Dr Matt Coward-Gibbs

Teaching

In the 2025 to 26 academic year, alongside working with students to develop their independent research projects, I will be teaching across the following modules:

• Contextualising Law and Social Science (L3)
• Investigating Games (L6)
• Problem-based Project (L3)
• Crime & Media (L6)

I have been teaching in Higher Education since 2015. During that time, I’ve taught across the Sociology, Criminology, Religious Studies, and Professional Policing departments. Some previous modules that I have delivered include: Buddhism in India and Southeast Asia (L5), Buddhist Ethics (L6), Childhood (L4), Cultural Criminology (L5), Digital Policing (L6), Hindu Texts and Practices (L5), Introducing Social Psychology (L4), Pleasure, Leisure and Social Interaction (L4), Public Protection (L6), Religions of East Asia (L5) and Social Media, Data and Society (L7).

Research

My research spans several overlapping areas, which are all underscored by attempting to grapple with understanding micro-sociological interaction:

• Pleasure, leisure, fun, and play. My research examines the relationship between playing games (both tabletop and digital) and the ‘real world’, offering insights into how people find respite and community through play. Recently, my work has been thinking about knowledge exchange within such communities, and how value, trust and meaning are constructed socially.
• Ethnographic approaches and methodologies. I am particularly interested in autoethnography, mobile methods, elicitation, interactionism, and ethnomethodology.
• Death and dying. I am drawn to how individuals consider and respond to death, and how they engage with grief, primarily through play, humour, and leisure.
• Socio-religious practice. My career began in Religious Studies, and I continue to be interested in incarnations of Theravāda Buddhist practice, contemporary Wicca, East Asian Shamanism, and non-theistic Satanism.

I welcome contact from potential research students as well as colleagues who wish to work within or across these areas.

Publications and conferences

Edited books

Coward-Gibbs, M (ed.). 2020. Death, Culture and Leisure: Playing Dead. Bingley: Emerald.

Chapters in edited books

Coward-Gibbs, M. 2024. The Magic Circle. In: Gregory, D. What Board Games Mean to Me: Tales from the Tabletop. Nottingham: Aconyte.

Coward-Gibbs, M. 2022. Why don’t we play Pandemic? UK Analog Gaming Communities in Lockdown. In: Lashua, B., Johnson, C.W., and Parry, D.C (eds.). Leisure in the time of Coronavirus: A Rapid Response. New York: Routledge.

Coward-Gibbs, M., and Michael-Fox, B. 2021. Sexual Encounters Between the Living and the (Un)dead in Popular Culture. In: Gibson, R., and VanderVeen, J (eds.). Monstrous Males/Fatal Females: Gender, Supernatural Beings, and the Liminality of Death. Maryland: Lexington Books.

Coward-Gibbs, M. 2020. Some Games You Just Can’t Win: Crowdfunded Memorialisation, Grief and That Dragon, Cancer. In: Coward-Gibbs, M (ed.). Death, Culture and Leisure: Playing Dead. Bingley: Emerald.

Coward-Gibbs, M. 2020. Death ≠ Failure. In: Coward-Gibbs, M (ed.). Death, Culture and Leisure: Playing Dead. Bingley: Emerald.

Journal special editions

Starkey, C., and Coward-Gibbs, M. 2018. Translating Buddhism and the Politics of Ownership: Between Asia(s) and West(s). Journal of Global Buddhism 19.

Journal articles and review essays

Veal, C., Coward-Gibbs, M., Denham, J., and Spokes, M. 2024. “You Feel Like You’ve Found a Place Where You Belong”: Symbolic Interactionism and Online Social Video Games in the Age of COVID-19. Games and Culture. [open access]

Spokes, M., Denham, J., Coward-Gibbs, M., and Veal, C. 2024. ‘I Wasn’t Me, Grieving in my Room. I was Spiderman’: Gaming, Loss and Self-Care following Covid-19. Mortality. [open access]

Denham, J., Spokes, M., Coward-Gibbs, M., and Veal, C. 2023. Personal, Pedagogic Play: A Dialogic Model for Video Game Learning. Pedagogy, Culture & Society. [open access]

Coward-Gibbs, M. 2021. Why Don’t We Play Pandemic? UK Analog Gaming Communities in Lockdown. Leisure Sciences

O’Neill, M., Penfold-Mounce, R., Honeywell, D., Coward-Gibbs, M., Crowder, H., and Hill, I. 2020. Creative Methodologies for a Mobile Criminology: Walking as Critical Pedagogy. Sociological Research Online.

Coward-Gibbs, M. 2018. Critical Spelunking of Casual Toxicities: Patching Gaming Culture. Information, Communication & Society 22(14).

Coward-Gibbs, M. 2018. Of Demons and Drama: Ritual Syncretism of Sinhala Exorcism and Forum Theatre. Journal of Global Buddhism 19. [open access]

Starkey, C., and Coward-Gibbs, M. 2018. Translating Buddhism and the Politics of Ownership: Between Asia(s) and West(s). Journal of Global Buddhism 19.

Coward, M. 2016. Religious Flows and Ritual Performance: East Asian Interpretations of Shakespearian Tragedy. Paranthropology 7(1).

Coward, M. 2015. Capturing Spirituality: A Photo-Elicitation Study with Two British Neo-Pagans. Paranthropology 6(1)

Coward, M. (2014). The Witch from His-Story to Her-Stories: Changing Contexts. Paranthropology 5(3).

Select book reviews

Coward-Gibbs, M. 2021. Videogames and Horror: From Amnesia to Zombies, Run! (Dawn Stobbart). Fantastika. Invited.

Coward, M. 2018. Death Makes the News: How the Media Sensor and Display the Dead (Jessica M Fishman). Canadian Journal of Sociology 43(2). Invited.

Coward, M. 2018. Spirits Without Boarders: Vietnamese Spirit mediums in a Transnational Age (Karen Fjelstad and Nguyễn Thị Hiền). The Pomegranate: International Journal of Pagan Studies 20(1). Invited.

Coward, M. 2016. Buddhism, the Internet and Digital Media: The Pixel in the Lotus (Gregory Price Grieve and Daniel Veidlinger, eds.). Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture 5(2).

Recent Presentations

Coward-Gibbs, M. 2025. Play-based Trading in Tabletop Gaming Communities: Leisure, Knowledge, Value and Trust. Leisure Studies Association, York St John University.

Coward-Gibbs, M. 2025. On Tabletop Gaming Tables: Capital, Emblem, Symbol. Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA), University of Malta.

Spokes, M., Denham., J., and Coward-Gibbs, M. 2025. Running a Games Lab: Challenges and Opportunities to Public Research with Arts Organisations. Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA), University of Malta.

Coward-Gibbs, M. 2025. Chair: Games in Education Round Table. UK Games Expo, Birmingham NEC. (Panellists: Jim Wallman, Dr Laura Mitchell, Dr Alex Moseley, Jim Thompson, Jessica Metheringham, Oliver Kilby and Liz Cable)

Coward-Gibbs, M. 2024. Chair: Gaming for Good? The Future of Interactive Media. Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York. (Panellists: Em Aspinall, Luke Hebblethwaite, Gianna Osborne and Eloise Singer)

Coward-Gibbs, M. 2023. Chair: Gaming for Good? Exploring the Social Impact(s) of Interactive Entertainment. Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York. (Panellists: Dr Bettina Bodi, Des Gale, Luke Hebblethwaite and Emily Stell)

Coward-Gibbs, M. 2023. Surface Tensions: Why What we Play on Matters. Tabletop Gaming Research Showcase. Birmingham: UK Games Expo.

Coward-Gibbs, M. 2023. Panel Member. Talking About Books About Games. Birmingham: UK Games Expo. (co-panellists: Ivan Brett, Christopher Eggett, Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells, and James Wallis)

Professional activities

Professional accreditations

• Mental Health First Aider, Mental Health England (MHFA)
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
• Technology Enhanced Learning Practitioner, SEDA (SEDA STEL)

Professional roles (current)

• Appeals and Conduct Committee member (York St John University)
• York Business School Quality Panel member (York St John University)
• Governor and Chair of Learner Experience Committee (Furness College)
• External Examiner (University of East London)
• Director and PSC (Retail)
• Director and PSC (Publishing)

Professional roles (previous)

• Death & Culture Network Steering Group (2018-2023)
• Book Reviews’ Editor of Mortality (2020-2022)
• Company Secretary of the Cambridge Primary Review Trust (2015-2019)
• Board Member of the UK Association for Buddhist Studies (2013-2015)
• Trustee of Upstage Centre Youth Theatre (2012-2016)

Successful funding applications

• British Sociological Association (x2)
• Institute for Social Justice
• Research Centre for Social Sciences (x3)
• Screen Industries Growth Network (x2)
• The Spalding Trust
• UK Association for Buddhist Studies
• University of York (x2)
• A range of businesses and organisations to support Knowledge Exchange work

Events convened

I have been involved in convening many events, including Demons Wake (2025) York Board Games Convention (2025, 2024), Games Lab @ ASFF (2025, 2024, 2023), Death & Culture IV (2022); Spelunking 2020: Games, Cultures, Societies (2020); Death & Culture III (2020); Interdisciplinary Approaches to Corpse Work (2019); Walking Amongst the Dead: The York Death & Culture Walk (2019); The Promise and Perils of Researching Sensitive Issues (2018); Death & Culture II (2018); York’s Dark Past: Crime, Punishment, and Justice (2018); Playing Dead (2018); Primary Education: What is and what might be (2016); and Translating Buddhism (2016).