In the fifth or seventh or twenty-third yoga class I ever took, I fell on my face. Flat. Full length. On the floor. I laughed. The fall hadn’t hurt me, and how often do you fail so spectacularly that you fall on your face?… Read the rest
In response to a recent kerfuffle on an academic listserv (unnamed, because it could be any list), I sent an email suggesting the list’s moderation policies are inadequate. The responses were underwhelming.… Read the rest
This blog post is an expansion of some thoughts I wrote up for a journalist covering the invocation and position of video games in the horrific shooting in New Zealand. The journalist ultimately didn’t use them.… Read the rest
I have been trying for several days to write an encyclopedia entry about Theresa Duncan, who I did not know and whose legacy is so snarled up with her tragic, spectacular death.… Read the rest
A few weeks back, in the midst of year-end summary posts, Aileen McHarg, Professor of Public Law at Strathclyde University, tweeted, “Proposal: any academics boasting on social media about how productive they’ve been in 2018 to be required to add a report on the state of their personal life.”… Read the rest
Jennifer Miller and I are hosting a symposium here in Chicago this fall as part of our work with our Nayar Prize Finalist project on learning games for young children. Please consider submitting and circulate widely.
A few months ago, I started putting together a symposium on the intersection of games and emotions. That symposium, now titled “Feeling Games,” is happening in a couple weeks here at Illinois Tech.… Read the rest
This fall, for the third time, I will be teaching a course on the History of Video Games. This is an upper level class offered to undergraduates across the university here at the Illinois Institute of Technology.… Read the rest
The discussion on Twitter yesterday about video game archives and archive-based historical work stirred up some memories about the work I’ve done in archives myself. While I tend to fall between disciplines and currently work primarily in media and game studies and digital humanities, my real training is as an American cultural historian.… Read the rest