Dr. Christina Fawcett awarded SSHRC Insight Development Grant

Fri. Aug. 22, 2025

Dr. Christina Fawcett is the co-investigator for “Contemporary Cozy Media”, recipient of a SSHRC Insight Development Grant for 2025-2027. This project, in collaboration with Dr. Andrea Braithwaite of Ontario Tech University, will examine the rise of the nascent category of Cozy in literature and media. Cozy narratives foreground feelings of safety and security, and deliberately move away from feelings of fear and anxiety. The study will pursue a definition and elemental set, and focus on three genre forms – mystery, fantasy and video games – focusing on contemporary coziness by looking at texts from 2015 onwards. Dr. Fawcett is the area specialist in Fantasy texts and media, Dr. Braithwaite is the area specialist in Mystery texts and media, and both bring their expertise to cozy video games.

“Contemporary Cozy Media” takes up how pop culture stories speaks to social fears and desires, and to the power of comfort: from an orc warrior laying down her sword to open a coffee shop (Legends & Lattes), to a bucolic small town full of murders and bakeries offering a good cup of tea (Murder, She Baked), and even purchasing necessary goods from an entrepreneurial raccoon to set up a verdant island getaway (Animal Crossing: New Horizons). This study will investigate how domestic, safe texts can appeal to wide audiences, creating shared emotions and spaces of coziness. It will also examine the problematic cultural norms that underpin the definition of cozy, and question who gets to be cozy and how.