Los Angeles Litany

Game Design, Newsgames, Objects, and Whitehead

I’m doing a whole crap-ton of things in Los Angeles the week after Thanksgiving. First I’ll be visiting Tracy Fullerton’s game design class at USC on Monday. Next I’ll be giving a talk on Newsgames at the USC Annenberg School, at noon on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday, I’ll be participating in a one-day event at UCLA, HELLO EVERYTHING: Speculative Realism… read more

Object-Oriented Feminism

At the 2010 Society for Literature Science and the Arts Conference

Last week at the Society for Literature Science and the Arts conference, Katherine Behar organized two back-to-back panels on Object-Oriented Feminism (OOF). There were six papers total, and a response to each panel by Katherine Hayles and myself, respectively. To participants, Behar posed the question, “What would a program for Object-Oriented Feminism (OOF) entail?” The first panel attempted general responses,… read more

Jobs at Georgia Tech

Two tenure-track lines in my school

The Georgia Tech School of Literature Communication and Culture, where I work, has just announced two tenure-track job openings. I’ve pasted the job ads below. I hope any of you who might be interested will apply, and I encourage the rest to spread the word. Job One – Digital Media The School of Literature, Communication and Culture of the Georgia… read more

Cow Clicker

The Making of Obsession

I made a Facebook game about Facebook games, called Cow Clicker. You can go play it on Facebook now, or you can see some screenshots on on this site. Here’s the short description, from the page just linked: Cow Clicker is a Facebook game about Facebook games. It’s partly a satire, and partly a playable theory of today’s social games,… read more

Cow Clicker

A Facebook Game about Facebook Games

Cow Clicker is a Facebook game about Facebook games. It’s partly a satire, and partly a playable theory of today’s social games, and partly an earnest example of that genre. You get a cow. You can click on it. In six hours, you can click it again. Clicking earns you clicks. You can buy custom “premium” cows through micropayments (the… read more

Social Games on Trial

NYU Video Game Seminar IV

Jesper Juul has been organizing videogame theory seminars at NYU. This week, I’m going to be participating in the sixth iteration of said series, “social games on trial.” Aki Järvinen will take the pro-social games position, and I will fill my court-ordered role as naysayer. The official announcement appears below. I should mention that I have a trick up my… read more

I am not a Marxist

More on Politics and Philosophy

In recent days there’s been a flare-up of discussion about speculative realism and politics. It’s a more mild and reasoned one than previous debates, with contributions well worth reading. First read Chris Vitale’s post Queering Speculative Realism. Then read Diversifying Speculative Realisms on Archive Fire. After that go read Levi Bryant’s post, which responds to the first two. The argument… read more

Object-Oriented Rhetoric

Thoughts on the RSA panel papers

I’ve now had a chance to read three of the four papers from the RSA Object Oriented Rhetoric panel. Jim Brown’s summary is quite accurate, and I also recommend Nate’s thoughts on the potential of OOR. Here I’ll offer an overview of my reading of the papers, followed my my own sense of what object-oriented rhetoric might look like, or… read more

We Think in Public

Time Will Tell, But Epistemology Won't: In Memory of Richard Rorty

In 1999, the Silicon Alley entrepreneur Josh Harris rented an underground warehouse in lower Manhattan and subjugated a hundred friends to a home-made police state he named “QUIET.” Its residents slept in open bunk pods stacked atop one another, each with a bus depot television with a closed-circuit feed from every other pod. Quieters partook of bacchanal feasts and abusive… read more

Remembering Rorty

Pragmatism and Realism

On Friday I was honored to participate in Time Will Tell, But Epistemology Won’t, a conference in memory of Richard Rorty and in celebration of the opening of his collection of papers in the UC Irvine Critical Theory Archive. Particular attention was given to the “born digital” materials, which are offered in a unique “online reading room,” allowing researchers access… read more