I have been a feminist since I could talk. For better or worse, I have always seen injustice, prejudice, racism, sexism, and unfairness in the world, and it always deeply disturbed me. Of course, I have grown and changed as a feminist. I’ve had to confront ways my privilege has […]
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This semester I am teaching a game studies course that I think may be one of the best courses that I have ever taught. The course is called “Women and Games” and it is a cross-listed undergraduate-graduate course. Over the course of the last couple of years as we have […]
Forecast: Not good but getting better. Maybe. I’ve written before about being nonbinary and considering what that looked like in games and why continued strides in representation matters. This week Laytonya Pennington at BGD looked at Kingdom Hearts Unchained X and offered evidence of why better representation is necessary for […]
Obsession is one of the most frightful things I’ve encountered. I’m not talking about how we think of obsession in popular culture: someone counting calories, watching a show over and over, or even wanting to spend most of your time with your puppies (I’ve been known to proclaim that I’m […]
The past couple weeks, I’ve written about patriarchal constructions of fathers and daughters in The Last of Us and Rise of the Tomb Raider, and I wanted to spend some time this week wrapping up these assorted musings. My last two posts have worked to put these two games in […]
This summer, I’m in a class focused on women in games, and it’s exactly what you’d expect: one step forward, 97,000 steps back at every turn. The success stories—of games, characters, girl gaming clubs, industry professionals, more—are both wonderful and terrible. Wonderful because we’re starved for them; terrible because those […]
Content Warning: Please be aware that this piece make reference to an episode of sexual assault. True to form, I am continuing on my track to be one of the last people who plays anything. While Dark Souls III just came out and Bloodborne’s been out for almost a year, I’m […]
Gamers have long had the stereotype that they are overweight, greasy, caffeine-addicted hermits with pale skin and acne who never left their parents’ basements. Gamers are depicted this way in many popular shows and movies, such as Southpark’s “Make Love Not Warcraft.” In the episode, the boys gets fatter, more […]
Episode 128: Never Alone and the Gifts of Our Ancestors: A Conversation with Amy Fredeen (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). Last night we were privileged (nay blessed) to have a conversation Amy Fredeen of the Cook Inlet Tribal Council (CITC). Amy is the Executive Vice […]
Last week, I wrote about patriarchal constructions of fatherhood and daughterhood in The Last of Us, and I want to continue in that vein this week as well. To extend this line of thinking, I want to examine how it is such constructions come to be repeated across gaming narratives. […]
So Blizzard gives and Blizzard takes away. Or more specifically, Blizzard made great strides forward with body types and armor coverage for it’s female heroes, but still fell back on old, tired, and offensive stereotypes in an attempt to add some depth to the characters. Let me start by saying […]
In this interview Kishonna talks with Kahlief Adams, host of Spawn on Me blog and podcast and creator of #Spawn4Good, about race, games, and activism. KG: Give us a little bit of your background. How did you get into gaming? What’s the first game you remember? KA: My name is Kahlief […]
I spent about two early morning hours playing a game this weekend. I woke up early so that I could sneak in some gaming hours to play a game that I wanted to write about before my daughter woke up and started demanding breakfast or some such nonsense. What the […]
This all came about because I said “would you kindly get the door,” to a grad student named Patrick. Patrick, better versed in video games than I, hesitated slightly before giving me a wry grin and opened the door for me and the folks we were walking with. It took […]
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the gendered labor that’s represented in The Last of Us, and since then, I’ve been thinking a lot more about the implications of the game’s representation of gendered family structures. Gerald Voorhees talks about The Last of Us’s representation of “paternal masculinity” as […]
Right now, I’m in the process of transitioning from my current university to my new one. It’s an exciting time, but one filled with the whole spectrum of emotions. I’m exciting to be moving to a great new place, starting a new job, and meeting new people. But, at the […]