Scholars At Play

A feed drop from Derek' new pod, 2 Player Theory. Check it out below: https://twoplayertheory.podbean.com/

Subscribe to Two Player Theory! https://twoplayertheory.podbean.com/

Feed Drop!! In this new podcast, Derek, Zach, and friends talk through games and media, together. Subscribe to Two Player Theory (https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-n3ieq-11a3b2e) In this first episode, we talk about Zelda's newest open-world game, Tears of the Kingdom, and what it's themes and narrative mean for us, right now.

Derek and Kyle sit down to talk about Derek's recently-completed dissertation "The Work of Nonfiction: Simulator Games in Germany." Derek talks about the history of simulator games, the specific simulators he studies, and what we can learn from games all about machines and work. Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 4:11 - Theory, text, and context in research 8:30 - Origins of the project and how it developed, brief history of simulator games 20:12 - Theories and methods of the project 37:33 - Examples of popular simulator games from the mid-2000s 45:05 - How do these "newer" simulator games break from or continue in the tradition of older simulator games? 58:11 - How do simulator games respond to contemporary transformations of work in the 21st century, and why did the simulator game genre become popular in German-speaking contexts? 1:17:50 - The limits of critique/suspicion in research, and a brief discussion about how gender and class under-gird simulator game realism.

Subscribe to Dodging Hollow on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/dodging-hollow Edited intro music is "Day Bird" by Broke for Free, Creative Commons by attribution. Check out their music here: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP

The scholars may be physically distant, but that won't stop them from talking about all their quarantine gaming! Join us for an EXTRA long "What's In You System" where we talk about how our gaming has changed during the ongoing pandemic. ----------- Games Discussed: Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Animal Crossing, Link Between Worlds, Euro Truck Simulator 2, Deep Space D6 ----------- Hosts: Derek Price: twitter.com/digital_derek Terrell Taylor: twitter.com/BlackSocrates Kyle Romero: twitter.com/E_Kyle_Romero ----------- Contact: email: scholarsatplaypodcast@gmail.com twitter: twitter.com/ScholarsAtPlay ----------- Music: "We Can Do It" by Visager (twitter.com/visagermusic)

-------------- Terrell leads Kyle and Derek on an exploration of the politics of failure and FromSoftware's Bloodborne (2015). They reflect on their own experiences with this challenging game and discuss how the game intersects with narratives of success and failure from different perspectives. Is the imperative to "git gud," common among hardcore fans of FromSoftware's games, an exclusionary, bootstrapping narrative all about personal success, or can we imagine a different politics (of success or failure) arising from FromSoftware's "harsh but fair" design paradigm? You'll have to listen to find out! -------------- Objects Discussed Game - Bloodborne (FromSoftware, 2015) Texts - Hudson - "In Bloodborne's brutal world, I found myself" (2015, Offworld.com) - Juul - "The Art of Failure: An Essay on the Pain of Playing Video Games" (2013, MIT Press) - "The Arts of Failure: Jack Halberstam in Conversation with Jesper Juul Moderated by Bonnie Ruberg" (2017, in: Queer Game Studies) -------------- Hosts Terrell Tayl

-------------- Derek, Kyle, Curtis, and Sabeen have a conversation about the opportunities and challenges in using digital games to teach history. This episode was recorded live at "Learning at Play," a 1-day symposium on games for learning and social change which took place at Vanderbilt on 8 November 2019. For more on the event, see: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/play/ -------------- Objects Discussed Games - Assassin’s Creed 2 (Ubisoft Montreal, 2009) - Attentat 1942 (Charles University, 2017) Texts - Gilbert - “‘Assassin’s Creed reminds us that history is human experience’: Students’ senses of empathy while playing a narrative video game” (2019, in: Theory & Research in Social Education) Objects Mentioned: - Komel: "ORIENTALISM IN ASSASSIN’S CREED: SELF-ORIENTALIZING THE ASSASSINS FROM FORERUNNERS OF MODERN TERRORISM INTO OCCIDENTALIZED HEROES" (2014) - Sisler: "Digital Arabs: Representation in Video Games" (2008) - Sisler: "Contested Memories of War in Czechoslovakia 38-89: Assassination: Designing a Ser

Episode 14 - Metagaming -------------- Derek, Kyle, and Terrell finally get it together and have a long, winding conversation about Dr. Stephanie Boluk and Dr. Patrick LeMieux's book "Metagaming" and the kinds of games we like to play with games. -------------- Objects Discussed Texts: - "Metagaming: Playing, Competing, Spectating, Cheating, Trading, Making, and Breaking Videogames (Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux, 2017) (Meta)Games: - Heat Signature, Hitman (2016), Divinity Original Sin 2, FTL: Faster Than Light, The Pokemon Trading Card Game, -------------- Hosts Derek Price - twitter.com/digital_derek Terrell Taylor - twitter.com/BlackSocrates Kyle Romero - twitter.com/E_Kyle_Romero -------------- Contact us! E-mail: scholarsatplaypodcast@gmail.com Twitter: twitter.com/ScholarsAtPlay scholarsatplay.net -------------- Special thanks: Visager (twitter.com/visagermusic) for the use of their song "We Can Do It" and our Distinguished Colleague Patreon supporters, including: Carol R. -------------- Sup

In a special episode, Derek sits down with Pascal Wagner (Language At Play, Polyneux, GAIN Magazin) to talk about their experiences at A MAZE 2019, an independent festival for games that happens every year in Berlin. They talk about the great games and talks they saw, as well as some games they had some more critical reactions to. See below for a more detailed list of what they talked about, and when. ----------- Timestamps 4:50 - A MAZE in general 11:20 - "The Game: The Game" (https://angelawashko.com/home.html) 25:18 - "Fantastic Fetus" (https://cyangmou.itch.io/fantastic-fetus) and other AMAZE talks 42:57 - Death Trash (http://deathtrash.com/) 44:10 - The Fermi Paradox (http://fermi-paradox.com/press/sheet.php?p=fermi%20paradox) 51:52 - Curious Expedition (https://curious-expedition.com/) ----------- Recommended Texts -Dom Ford ““eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate”: Affective Writing of Postcolonial History and Education in Civilization V” (http://gamestudies.org/1602/articles/ford) -Johan Höglund - Ele

The Scholars are back! After traveling through time and space, Derek has finally reunited with his stateside counterparts, Kyle and Terrell, to catch up and see "What's In Your System?" We talk about what we've been playing over the last few months, especially Heat Signature, Castlevania (the games and the show), the diverging narratives of Warhammer, the (divisive) idea of proxies in Warhammer and Magic: The Gathering, and The Power 9. ----------- Hosts: Derek Price: twitter.com/digital_derek Terrell Taylor: twitter.com/BlackSocrates Kyle Romero: twitter.com/E_Kyle_Romero ----------- Contact: email: scholarsatplaypodcast@gmail.com twitter: twitter.com/ScholarsAtPlay ----------- Music: "We Can Do It" by Visager (twitter.com/visagermusic)

Content Warning: discussions of sexual abuse and assault -------------- Sabeen Ahmed returns to join us for an important discussion about the way Persona 5 handles sexual assault, abuse, and power, and how it feels to play Persona 5 in the middle of the #MeToo movement in the U.S. -------------- Objects Discussed Texts: - Against Interpretation (Susan Sontag, 1966) - The Predator and the Jokester (Lauren Berlant in “Where Freedom Starts: Sex, Power, Violence, #MeToo”, 2018) Games: - Persona 5 (Atlus, 2016 Japan, 2017 International) -------------- Hosts Derek Price - twitter.com/digital_derek Terrell Taylor - twitter.com/BlackSocrates Kyle Romero - twitter.com/E_Kyle_Romero Sabeen Ahmed -------------- Contact us! E-mail: scholarsatplaypodcast@gmail.com Twitter: twitter.com/ScholarsAtPlay scholarsatplay.net -------------- Special thanks: Visager (twitter.com/visagermusic) for the use of their song "The Plateau at Night," The Curb Center at Vanderbilt, HASTAC, and our Distinguished Colleague Patreon supporter

This special episode is a recording of a digital colloquium that took place on April 16th, 2018. Sponsored by the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities and the Center for Digital Humanities at Vanderbilt University, and organized by the RPW Seminar "Taking Play Seriously," this panel featured games industry vet Bill Harms (Mafia III, Infamous), games critic Dante Douglas (Paste, Polygon, Waypoint, and others), and games academic Dr. Adrienne Shaw (Temple University) discussing the idea of "(Making a) Difference in Gaming." In each of their short presentations, the panelists reflected on how, in the last few years, games cultures have negotiated difference in identity, representation, play, the workplace, and society at large, but also how games are making a difference in local, national, and transnational contexts (and what kind of difference they might be making). The colloquium concluded with a moderated Q&A session. -------------- Panelists Contact info (Twitter): Dante Douglas: @videodante Adrienn

https://www.patreon.com/ScholarsAtPlay

Ted Dawson joins Derek, Kyle and Terrell to talk about what "The Anthropocene" and "ecocriticism" are, why they matter, and what we need to do to save the world. Well, at least in "The Fate of the World." -------------- Objects Discussed Texts: - "The Climate of History: Four Theses" (Dipesh Chakrabarty, 2009) - "Greenshifting Game Studies" (Hans-Joachim Backe, 2014) - "Live in Your World, Play in Ours”: Video Games, Critical Play, and the Environmental Humanities (Megan Condis, 2015) - "What's the Fate of the World?" (Graham Smith, 2010) Games: - Fate of the World (Red Redemption, 2011) - Thunderbird Strike (Dr. Elizabeth LaPensée, 2017) -------------- Hosts Derek Price - twitter.com/digital_derek Terrell Taylor - twitter.com/BlackSocrates Kyle Romero - twitter.com/E_Kyle_Romero Ted Dawson - twitter.com/germanisted -------------- Contact us! E-mail: scholarsatplaypodcast@gmail.com Twitter: twitter.com/ScholarsAtPlay scholarsatplay.net -------------- Special thanks: Visager (twitter.com/visagermusic) for

-------------- -Tired: Scholars at Play- -Wired: HISTORIANS AT PLAY- -In this episode, Kyle takes over and forces Derek and Terrell to talk about history and strategy games again. Joined by special guest Henry Gorman, History PhD candidate and lover of Paradox games, the four talk through what it means for games to be historical or to represent history, the various ways we can approach historical games critically, and the differences in how games like Crusader Kings 2, Civilization V, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance allow the player to engage with the possibility space of history.- - NOTE: This is part 2 of 2 - -------------- Objects Discussed -Adam Chapman, “Is Sid Meier’s Civilization History” ​​Rethinking History 17:3 (2013), 312-333- -Adam Chapman, “Privileging Form Over Content: Analyzing Historical Video Games” ​​Journal of Digital Humanities 1:2 (Spring, 2012)- -Crusader Kings 2 (Paradox Development Studios, 2012)- -Sid Meier's Civilization V (Firaxis Games, 2010)- -Kingdom Come: Deliverance (Wa

-------------- -Tired: Scholars at Play- -Wired: HISTORIANS AT PLAY- -In this episode, Kyle takes over and forces Derek and Terrell to talk about history and strategy games again. Joined by special guest Henry Gorman, History PhD candidate and lover of Paradox games, the four talk through what it means for games to be historical or to represent history, the various ways we can approach historical games critically, and the differences in how games like Crusader Kings 2, Civilization V, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance allow the player to engage with the possibility space of history.- - NOTE: This is part 1 of 2 - -------------- Objects Discussed -Adam Chapman, “Is Sid Meier’s Civilization History” ​​Rethinking History 17:3 (2013), 312-333- -Adam Chapman, “Privileging Form Over Content: Analyzing Historical Video Games” ​​Journal of Digital Humanities 1:2 (Spring, 2012)- -Crusader Kings 2 (Paradox Development Studios, 2012)- -Sid Meier's Civilization V (Firaxis Games, 2010)- -Kingdom Come: Deliverance (Wa

In this episode of What's In Your System?, Derek, Kyle, and Terrell talk about the new (and old) games they've been playing in the new year.

In the second half of our game of the year podcast series, Kyle, Derek, and Terrell talk about their Greatest Escape, the most "2017" game, SAP's Game of the Year, games we would recommend to each other, and the best games we didn't play. Also, if you're curious about our personal Top 5 lists, check them out on our website! http://scholarsatplay.net/category/goty-2017/

In Part 1 of our Games of the Year podcast series, we talk about the games we thought had the Biggest Impact, our favorite moments in games, and we play another of Qyle's Qrazy Quizzes!