Abstract for my SLSA plenary
The Society for Science Literature and the Arts annual conference is about to start up here in Atlanta. The program is online, and the SLSA folks have updated it with the abstract for my Friday evening plenary. I thought I’d reproduce it here for those of you who are interested in such things. In recent years, a small cadre of… read more
Thoughts on Kindle and electronic editions
Apparently my publisher has started issuing Kindle editions of my books. Two are now available in Amazon’s electronic format: Persuasive Games and Unit Operations. Readers might be interested to find that MIT Press seems to have taken up a different strategy with their electronic book pricing. Specifically, the Kindle editions do not necessarily cost less than the print books. To… read more
Cultural Studies, Politics, and Realism
If you’re the kind of person who is the subject of Michael Bérubé’s scathing critique of cultural studies in last week’s Chronicle of Higher Education, then you’ve probably read it already. To summarize via citation, Bérubé argued that the impact of cultural studies “has the carbon footprint of a unicorn,” and yet nobody within the field notices or cares. If… read more
My Videogame Cameo
Federico Fasce’s games consultancy Urustar makes videogames for use in communication strategies. As a part of their launch, they have created Urustar – The Game, which you can play from their website. I seem to appear, in pixel form, in the game’s opening. I think it’s a good likeness. As you’ll see if you play through, another, more well-known character… read more
A Visit to the Bestiary
When I was a philosophy undergraduate student, I had a life-changing experience in a class on the philosophy of language. It was a good class, as undergraduate classes tend to be: I learned the basics of a subject had known little about previously. The course was taught by a newly minted PhD whose specialty was that subject. She was young… read more
My Talks at DiGRA 2009
I’m just returned from the 2009 Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) Conference, which was held this week at Brunel University in Uxbridge, UK. The conference was enjoyable, with good talks, good company, and good ale. I did two talks at this DiGRA, the text of which I have now posted on my site. I’ll describe them in brief and point… read more
Nolan Bushnell on Educational Videogames
I stumbled upon an article by Atari founder Nolan Bushnell about the educational potential of videogames. It’s not dated, but based on the biographical one-liner I’d say it’s from around 1982. Here’s the first paragraph: The computer, the single most powerful development of the twentieth century, is still puny in comparison to the mind of man. The difference lies in… read more
My Position Paper on Game Criticism, DiGRA 2009
At the 2009 Digital Games Research Association conference, I participated in a panel organized by David Thomas, “You Played That? Game Studies Meets Game Criticism.” The other panelists were William Huber, Margaret Robertson, and José Zagal. The panel posed the following question: What is game criticism? How should the academy claim its place alongside game journalism as a productive voice… read more
The Politics of Play in Military Video Games
Routledge has just published Joystick Soldiers, a new book about military videogames edited by Nina B. Huntemann and Matthew Thomas Payne. I wrote the foreword for the book, so I suppose I have to admit that my recommendation comes partly on those grounds. Still, as I wrote in the foreword, the book “both embraces and resists the role of militarism… read more
More Good Blogs to Read
Two interesting blogs have come to my attention, and I thought I’d pass along the recommendation to read them. First, Nathan Gale’s An Uncanny Ontology. Gale recently wrote about zombies and ontology, which I talked about here yesterday. He’s also been working on an interesting theoretical frame for object-oriented thinking, an Object Cone. Second, Fabio Cunctator’s Hyper Tiling. The author’s… read more