Luna Loganayagam (she/her) is a fifth-year English PhD candidate with a Designated Emphasis in Science and Technology Studies at UC Davis. Her current research focuses on games, rituals, and the occult as a conceptual worldbuilding engine. She leads the UCD games research cluster, Critical Hit, and is serving her second term as the Graduate Student Association President. She received her BA in English at Cal Poly Humboldt and her MA in English at Portland State University. Her emphases in TESOL and linguistics led to a CELTA certificate and participation in the JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) Programme from 2018-2020. Her time in Japan has informed her research on JRPGs and comparative fan cultures. In addition to JET ESL courses, she has taught elementary and advanced composition courses, games and media courses, and special topics courses on supernatural literature, fan studies, and Black art.
My critical pedagogy and critical service work is founded on my experience as a first-generation college graduate. As GSA President, I’m working to increase our sense of entitlement to community, basic needs, and a healthy, vivacious, free speech campus. As an instructor, I mentor students in content and process to demystify the dark art of academia. As a researcher, I alchemize these institutional experiences into knowledge-production rituals and seek out the truths that make us more playful, more discerning, and more just.
Publications
[forthcoming] “World Border or World Order?: Entangled Histories & Emblematic Mascots in Kingdom Hearts”, Japanese Video Games: Gēmu Critiques of Western Worlding
Recent Conferences
4S 2026 | University of Toronto, Canada, “Playing for White Smoke: Game Logics of Conclave”
DiGRA 2026 | University of Maynooth, Ireland, “Critical Hit+: Bridging Opportunity Gaps in Game Studies” and “The Revolution Dances: The Pleasures of Transformation in Final Fantasy X-2”
SCMS 2026 | Chicago, IL, “Link in Park: Game Music Videos and Fan Tech Culture”
SLSA 2025 | Oregon State University, OR, “The Fool: Embracing Uncertainty in the Persona Series”
MLA 2025 | New Orleans, LA , “Re:mediating Disney Myth”
Ongoing Committees
Executive Council, Academic Senate, UCD 2025-27
Graduate Council, Academic Senate, UCD 2025-27
University of California, Council of Presidents, UCD 2025-27
Chancellor’s AI Steering Committee, UCD 2025-27
Graduate Council AI Subgroup, UCD 2025-26
Recent Courses
ENL 3/3V: Introduction to Literature
ENL 120A: Advanced Composition
HONR 3: Foundations and Legacies of Arts and Ideas of Modern Global Cultures
ENL 190H: The Supernatural in Literature
ENL 190P: Playing Books and Reading Games