Ilya Brookwell

Professor Ilya Brookwell’s research centers on video gamers, live-streaming and online community, particularly as these intersect with politics. His current book project explores gamers as citizens and asks how they are political in light of their activities on live-streams. His manuscripts in preparation also include a series of articles including work on "gamer citizens" and notions of home, hard work and "live-video politics" in gamer communities. Professor Brookwell encourages students to investigate and think critically about the everyday lives of gamers in his special topics courses: MCS 172: Introduction to Gaming Studies, and MCS 172: Streaming and Game Studies: Research Methods.

Having completed his B.A. with honors in philosophy and political science and his M.A. in theory and policy studies in education from the University of Toronto, Professor Brookwell developed a scholarly interest early on as well as a political activist concern for the lives of young people. He has deployed an equity and social justice approach at each stage of his research and teaching leading onward from his doctoral research on Twitch.tv. He completed his Ph.D. at Goldsmiths, University of London. At University of California, Riverside, Professor Brookwell is also the principle investigator to establish the first Live-streaming and Virtual Reality Research Lab to be located in the CHASS Interdisciplinary Building in the Spring of 2020.