Daria Romanoff
MA (Trent), BA Hons (Toronto Metropolitan University)
Supervised by: Dr. Brent Ryan Bellamy and Dr. Michael Epp
Committee Member: Dr. Amy Jane Vosper
Working Dissertation Title:
“The Butterfly Affect: Fear and Consequence in Narrative-Driven Horror Videogames”
Fear, as an emotion, as a survival mechanism, and as entertainment, is crucial for understanding human experience. As a cultural theorist of affect and genre, I am interested in how fear is shaped and manipulated by videogame mechanics such as the butterfly effect and how players make decisions in these games while being affected by conflicting emotions to learn what horror gameplay can teach us about fear outside of the gameworld. This autoethnographic doctoral research project is situated within cultural studies, particularly in the disciplines of affect theory, game studies, and horror studies.
Affect, horror, videogames, fear, morality, storytelling, autoethnography
Publications (in progress):
“Playing with Environmental Crises: Sense, Emotion, and Slow Violence in Stray, Eastward, and Cloudpunk”
In Sensing and Resisting Environmental Crises through Visual Culture
University of Exeter Press
“Among the Sleep (2019) – Childhood Trauma as Horror”
In Horror Video Games: A Companion
Peter Lang Publishing
Conferences:
NIGHTMARE '26 (Virtual)
The Northern School of Art
United Kingdom
April 2, 2026
Graduate Symposium
Trent University
Peterborough, ON
April 22, 2026
Connect:
dariaromanoff@trentu.ca
www.linkedin.com/in/dariaromanoff/