[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-199515-en":3,"doc-seo-199515-105":31,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":92},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":21,"is_downloadable":21,"audit_status":21,"page_count":22,"language":23,"language_code":24,"site_id":25,"html_lang":24,"table_of_contents":26,"faqs":27,"seo_title":28,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":29,"read_time":30},199515,2336475401981,"Chumphorn","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/22000c94efd8d5204d?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1786935347598174694",8,"Research & Report","Git Gud - Video Games, Mental Disability, and Resilience Rhetoric - Dissertation","This project examines the role of resilience rhetoric in efforts to use video games to address mental disability and mental health within institutional and pedagogical contexts. It argues that gaming technologies often rely on unexamined assumptions about mental disability, shaping an affective rhetoric of pain. Using feminist, queer, and crip approaches alongside institutional critique, the study identifies neoliberal resilience rhetoric as justifying such uses. It proposes the resiliency paradox, which normalizes pain or violence through claims of safety, thereby sustaining ableist structures and limiting reform, while outlining avenues for resistance through play.","Git Gud: Video Games, Mental Disability, and Resilience Rhetoric  \nDissertation  \nPresented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the  \nGraduate School of The Ohio State University  \nBy  \nRyan Sheehan  \nGraduate Program in English  \nThe Ohio State University  \n2021  \nDissertation Committee  \nWendy S. Hesford, Advisor  \nMargaret Price  \nBen McCorkle  \nCopyrighted by Ryan Sheehan 2021  \nAbstract  \nThis project examines the centrality of resilience rhetoric in efforts to institutionally instrumentalize video games for addressing mental disability and mental health. Institutions have increasingly turned to video game technologies for addressing mental disability and/or mental health in pedagogical contexts. Yet there has been little critical consideration of the assumptions about mental disability informing these gaming technologies. I suggest that discourses of mental disability, mental health, game design, and institutional implementation construct an affective rhetoric of pain. For example, designers might harm the player for rhetorical effect, and/or highlight how play can minimize pain and foster happiness. These games therefore raise considerations of resilience, or the psychological ability to “bounce back” from traumatic or painful experiences (APA, 2012) . Through a multidisciplinary framework of feminist, queer, and crip approaches to video game rhetoric and institutional critique, I trace how neoliberal resilience rhetoric has been used to justify video games for pedagogical and institutional use by managing or mitigating mental disability. I specifically identify a spatial principle I call the resiliency paradox: a normative and dominant rhetorical logic that normalizes pain and/or violence under the pretense that a space is safe. The resiliency paradox sustains ableist institutional structures and game design principles by denying institutional reform. By examining, critiquing, and ultimately rejecting the resiliency paradox, I identify opportunities for resistance through play while affirming differential movements through institutional space.  \nDedication  \nTo my siblings, Patrick and Mikayla Sheehan.  \nAcknowledgments  \nThis project was written between 2018-2021 in the United States, a time of political upheaval and the COVID-19 global pandemic. Writing a dissertation under any circumstances is a massive undertaking, but a dissertation during these times presented unique scholarly and personal challenges. Incidentally, this project offers a critique of resilience. I have often wondered if some might see my finishing this project as demonstrating a kind of resilience. At this time, I don’t think the word resilience fully captures the story of this project. Rather, this is a dissertation that rose out of empowerment, community, vulnerability, love, and play.  \nI want to thank the faculty of the Department of English at The Ohio State University (OSU) . Parts of this project were supported by a Genevieve M. Critel Fellowship in Digital Media in 2019, funded by the Digital Media and Composition Institute; I thank the faculty judges for the opportunity to focus on the dissertation during that time. A special thank you to my committee, Wendy S. Hesford, Margaret Price, and Ben McCorkle. I leave this project with a stronger voice, both on and off the page, due to your insight and guidance. Thanks also to Beverly J. Moss, who helped strategize various facets of this project. And to Nan Johnson. While she was not here to see this project completed, I will be forever grateful for her support throughout my PhD program.  \nMany current and former staff members at OSU guided me through this dissertation process. From the Department of English (past and present), I thank Kathleen Griffin, Puja  \nBatra-Wells, Elizabeth Falter, Amy Spears, and Wayne Lovely. Your institutional knowledge and encouragement were instrumental in getting me to the finish line. Particular thanks to Mike Biersche","cbCaimLcw15lqG1U","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaimLcw15lqG1U","pdf",1698197,2,1,239,"English","en",105,"# Abstract\n## Resilience rhetoric and mental disability\n## Affective rhetoric of pain\n## Feminist, queer, and crip framework\n## Neoliberal resilience rhetoric in pedagogy\n## The resiliency paradox\n## Resistance through play and institutional space","[{\"question\":\"What is the central focus of the dissertation?\",\"answer\":\"The dissertation examines how resilience rhetoric operates in institutional efforts to instrumentalize video games for mental disability and mental health.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the project describe the assumptions underlying these gaming technologies?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that discourses linking mental disability, mental health, game design, and institutional implementation construct an affective rhetoric of pain based on those assumptions.\"},{\"question\":\"What is the “resiliency paradox” and why does it matter?\",\"answer\":\"The resiliency paradox is a spatial rhetorical logic that normalizes pain and/or violence by claiming a space is safe. It sustains ableist institutional structures by denying institutional reform.\"}]","Git Gud - Video Games, Mental Disability, and Resilience Rhetoric - Dissertation | PDF",1788506198,602,{"code":4,"msg":32,"data":33},"ok",{"site_id":25,"language":24,"slug":34,"title":13,"keywords":35,"description":14,"schema_data":36,"social_meta":87,"head_meta":89,"extra_data":91,"updated_unix":29},"git-gud-video-games-mental-disability-and-resilience-rhetoric-dissertation","",{"@graph":37,"@context":86},[38,54,69],{"@type":39,"itemListElement":40},"BreadcrumbList",[41,45,48,51],{"item":42,"name":43,"@type":44,"position":21},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":46,"name":47,"@type":44,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",{"item":49,"name":12,"@type":44,"position":50},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":52,"name":13,"@type":44,"position":53},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/git-gud-video-games-mental-disability-and-resilience-rhetoric-dissertation/199515/",4,{"url":52,"name":13,"@type":55,"author":56,"headline":13,"publisher":58,"fileFormat":61,"inLanguage":24,"description":14,"dateModified":62,"datePublished":63,"encodingFormat":61,"isAccessibleForFree":64,"interactionStatistic":65},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":57},"Person",{"url":42,"name":59,"@type":60},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-09-08","2026-09-04",true,{"@type":66,"interactionType":67,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":68},"ViewAction",{"@type":70,"mainEntity":71},"FAQPage",[72,78,82],{"name":73,"@type":74,"acceptedAnswer":75},"What is the central focus of the dissertation?","Question",{"text":76,"@type":77},"The dissertation examines how resilience rhetoric operates in institutional efforts to instrumentalize video games for mental disability and mental health.","Answer",{"name":79,"@type":74,"acceptedAnswer":80},"How does the project describe the assumptions underlying these gaming technologies?",{"text":81,"@type":77},"It argues that discourses linking mental disability, mental health, game design, and institutional implementation construct an affective rhetoric of pain based on those assumptions.",{"name":83,"@type":74,"acceptedAnswer":84},"What is the “resiliency paradox” and why does it matter?",{"text":85,"@type":77},"The resiliency paradox is a spatial rhetorical logic that normalizes pain and/or violence by claiming a space is safe. 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