STAFF PROFILE
Dr. Stephanie Harkin
Stephanie Harkin is a Lecturer in RMIT's Games Program. She researches feminine gaming cultures and digital histories and is a board member of the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) Australia.
Stephanie's research is interdisciplinary and archival, and has involved collaboration with preservation initiatives and institutions including the National Film and Sound Archive (NSFA), The Video Game History Foundation, the Play it Again Project, and the AUS EaaSI (Emulation as a Service Infrastructure) network. She coined the term "techno-femininity" to explore the resistant potential and popular/post- feminist discourses around technology, gender, and femininity, which she engages particularly through overlooked feminine gaming cultures. Her research philosophy is steered towards accounting for the unaccounted.
Stephanie's research is interested in:
- Game and interactive media studies
- Gender studies
- Critical Femininities
- Preservation
- Web cultures
- Magazine studies
- Australian gaming histories
- Youth cultural production
- Young people and entrepreneurism
Stephanie teaches, lectures and coordinates in the Bachelor of Design (Games) program.
Units delivered include:
- Principals of Play 2
- Games and Culture
- Game Studies
- Play Futures
- PhD in Media and Communications, Swinburne University of Technology.
Thesis: 'Girlhood Games: Gender Identity and Coming of Age in Videogames'
- Bachelor of Arts (with Honours), University of Melbourne.
Major: Screen and Cultural Studies. Minor: History.
- Consultant Content Writer (Games), Creative Victoria
- Freelance Journalism across various Australian publications including ScreenHub, GamesHub, and Metro Magazine
- Involvement in Melbourne Design Week
- Panel participation at PAX Australia
- Appearance on ABC Behind the News (BTN): High
- Guest appearance on Critical Distance Podcast
- Harkin, S. (2022). Doing the Fairy Tale Quest In: Girlhood Studies, 15, 106 - 123
1 PhD Current Supervisions