HOLA, I’M CARLOS KELLY
Dr. Carlos Gabriel Kelly González (known to students as Profe) is the Gold Medal Award Winning Author of the International Latino Book Award for Best Academic Themed Book, College Level, English for Ready Player Juan: Latinx Masculinities and Stereotypes in Video Games. Currently, he works at Kennesaw State University as an Assistant Professor of English. Carlos is an emerging scholar and one of the critical voices at the helm of US Latinx/e Video Game Studies. His research infuses Latine ways of seeing to analyze the storytelling in video games, relying on the insights and perspectives gained through living and growing up in the borderlands of Tijuana, Baja California, and San Diego, California.
Carlos earned his PhD in English at Ohio State University while specializing in Latinx/e Studies and Video Game Studies. In his first three years at Ohio State, he was Executive Director of the Whitehouse recognized mentorship program, the Latinx Space for Enrichment and Research (LASER). As Director, Carlos led over 40 of his peers in organizing events that brought together mentors, college recruiters, and community professionals with young Black and Latine high school students. During his tenure, he increased the programs’ mentorship presence from four to ten local high schools in Columbus, Ohio, where mentors prepared students to excel in college and beyond. Carlos led peers to increase LASER’s impact and reach in the community, especially for Black and Latine families.
Upon graduation from Ohio State, Carlos was selected by the Humanities Research Center at Rice University in Houston, Texas for a distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship in Latinx Arts, Literatures, Cultures, or Religions. As First Gen himself, Carlos enjoyed leading a majority of First Gen US Latine students through classes that spoke to their experiences growing up across Texas and the US. At Rice, Carlos taught classes such as Subversive Latine Storytelling in Film and TV, Latine Gender and Sexuality in Film and TV, or Video Games as Borders: Latine Critical Game Studies. He continued his leadership in the community by mentoring Rice Latine students and attending many of their events, such as HACER’s 2023 Welcome Back, GALAs, and Latine Graduation Ceremony.
At KSU, Carlos looks to build with colleagues to grow game studies and to be a positive presence for students in the classroom and the community. Carlos is a firm believer in helping young generations dream big. He always says that if he can do it, anyone can. He loves working with youth and looks forward to helping your organization grow talent pipelines composed of Latines and other students of color. He wants to build futures together with students, faculty, companies, and the community.
Currently, Carlos is thrilled to be co-editing the first-ever collection of Latinx/e video game studies, Coded Latinx: Latinx Gaming and Game Studies in North America, with Dr. Regina Marie Mills. In addition to his research, Carlos is also a published performance poet with his 2019 debut collection, Wounds Fragments Derelict, published with 2Leaf Press.
My titles
1. Award Winning Author
2. First-Gen Mexican American Scholar
3. Poet/Creative/Writer/Performer
4. Community Leader/Organizer
5. Motivational/Public Speaker
6. Emcee that brings the energy
Socials
IG: @profecarlitosk
Featured Book
Featured Book
Written for all gaming enthusiasts, this book fuses Latinx studies and video game studies to document how Latinx masculinities are portrayed in high-budget action-adventure video games, inviting Latinxs and others to insert their experiences into games made by an industry that fails to see them.
The book employs an intersectional approach through performance theory, border studies, and lived experience to analyze the designed identity “Player Juan.” Player Juan manifests in video game representations through a discourse of criminality that sets expectations of who and what Latinxs can be and do. Developing an original approach to video game experiences, the author theorizes video games as border crossings, and defines a new concept—digital mestizaje—that pushes players, readers, and scholars to deploy a Latinx way of seeing and that calls on researchers to consider a digital object’s constructive as well as destructive qualities.
MY SERVICES
CREATIVE KNOWLEDGE
Deliver expertise on US Latine storytelling in film, TV, video games, and literature
Contribute intersectional lenses informed by embodying the borderlands between Mexico and the US
WORKSHOPS AND SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
Deliver workshops on music in poetry, taking the dissertation to book, and new video games research
Reach out for book talks and/or guest lectures on Ready Player Juan and Latines in video games
CREATIVE STORYTELLER
Through a life of reading and telling stories and a career studying a wide variety of storytelling, whether film, TV, video games, poetry, short stories, comics, or novels, I have a depth of knowledge, experience, and creative capacity to positively inform your team's storytelling
EMCEE
Can bring the energy to
any room and event
if you want an Emcee for any and all events, Carlos guarantees to bring the energy and make your event special. Proven experience, charisma, and energy.
