I am honoured and delighted to announce that my paper, “Hazards of Virtualization: Abjectification and Immersion in Cyberpunk 2077”, has been finally published this year in the edited collection New Horizons in English and American Studies: Papers from Endorsing Excellence. Seeing this work published brings me great joy and represents an important milestone, marking the beginning of a new academic journey at the intersection of Game Studies and Postsemiotics. I look forward to developing this research further and contributing to scholarly conversations about video games, subjectivity, and digital culture.
It is freely available through the following link as an open source project:
https://ebook.ek.szte.hu/index.php/btk-angolamerikai-intezet/catalog/book/447/chapter/755
Abstract:
Through understanding the process of postmodernity as a transitionary period, this paper explores the representation of the postmodern identity crisis within CD Projekt Red’s video game Cyberpunk 2077. It is contrasted with Heiner Müller’s drama Hamletmachine, through the theory of the semiotics of the subject. Focusing on Julia Kristeva’s theory of the abject, the analysis examines how these works reflect on their respective cultural paradigm shifts and represent the changing tendencies regarding the constitution of the socially positioned human subject. Hamletmachine establishes Hamlet as a self-conflicting subject within a postmodern framework and introduces the machine as an abject entity, while Cyberpunk 2077 immerses players in an interactive narrative that challenges their socially defined subject positions.
Chicago author–date reference:
Kocsis, Zoltán. 2026. “Hazards of Virtualization: Abjectification and Immersion in Cyberpunk 2077.” In New Horizons in English and American Studies: Papers from Endorsing Excellence, edited by Ágnes Zsófia Kovács, Olga Kajtár-Pinjung, and Malek Benghanem, 197–215. Szeged: Institute of English and American Studies, University of Szeged. https://doi.org/10.14232/peas.2026.1.13
New Horizons in English and American Studies: Papers from Endorsing Excellence
New Horizons in English and American Studies: Papers from Endorsing Excellence is an interdisciplinary collection originating from TDK/OTDK workshops at the University of Szeged and cooperation with the University of the West, Timişoara. Bringing together student and supervisor research across BA, MA, and PhD levels, its fourteen chapters explore topics including cognitive semantics, race, trauma, Gothic and horror fiction, cultural memory, photography, cinema, digital media, and my contribution regarding Cyberpunk 2077. Collectively, the volume demonstrates the methodological diversity and transnational character of contemporary English and American studies. Official publication page.
Chicago author–date reference
Kovács, Ágnes Zsófia, Olga Kajtár-Pinjung, and Malek Benghanem, eds. 2026. New Horizons in English and American Studies: Papers from Endorsing Excellence. Papers in English and American Studies 29. Szeged: Institute of English and American Studies, University of Szeged. https://doi.org/10.14232/peas.2026.1