Al Valentín is a PhD Student in Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. Their research focuses primarily on pop culture and how it works to simultaneously reflect and shape the way that we talk about and experience gender identity, sexual orientation, race, class, size and ability via affective investments and entanglements. As an avid gamer, their current work examines both the progressive potential and the political limits of videogames through an analysis of how affect is deployed and received in the context of game design, game play and gaming communities. They’ve presented their work on gaming, animation and affect around the country at doctoral institutes, colleges, universities and national conferences. In addition to their research, they have taught and assisted courses such as Introduction to Gender, Race and Sexuality, Comparative Feminisms: Black Feminist Thought in the African Diaspora and Gendered Professions: Care Work In The Transnational Economy. They’re currently developing an undergraduate course bringing together game studies, black feminist theory and affect theory.
