Nick Montfort on Digital Humanities
This week my Racing the Beam co-author and platform studies series co-editor Nick Montfort spoke at the Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities & Computer Science. In addition to discussing the two new platform studies titles shipping this spring, Nick reports that he met Perry Collins, a a new program officer for the NEH Office of Digital Humanities. Here’s Nick’s summary… read more
Call for Papers
Below is the CFP for a conference to be held by the Center for 21st Century Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, on May 3-5, 2012. Confirmed invited speakers include me, Jane Bennett, Bill Brown, Wendy Chun, Mark Hansen, Erin Manning, Brian Massumi, Tim Morton, and Steven Shaviro. Hope to see you there! This conference takes up the “nonhuman turn” that has… read more
Two new and relatively extensive interviews with me were recently published. The first is in Forbes, conducted by David M. Ewalt. It mostly covers material from my latest book, How to Do Things with Videogames, but there’s some new material toward the end. The second interview, with Aaron McCollough, appears in The Journal of Electronic Publishing. It primarily addresses my… read more
Cover art and Blurb
Here’s the cover design, tagline, and blurb for my forthcoming book Alien Phenomenology, or What It’s Like to Be a Thing, which will be published by University of Minnesota Press in early 2012. It’s hard to express how exciting it is to have a hot wing on the cover of one of my books. And a cute panda. Other objects… read more
An exhibition of new games for the Atari
I’m curating an exhibit of new Atari games at Babycastles, which opens this Sunday, November 13th. It’s called Innovative Leisure (a term I lifted from an early Atari slogan) and will take place at a new art games arcade at Death By Audio. The show exhibits games by Sonny Ray Tempest, Ed Fries, and Simon Quernhost. The event starts at… read more
Lacan and the McRib
Each year, the McRib returns for a brief visit to Earth. Its arrival elicits reactions ranging from horror to awe. No matter the tenor, each response’s inspiration is the same: this would-be rib sandwich is really a restructured pork patty pressed into the rough shape of a slab of ribs, its slathering of barbecue sauce acting as a camouflage as… read more
Steven Connor on Winning
There are lots of great excerpts to share from Steven Connor’s new book A Philosophy of Sport. Here’s one: The sudden approach of the finish line involves a significant shift of effort. Instead of pushing forward, to overcome a considerable and continuing resistance, you are about to break through from the playing of the game into some other state entirely.… read more
A response to Mike Thomsen
The New Inquiry published a review by Michael Thomsen of my latest book How to Do Things With Videogames. It’s just the kind of review an author hopes for: fair, thoughtful, based on a thorough reading, and full of new ideas and observations. I’m grateful to Thomsen for writing it. Thomsen raises an objection that I’ve been waiting for and… read more
An event at Georgia Tech this week
This Wednesday, October 19, the Wesley Center for New Media, the Georgia Tech Digital Media Program, and the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture will host a symposium on the future of literature. The event has been orgainzed by Jay David Bolter and Maria Engborg. It is free and open to the public, and refreshments will be served. All are… read more
Steven Johnson on Derrida
The author Steven Johnson has an essay in the New York Times today, I Was an Under-Age Semiotician, about his younger years as a Semiotics major at Brown. It’s worth a read for anyone who did or still does philosophy or “critical theory,” to use an annoying term. But I want to pull out a specific excerpt from Johnson’s essay:… read more