Nikolas Matovinovic

Nikolas Matovinovic

PhD, BA (Hons), BSc

Bio

Dr Nikolas Matovinovic is an early career researcher working in Melbourne Australia. His work focuses on posthumanism and fantasy in popular screen media, with an emphasis on interdisciplinarity aided by his BSc in green chemistry and bioethics. His PhD research studied genre in the films of the director and musician John Carpenter and his current research program focuses on materialism in speculative and fantastic fiction. His writing has been published in Games and Culture, Film Criticism, and Film International.

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Publications

Books
Articles

Matovinovic, Nikolas. The Other Squid Game: How Splatoon 3 Promotes a Culture of Cosiness Inclusivity and Becoming-Cephalopod. Games and Culture, vol. 0, no. 0, 2024.

Volcic, Zala, Nikolas Matovinovic, and Mark Andrejevic. Conflicting Responses to Djokovic’s Deportation: Citizenship, the Rule of Law, and Commercial Nationalism. International Journal of Communication, vol. 17, no. 18, 2023.

Matovinovic, Nikolas. ’It’s All in the Reflexes’: John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China as a Hawksian Comedy. Film Criticism, vol. 46, no. 2, 2022.

Matovinovic, Nikolas. Re-Evaluation of Genre and Auteurist Expression: In the Mouth of Madness by Michael Blyth. Film International, vol 18, no. 1, 2020, pp. 117-120.

Conference Papers

Matovinovic, Nikolas. The Fault in Our Star Children: Genestealer Cults and the interdependence of lore, hobby, and gameplay in Warhammer 40,000. Warhammer Conference, Heidelberg University, 2025.

Matovinovic, Nikolas. ’Unionise Grizzco!’: Satire in ‘Splatoon 3’ Fan Art. Replaying Japan, RMIT, 2025.

Matovinovic, Nikolas. ,Tentacle to the Metal: Metamodernism, Ecosophy, and Splatoon 3. Digital Games Research Association, University of Malta, 2025.

Matovinovic, Nikolas. Tomorrow’s Nostalgia Today: Splatoon 3’s Tentacular Metaxis. Digital Games Research Association Australia, University of South Australia, 2025.

Matovinovic, Nikolas. The Detective in Yellow: The unseen presence of Robert W. Chambers in True Detective. Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, Flinders University, 2024.

Matovinovic, Nikolas. The Other Squid Game: How Splatoon 3 Promotes a Culture of Cosiness, Inclusivity and Becoming-Cephalopod. Cultural Studies Association of Australasia, University of South Australia, 2023.

Matovinovic, Nikolas. Squid Game and Kids Games: The Subjective and Material Limits of Allegorical Worlds. International Screen Studies Conference, University of Glasgow, 2023.

Matovinovic, Nikolas. The Other Squid Game: How ’Cosy Gaming’ Informs the Critique of Squid Game’s Allegorical Impact. European Network for Cinema and Media Studies, University of Oslo, 2023.

Matovinovic, Nikolas, Oscar Raby Piccardo, Kate Euphemia Clark, Trang Le, and Eylem Kim. Virtual Matter: Translations of Time, Space, and People. The Virtual Otherwise: Society for Cultural Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, 2022.

Troon, Simon, Melanie Ashe, and Nikolas Matovinovic. Situating Speculative Ecomedia: Movies, Motors, Microbes. Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, University of Sydney, 2020.