ABOUT

Kathryn Fedchun (she/her) is a PhD candidate at Carleton University in the School of Journalism and Communication. She has been a Fellow at the Research on Comics, Con Events, and Transmedia Laboratory (RoCCET Lab) since 2020. In this role, she has conducted fieldwork and co-presented a paper and zine on SDCC policies at the Comic Arts Conference at San Diego Comic Con in 2023, presented work from the lab at several academic conferences including the Canadian Communication Association conference (2023 & 2024) and the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference (2025), and co-presented a workshop on convention policies in 2025 at the Music and Gaming Festival (MAGfest). She completed her undergraduate degree in sociology and philosophy at Queen’s University. She has a diploma from the Assaulted Women and Children’s Counsellor and Advocate (AWCCA) program at George Brown College, and she worked as a counsellor in a women’s shelter for two years before starting her master’s degree. She received a master’s degree in sociology with a specialization in gender studies from the University of Ottawa—her thesis looked at masculinity, failure, and subversive play in the video game League of Legends. She has written about affect theory and Star Wars. Her dissertation focuses on the Queer Games Bundles released on the independent gaming platform itch.io every year during Pride month as affective, archived snapshots of a queer, indie game scene. She is generally interested in queer theory, game studies, comic studies, & affective media.