I took a feminist methodologies class this past semester, and, as a result, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to make use of feminist methodologies in my own work and my own research on games and literature. What seems important when conceptualizing of such thinking and practice is that there […]
Yearly Archives: 2015
379 posts
Immediately after finals last week, in preparation for traveling down South to meet my partner’s parents, cousins, sister, aunts, uncles (basically all of Texas), I began a hunt for games I could play on my iPad and on Steam – especially since bringing my Xbox One with me wasn’t exactly […]
With Winter Break upon us I see more frantic pleas from parents asking for ideas of what to do with their children while they are home for 2 whole weeks. And I understand, there are only so many trampoline parks and rock climbing walls you want to see (or pay […]
Oh, December. That most wonderful time of the year, when everyone argues about holiday greetings, politics, and whether or not this terrible weather is really just some career-risking global conspiracy designed to piss off people who really like plastic. Oh, and also, everyone with a website or a YouTube channel that mentioned […]
I came across an article the other day by Hannah Dwan called “Slicing Up Eyeballs: Abject in Gaming,” in which Dwan discusses the manner in which Julia Kristeva’s conception of abjection is vital for the horror genre and is especially representable in video games: Horror is a genre that, despite […]
This fall I was pulled into watching the Netflix original series, Master of None starring Aziz Ansari, with the promise of diversity and feminist thought. Being a little outside of what I see as the shows intended demographic (but I basically play games for a living so what the hell, […]
On any given day, a good 1-2% of my Facebook feed is cats, but lately, it’s been a very specific sort of cats: virtual cats, the fuzzy furballs of Neko Atsume. We’re wrapping up finals week here at the university, and many of the grad students had papers due over […]
After my Ode to Lara’s Thigh Gap, I started pondering on why a critical evaluation of female body types in video games is important for consideration in the first place. In other words, why were some people vehemently in support of my perspective while others cheered me on? It was […]
I read Jorge Albor’s “The Games I Fear to Play: Reflecting on the Personal in Games” the other day, in which Albor considers the manner in which games represent personal experiences, arguing that games “do a damn good job of instigating self-reflection.” Indeed, Albor believes that it is perfectly “reasonable […]
Episode 117: Lost in Liminal Space: A Chat with Melissa Bianchi (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, or TuneIn). In this episode we talk to Melissa Bianchi from University of Florida about her research . We talk about things from liminal space to animal studies. Games That […]
Since playing The Beginner’s Guide, I’ve continued to wrestle with the various definitions and boundaries of just what a game is, considering the ever-expanding sphere. Even if I think only of recent releases, there are games without fail states, like Submerged, and that also have no real win conditions, like Her […]
Last week Naughty Dog gave us a new glimpse at Uncharted 4 and we got to see Nadine Ross. Nadine looked like a kick ass Black female character who was clearly taking no shit from Nathan Drake. Some people were excited, some were skeptical about the possibility of another aggressive […]
I realize the world has been anticipating my next blog post about Spike Lee’s Livin’ Da Dream. But the much awaited 1st quarter assessment of NBA 2K16’s Livin’ Da Dream was stalled midway through gameplay. I became mostly frustrated and upset at the cliché storylines, the bickering of Women of […]
I finished playing Rise of the Tomb Raider this past week, and while I’ve written about the game a lot this month, I wanted to devote at least one more (but, most likely, not the last) post to exploring my thoughts upon completing the game–a review, of sorts. I’ve written […]
I’m going to blame it on some kind of virus induced delirium, but last night I sat on my couch nursing a cold, sipping a hot tea, and watching the Game Awards. Mind you I never watch the game awards. I think the judging is biased and the host(s) usually […]
Life has reached a kind of fever pitch for me. It’s the end of the semester, various deadlines are looming, and changes are afoot at my kid’s school. All of this leads to me being forever in a bad friggin’ mood. Perhaps not outwardly, but inwardly I often think about […]