of Leeds

Postgraduate research / PhD supervision

I am keen to hear from students interested in undertaking research in the areas of digital interactive media, digital games, popular digital culture, phenomenological approaches, STS and feminist epistemologies as well as ethnographic and digital approaches to tourism.

Current supervision

Danae Peguero (with Dr Areti Galani and Prof. John Pendlebury)

Research Interests:

I research digital cultures, with a focus on digital games. My work draws from phenomenological and feminist theory, particularly the work of Merleau-Ponty and Irigaray, and utilises ethnographic and practice-based approaches.

• Digital games & interactive digital media
• Theories and cultures of landscape
• Phenomenology & Post-phenomenology
• Feminist theories & epistemologies
• Ethnography
• Tourism & travel in spaces of disaster.

Current projects:

#virtual photography:

Building from the premise that video games are landscapes (and not just representations of landscapes), and can be methodologically treated as such, this research project aims to develop practices that adapt the 'go along' / walking interview for virtual spaces and examine the creative practice of virtual photography in video game worlds in the context of broader landscape cultures and theory.

University students and the use of large language models:

This research examines conversations on the social media platform Reddit to investigate how students are collectively navigating and negotiating the use of machine learning (AI) for the purposes of study and assessment in higher education.

Past projects:

Chernobyl

For my PhD Exposures: Exploring Selves and Landscapes in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone I worked as a tour guide for the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone for nine months.

Degree Programme Director

Digital Cultures & Media (BA Hons)

Undergraduate 

MCH1001 - Introduction to Digital Cultures - Module Leader

MCH2090 - Critical Digital Making 2 - Module Leader

MCH1002 - Critical Digital Making 1

Previous Teaching

MCH2069 - Research Methods - Module Leader

• Article

  • Rush-Cooper N. Nuclear Landscape: tourism, embodiment and exposure in the Chernobyl Zone. Cultural Geographies 2020, 27(2), 217-235.

• Book Chapter

  • Rush-Cooper N. Radiation, Ruins and the Post-Apocalyptic Stories: The Chornobyl Landscape in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. In: Holloway, P; Jordan-Baker, C, ed. Writing Landscape and Setting in the Anthropocene: Britain and Beyond. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024, pp.171-192.

• Online Publication

  • Rush-Cooper N. Chernobyl and Stalker: ‘Splinters of the Soviet Empire’. Toxicnews.org, 2016. Available at: https://toxicnews.org/2016/05/03/chernobyl-and-stalker-splinters-of-the-soviet-empire/.