W&M Featured Events
The Kafkaesque in Video Games - Dr. Melissa Kagen
Access & Features
- Open to the public
This talk traces parallels between Jewish-Czech author Franz Kafka’s fiction and diaries with the work of acclaimed American-Canadian videogame creator Davey Wreden (The Stanley Parable, The Beginner’s Guide, Wanderstop). In both artists’ personal accounts, they describe struggles with meaninglessness, depression, artistic insecurity, and the inescapable pressures of modern bureaucracy and work. These themes also pervade Kafka’s and Wreden’s creative output, with Wreden's player often put into the experience of a Kafka protagonist. In The Stanley Parable (2013), Wreden’s most famous game to date, the player operates Stanley, an office worker whose actions are narrated by an omniscient voiceover that renders every decision predetermined and results in a series of increasingly absurd deaths. In The Beginner’s Guide (2015), a series of short games rife with references to Kafka’s parables, the autobiographical frame story (narrated by Wreden) twists the viewer’s desire to understand into an act of unethical consumption. In Wreden’s newest game Wanderstop (March 2025), the player character is so burned out from their life as a workaholic warrior that they find themselves trapped and serving tea in a purgatorial teashop in a magical forest. This talk will compare the depiction of depression and absurdity in Kafka and Wreden, the different affordances available in each artists’ chosen genre, and how their work refuses comfortable understanding or domestication.
Speaker Bio:
Melissa Kagen received her PhD from Stanford University in 2016 with a dissertation on early 20th century German Jewish opera. She is now an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Interactive Media & Game Development program at WPI, where she teaches critical game studies, tabletop game design, and physical interactive experiences like escape room design. Her first book, Wandering Games, came out with MIT Press in 2022 and is available open access. She has published work in peer reviewed journals (Game Studies, Convergence, Gamevironments, German Quarterly, Opera Quarterly) and written essays for popular outlets (The Guardian, tor.com). She serves as Editor of the Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds.
Sponsored by: Judaic Studies Program