Email Email ryan_banfi@emerson.edu

Ryan Banfi is a PhD Candidate in The Martin Scorsese Cinema Studies at New York University Tisch School of the Arts. He is a Corrigan Fellow at NYU, and he is a Hispanic Scholarship Fund Scholar. Ryan has been published in Journal of Cinema and Media Studies (forthcoming) Critical Inquiry, Jump Cut (forthcoming), Contexts (forthcoming), Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, Television & New Media, New Review of Film and Television Studies (forthcoming), The International Journal of James Bond Studies, Games and Culture, Game Studies, Mediapolis, Flow Online Journal, Studies in European Cinema, and In Media Res. Ryan is on the editorial board of Games and Culture.

About

Education

B.A., Pitzer College
M.A., University of Southern California
M.Phil., New York University

Publications

"Teaching Game Studies."

2025
Forthcoming

Journal of Cinema and Media Studies (JCMS), Teaching Media. Edited and introduced by Ryan Banfi.

"Public Pinball: A Photo Essay."

2024
Forthcoming.

Contexts.

"Chris Ware's New Yorker Covers: Reading the School Shootings Triptych."

2024

Published in Critical Inquiry.

"'Is this where the Jew butchered that poor woman?': Antisemitism in Alan Moore's From Hell."

2024

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics.

"Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem as Metacommentary: Direct Address in Video Games."

2025
Forthcoming

Jump Cut.

"Disco Pinball: Declining Games and Depression in Disco Elysium."

2024

Published in Games and Culture.

"Unplayable: Why Video Games Can't and Won't be Played."

2024

"Becoming Bond: The Player's Perspective in 007 Electronic Games."

2024

"Guilty of Being a Dwarf: Peter Dinklage and American Fantasy Television."

2024
Forthcoming. Winter 2024

New Review of Film and Television Studies.

"Gaming I, II, and III: Arcades, Video Game Systems, and Modern Game Streaming Services."

2023

Published in Games and Culture.

"'Authentic' Cityscapes and Violence in The Last of Us Part II."

2022

"Ellie's Journal: Para-Narratives in The Last of Us Part II."

2022

Published in Game Studies, 22(3).

"Toward a Study of Pinball."

2022

Games and Culture, vol. 17, no. 7-8, 931–953.

"Unplayable: Why Games Can't and Won't be Played."

2022

Published in Making Sense of Games.

"Pinball Playfields: Mapping Heavy Metal"

2025
(Routledge, Spring 2025).

In Mark J.P. Wolf's book Navigating Imaginary Worlds: Wayfinding and Subcreation.

"Genesis in Lincoln, MA: The Creation of Bill and Frank in 'Long, Long Time'"

2024
(Rowman & Littlefield Press).

In Theology and The Last of Us: Violence, Ethics, Redemption?