The fall semester began last week at Purdue, and I’ve been spending some time this past week catching up with other members of my cohort and meeting with professors to discuss my research goals. And I’ve been thinking about a few things as a result of these conversations—conversations that, of […]
Monthly Archives: August 2015
31 posts
You find yourself licking the salt from your lips, an automatic action, as you guide your small boat through a flooded metropolis, the motor sputtering like an old man struggling to catch a breath. The encompassing silence in the seemingly desolate city would be crushing had it not been for […]
So I’ve been playing a lot of Fallout Shelter lately. Consoles games have fallen pretty much by the wayside as I have spent more time on campus and have come home exhausted. This is not an excuse for playing mobile games, but rather an explanation for why I have found […]
We have our newest guest writer and podcaster, Kishonna Gray! Kishonna is an Assistant Professor in the School of Justice Studies at Eastern Kentucky University. She is also the Founder & Director of the Critical Gaming Lab housed in the School of Justice Studies. Kishonna completed her PhD in 2011 at Arizona […]
This semester, I’m trying a few different things in the classroom. I’m teaching in, and doing curriculum development for, a specialized program in conjunction with our college of tech, so this fall is all about (reasoned) experimentation. All the first-year writing students in this program are tech students who are all enrolled […]
I went to a Wine and Cheese Equity and Diversity Summit last week. This was held at my university to talk about the idea of implementing a racial issues course requirement to the common core. Now, I work at an urban university with plenty of diversity, in terms of ethnic […]
I spent most of my early life thinking my father would have really rather have had a boy. I thought this for a variety of reasons, but when I talked about it, he would always vehemently deny it. (And he hates it when I talk about this, so if you […]
There’s an article that I’ve seen making the rounds on Facebook called “Ariana Grande, Kim Kardashian, and the War on ‘Unlikable Women.'” And I read it, not because I necessarily have any strong feelings (in any direction) about Ariana Grande or Kim Kardashian but because I am struck by the […]
Recently there have been a couple of different articles that have addressed the way that girls and women interact with technology and how their experiences are affected by their interactions in games (via voice chat) or the ways that they perceive or are perceived by the community. As the mother […]
For five years Alex and I have been participating in the Extra Life marathon and raising money for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals in Indiana and Minnesota. And for me this year will be no different. I will beg for pledges and sit in a room for 24 hours playing some of […]
Episode 109: Games, Identification, and Culture: A Conversation with Adrienne Shaw (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, or TuneIn). Not a milestone episode numerically, but what a shift: we added contributor Bianca Batti to the podcast crew (finally!) and were joined by our dear friend Kishonna Gray and […]
Do you frequently play games online in multiplayer mode? When you play online, do you use a mic to communicate to other players? According to a report entitled “Teens, Technology and Friendships” released by the Pew Research Center, if you’re a teenage girl, the answer to both of these questions […]
I have decided that I am no longer going to solely be a consumer of games, and I’m going to start making them. I have made one game in the past, called Aquaville Adventures, made in Kodu Games Lab, which is a free program by Microsoft. I loved it. I […]
Last week, I rushed home to Arkansas because my mother was having surgery to remove tumors that had been discovered on her right ovary. Her tests came back with cancer markers, and the mass was growing so rapidly, nearly doubling in size in a matter of days, so we all […]
Last year, as I was getting ready to move out to Indiana to begin my Ph.D. program, I watched the first season of the French television series The Returned. As I watched each episode (while I piled books into boxes and wrapped plates up in paper), I was struck by […]
By now, many of you have probably heard about the controversy over Target’s decision to remove gender signage from toys and bedding. When I first heard about the change last week, I was happy because at the time I thought it meant that I would no longer have to wander […]