She loves her "Gurky"!
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
On the Road
I've been on the road traveling for nearly the past 3 weeks. It's grueling and extremely rewarding.
For two weeks I've been bouncing across the US staying with World of Warcraft players, spending time with them, talking with them and getting to know them on a personal level you just can't achieve via game interface. This was all wrapped up with an amazing, exciting, sometimes frustrating but extremely enjoyable trip to Blizzcon.
I'm exhausted but really excited and invigorated about my PhD research and video games in general. I think too often we get focused on Theory (yes, the "T" is intentional) and the ideology of what we study that we forget about what makes it so important and interesting; the players. This is especially true for video games. We focus so much on the art, the narrative, the meaning that we often times lose sight of the player - those that makes the game come to life after the designers have birthed it. They have their own personal thoughts and ideas and play style and continue to push the boundaries of the industry forward for us all. Talking with gamers in deep depth about their history and why they play has been extremely enlightening. I think video game companies would benefit substantially if they hired on an ethnographer to just talk with video game players on a deep and personal level. The information you get from people when they aren't talking about video games is just as important and eye-opening as the information you get when they are directly discussing games.
I still owe some thoughts on PAX (extremely late I know), the Portland Retro Gaming Expo (again...really untimely) and of course Blizzcon.
Here's a teaser pic of Blizzcon while you wait for me to get it all down!
For two weeks I've been bouncing across the US staying with World of Warcraft players, spending time with them, talking with them and getting to know them on a personal level you just can't achieve via game interface. This was all wrapped up with an amazing, exciting, sometimes frustrating but extremely enjoyable trip to Blizzcon.
I'm exhausted but really excited and invigorated about my PhD research and video games in general. I think too often we get focused on Theory (yes, the "T" is intentional) and the ideology of what we study that we forget about what makes it so important and interesting; the players. This is especially true for video games. We focus so much on the art, the narrative, the meaning that we often times lose sight of the player - those that makes the game come to life after the designers have birthed it. They have their own personal thoughts and ideas and play style and continue to push the boundaries of the industry forward for us all. Talking with gamers in deep depth about their history and why they play has been extremely enlightening. I think video game companies would benefit substantially if they hired on an ethnographer to just talk with video game players on a deep and personal level. The information you get from people when they aren't talking about video games is just as important and eye-opening as the information you get when they are directly discussing games.
I still owe some thoughts on PAX (extremely late I know), the Portland Retro Gaming Expo (again...really untimely) and of course Blizzcon.
Here's a teaser pic of Blizzcon while you wait for me to get it all down!
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
I wish my teachers had been this cool
I have to share a short email exchange that happened today.
My daughter is in the 6th grade and has what sounds like a really cool social sciences/language arts teacher. Last night at the dinner table she was explaining a conversation that occurred in the classroom (explained in the email so I won't reiterate it here) which struck a deep cord of the geek girl in me.
I couldn't help myself and had to email her teacher to correct the imagined (on my part) grievous error in his explanation and understanding of lightsaber technology.
Please note that the teacher does indeed school me. I take it all in stride though; this is what happens when you argue about imaginary science...but hey, isn't that what most physicists do? (kidding...kidding...for the most part...)
Me original email to the teacher -
His AWESOME response -
I did email him back after that to let him know I couldn't wait for my daughter to come to discuss the lesson on Campbell's Hero Cycle.
I think we took it both in stride as I recognize he schooled me and he recognized that in the world of fan fiction he had gotten an important fact wrong. My daughter told me that he talked about the email in class today an discussed the "correct" idea behind the light saber. I guess for this geek mom it was a win-win and lesson learned for both of us.
Only thing is...I wish I had a teacher this cool when I was in middle school!
My daughter is in the 6th grade and has what sounds like a really cool social sciences/language arts teacher. Last night at the dinner table she was explaining a conversation that occurred in the classroom (explained in the email so I won't reiterate it here) which struck a deep cord of the geek girl in me.
I couldn't help myself and had to email her teacher to correct the imagined (on my part) grievous error in his explanation and understanding of lightsaber technology.
Please note that the teacher does indeed school me. I take it all in stride though; this is what happens when you argue about imaginary science...but hey, isn't that what most physicists do? (kidding...kidding...for the most part...)
Me original email to the teacher -
Let me preface this by saying that Fiona was absolutely appalled that I was going to email you because she really enjoys you as a teacher and truly enjoys your classes. I told her I’d email but I do so in a friendly way and not in an angry parent sort of way. I’m almost finished with my PhD in Anthropology in which I focus on popular culture (video games specifically) and just got back from a Popular Culture Conference in Minnesota so teachings of popular culture is very much on the forefront of my mind.
I’m Fiona’s mom and last night she was telling me about a lesson you were teaching on the suspension of disbelief and you used the example of the Star War’s lightsaber. She said that she was told that because they were made of light you couldn’t stop light and therefore had to suspend your disbelieve and just enjoy them for the fiction. (Now it’s possible Fiona got this wrong but I just wanted to make sure we’re all on the same page).
A light saber isn’t exactly made of light. It’s bound energy that more resembles plasma more than anything else. I took this from a fan site: “The weapon consisted of a blade of pure plasma energy emitted from the hilt and suspended in a force containment field.” As bounded energy or plasma, it CAN be easy contained by the apparatus in which it is housed.
Once unleashed, the power channels through a positively charged continuous energy lens at the center of the handle. The beam then arcs circumferentially back to a negatively charged high energy flux aperture. A superconductor transfers the power from the flux aperture to the power cell. As a result, a lightsaber only expends power when its blade cuts through something. So efficient is the blade, that it does not radiate heat unless it comes into contact with something.
Even if it were light you could contain it by a reflection apparatus on each end causing a refractor loop to contain and harness the light. So while it’s an awesome example of the suspension of disbelieve it was incorrect in the world of popular culture rhetoric and knowledge. :)
My point here in writing is just to say that the lightsaber is NOT made of light as its name would suggest but plasma which is much more easily contained and easily within the realm of possibility. I wanted to let you know that, your lesson spurred a nice long discussion of Star Wars, physics, lightsaber technology and the notion of suspension of disbelief last night during dinner. It’s great to see teachers incorporating popular culture references into their lessons because it really helps the students make a connection with the lesson.
As I said, this isn’t meant as an angry sort of parent letter…more of a “here’s what I’m thinking” sort of thing.
May the Force be with You!!! :)
His AWESOME response -
Touché.
Thank you. I appreciate more than you may be aware your dinner conversation. I am so glad that it was a topic of discussion. I think you will really like our discussions in the future of how we use the Cosmogonic Cycle of Campbell (which we call the Hero Cycle)to map stories and literature. Star Wars is again a perfect example of it.
As for the lightsaber, I did not realize that it was an arc of plasma energy focused by an “energy lens”. It must have been invented in the same research laboratory as the Heisenberg Compensator for Star Trek’s transporter.
May the Force be with you as well,
I did email him back after that to let him know I couldn't wait for my daughter to come to discuss the lesson on Campbell's Hero Cycle.
I think we took it both in stride as I recognize he schooled me and he recognized that in the world of fan fiction he had gotten an important fact wrong. My daughter told me that he talked about the email in class today an discussed the "correct" idea behind the light saber. I guess for this geek mom it was a win-win and lesson learned for both of us.
Only thing is...I wish I had a teacher this cool when I was in middle school!
MPCA 2010 Day 3 - Wrap Up
I was hoping to get this blogged the final day of the conference but the death plague I caught before leaving finally got to me. I pushed myself really hard to make it through the final day and while I'm still paying for it health wise I had an amazing time and absolutely cannot wait until next year's conference in Wisconsin.
For this third and final day I spent the first part of the morning in meetings. I had a great breakfast and got to talk with the other area chairs for the conference and listen to plans for next years conference.
Afterwards, I was planning to attend a session on Religion and Popular Culture but was instead invited to the executive committee's meeting. I'm glad I had the opportunity to stay and hear how much passion, effort, pre-planning and work goes into these meetings. The executive committee is really interested in being able to balance out the financial needs of the organization with the wants and desires of those attending and presenting at the conference. To help them with this I'm going to be pulling a survey together for all conference attendees to take. These results will help the organization figure out how best to handle upcoming conferences and to continually refine and make the conference a fantastic experience for all. If you're an MPCA member please look for that in the coming weeks. We need everyone's feedback so please let your voice be heard!
I'll also be starting a twitter feed, blog and working on a Facebook page for the association and it will house important information, snippets of people's work, interesting news, book reviews and more. If you have any ideas of things you'd like to see, please email me and let me know and I'll make every attempt to make that happen for you.
I was able to attend the last two panels of the conference. The first was on Detective fiction with talks on the work of Dan Brown, the show, The Wired and City of Glass. While I'm not personally into that genre, it was a great discussion of this genre and spurred thoughts and conversations on the understanding of genre in general within literature and other forms of media. Styles of writing are shifting and yet we, for the most part, continue to use the same classifications of genre that we've always used. It's a nice way to be able to find things at your local bookstore but does it truly capture the essence of modern writing? We see this problem in video games as well. Genre is becoming so loose, crossed and fluid that I wonder what the future of it will be. We clearly need to rethink it but we of course can't compartmentalize things to a point where everything is it's own genre. There has to be a happy medium in there somewhere.
The very last panel of the day was about Fandom, fan works and Fanfiction. I personally love theories and work on Fan culture and this discussion was an amazing way to wrap up the conference for me. There was a somewhat heated discussion at the end about copyright issues and the ethics behind fan fiction. I feel divided on the issue myself. On the one hand these fans are boosting the fandom of a particular work by keeping it alive. Think of Twilight. Would Twilight be as popular without the fans to keep the flames alive? We can't tell people, "Be fans but only buy our official products and don't carry it further". What is it they say; "imitation is the best form of flattery" and I think these examples are no exception. But at the same time when you take the author's characters and twist them in such a way that there is little resemblance to the original intent, it feels dirty or sacrilege to the author's work.
There was an art major in the room at the time who was absolutely appalled by people stealing work like that and she felt that it made her career and passion a joke. If it was okay for people to just swoop in and take something already made and twist it for their own what was the point of coming up with something at all. I understand a bit of how she feels. I have gone to college and studied and worked really hard to become an anthropologist and work as an ethnographer. It really grinds me like nothing else when people call themself an ethnographer when they in fact have no theoretical background in it or little to no training. What good is my 15+ years of training when anyone can say they do what I do? I suppose this is the argument against fan fiction. If, I were an author, carefully cultivated a world and populated it with characters of my own making, how would I feel if someone then took that hard work and turned it into their own? For some authors it's awful, for others they love the attention. The bottom line is that fan studies is an amazing realm of work and needs to continue to explore the many facets of fan cultures, authority, authorship, transmedia, and the transformative power and nature of their passion.
All in all, my brain left very full and happy with the weekend events.
For this third and final day I spent the first part of the morning in meetings. I had a great breakfast and got to talk with the other area chairs for the conference and listen to plans for next years conference.
Afterwards, I was planning to attend a session on Religion and Popular Culture but was instead invited to the executive committee's meeting. I'm glad I had the opportunity to stay and hear how much passion, effort, pre-planning and work goes into these meetings. The executive committee is really interested in being able to balance out the financial needs of the organization with the wants and desires of those attending and presenting at the conference. To help them with this I'm going to be pulling a survey together for all conference attendees to take. These results will help the organization figure out how best to handle upcoming conferences and to continually refine and make the conference a fantastic experience for all. If you're an MPCA member please look for that in the coming weeks. We need everyone's feedback so please let your voice be heard!
I'll also be starting a twitter feed, blog and working on a Facebook page for the association and it will house important information, snippets of people's work, interesting news, book reviews and more. If you have any ideas of things you'd like to see, please email me and let me know and I'll make every attempt to make that happen for you.
I was able to attend the last two panels of the conference. The first was on Detective fiction with talks on the work of Dan Brown, the show, The Wired and City of Glass. While I'm not personally into that genre, it was a great discussion of this genre and spurred thoughts and conversations on the understanding of genre in general within literature and other forms of media. Styles of writing are shifting and yet we, for the most part, continue to use the same classifications of genre that we've always used. It's a nice way to be able to find things at your local bookstore but does it truly capture the essence of modern writing? We see this problem in video games as well. Genre is becoming so loose, crossed and fluid that I wonder what the future of it will be. We clearly need to rethink it but we of course can't compartmentalize things to a point where everything is it's own genre. There has to be a happy medium in there somewhere.
The very last panel of the day was about Fandom, fan works and Fanfiction. I personally love theories and work on Fan culture and this discussion was an amazing way to wrap up the conference for me. There was a somewhat heated discussion at the end about copyright issues and the ethics behind fan fiction. I feel divided on the issue myself. On the one hand these fans are boosting the fandom of a particular work by keeping it alive. Think of Twilight. Would Twilight be as popular without the fans to keep the flames alive? We can't tell people, "Be fans but only buy our official products and don't carry it further". What is it they say; "imitation is the best form of flattery" and I think these examples are no exception. But at the same time when you take the author's characters and twist them in such a way that there is little resemblance to the original intent, it feels dirty or sacrilege to the author's work.
There was an art major in the room at the time who was absolutely appalled by people stealing work like that and she felt that it made her career and passion a joke. If it was okay for people to just swoop in and take something already made and twist it for their own what was the point of coming up with something at all. I understand a bit of how she feels. I have gone to college and studied and worked really hard to become an anthropologist and work as an ethnographer. It really grinds me like nothing else when people call themself an ethnographer when they in fact have no theoretical background in it or little to no training. What good is my 15+ years of training when anyone can say they do what I do? I suppose this is the argument against fan fiction. If, I were an author, carefully cultivated a world and populated it with characters of my own making, how would I feel if someone then took that hard work and turned it into their own? For some authors it's awful, for others they love the attention. The bottom line is that fan studies is an amazing realm of work and needs to continue to explore the many facets of fan cultures, authority, authorship, transmedia, and the transformative power and nature of their passion.
All in all, my brain left very full and happy with the weekend events.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
MPCA 2010 Day 2
Today has been just an AMAZING day at the MPCA conference in Minnesota.
I woke up late which caused me to miss breakfast and the first panel I planned to attend. I blame this on the death plague I acquired the night before flying out.
I had planned on attending a Television panel called, "Colorful Characters: People and Profiles". I'm sorry to have missed it. I'll have to see if I can't get the papers or presentations from their respective authors.
By waking up late I did however get a chance to take some leisure time to look at the book vendor tables. It was extremely productive to say the least. I talked with a couple of book publishers and one is a publisher out of the UK that is looking to move more in the US market. They're interested in my work and I plan on submitting some articles to them for publication. I also talked with another couple of publishers who are interested in my dissertation once I finish it up. All in all, I was really happy. PLUS (this is both good and bad....good for my brain, bad for my pocketbook) I found a TON of books that I'll be returning home with. 12 in total. I cannot wait to get reading as it all looks so good. Some of it is for my dissertation and some of it is just because it's of personal interest to me. It gives you a sneak peak into what I might do after the dissertation....
The panels today really blew me away. I was fascinated by the knowledge and eye opening discussions that took place today. I attended two panels on SciFi, Fantasy and Horror and a panel on Text and Textualities of directors in movies.
Check out my Twitter as I tweeted throughout the day on what was going on in each panel as it happened.
As a little recap though, some of the highlights that really excited me were the following:
For starters, I really enjoyed the deep discussion we had in one panel about Zombies and their meanings in Romero's movie and their role within culture. Even more so we discussed what Romero's movies meant and the commentary behind them. It was a really good and deep intellectual discussion. I also heard a few pieces that really change my perspective on popular works such as Stephen King's The Shining and the movies The Grudge as well as District Nine.
Lunch was a great opportunity to network and discuss what other people's interests and studies where. I met a great gal who studies health and popular culture and is recently working on health/disease based communities in cyber space. Her work is completely fascinating and many of the communities she's looking at, while small, have great implications for future studies on health related communities, especially in social media research on things like the patient journey.
One of the things that I've been blown away by is how passionate everyone is about popular culture. Not only are they passionate people but they are friendly and eager to share their knowledge in a huge and diverse array of topics. I definitely want to do more with the organization so I attended their business meeting to look for those opportunities. I'm now on the AV (audio visual) subcommittee, their new social media guru and I'm going to help the executive secretary out with a post conference quantitative survey. I'm extremely happy and pleased to be helping out!
I ended the day attending a film panel. All of the speakers were extremely captivating and I walked away with some great book suggestions to help me in my own research. Beyond being an interesting and enjoyable movie I never thought about Inglorious Basterds to the extent they did. They discussed how the movie really makes us look at the dehumanizing process to make brutality acceptable and about the genius directing of this movie. As one panelist said, "This is a movie that teaches us to watch movies". They pointed out little things I never noticed in the movie like how one of Shosana's dresses had a 1970s zipper on it (completely intentional), how the projector scene was an intentional Romeo and Juliet discourse, the scene prior to Bridget von Hammersmark's death is very much a reverse Cinderalla story and that Quentin Tarantino's hands were the ones used in her death scene, not actor Christoph Waltz's hands. Paul Booth talked about director Richard Kelly's work - Donnie Darko, Southland Tales and The Box. I learned a new respect for this director and the complexity of his films and cinematography.
This conference has made me pine to join the ranks of academia and teach again but I also gained a newfound respect for what I do. It has given me a unique set of skills that I can use in my continuing research. It has given me renewed vigor to know that I'm absolutely in the right field of studies and have the drive and confidence to go forward and finish my PhD. There's absolutely a feeling of belonging and respect.
I'm sad tomorrow is the last day but ready to get home to see my kids and husband. Hopefully the death plague and the push I'm making to get through the conference won't do me in!
I woke up late which caused me to miss breakfast and the first panel I planned to attend. I blame this on the death plague I acquired the night before flying out.
I had planned on attending a Television panel called, "Colorful Characters: People and Profiles". I'm sorry to have missed it. I'll have to see if I can't get the papers or presentations from their respective authors.
By waking up late I did however get a chance to take some leisure time to look at the book vendor tables. It was extremely productive to say the least. I talked with a couple of book publishers and one is a publisher out of the UK that is looking to move more in the US market. They're interested in my work and I plan on submitting some articles to them for publication. I also talked with another couple of publishers who are interested in my dissertation once I finish it up. All in all, I was really happy. PLUS (this is both good and bad....good for my brain, bad for my pocketbook) I found a TON of books that I'll be returning home with. 12 in total. I cannot wait to get reading as it all looks so good. Some of it is for my dissertation and some of it is just because it's of personal interest to me. It gives you a sneak peak into what I might do after the dissertation....
The panels today really blew me away. I was fascinated by the knowledge and eye opening discussions that took place today. I attended two panels on SciFi, Fantasy and Horror and a panel on Text and Textualities of directors in movies.
Check out my Twitter as I tweeted throughout the day on what was going on in each panel as it happened.
As a little recap though, some of the highlights that really excited me were the following:
For starters, I really enjoyed the deep discussion we had in one panel about Zombies and their meanings in Romero's movie and their role within culture. Even more so we discussed what Romero's movies meant and the commentary behind them. It was a really good and deep intellectual discussion. I also heard a few pieces that really change my perspective on popular works such as Stephen King's The Shining and the movies The Grudge as well as District Nine.
Lunch was a great opportunity to network and discuss what other people's interests and studies where. I met a great gal who studies health and popular culture and is recently working on health/disease based communities in cyber space. Her work is completely fascinating and many of the communities she's looking at, while small, have great implications for future studies on health related communities, especially in social media research on things like the patient journey.
One of the things that I've been blown away by is how passionate everyone is about popular culture. Not only are they passionate people but they are friendly and eager to share their knowledge in a huge and diverse array of topics. I definitely want to do more with the organization so I attended their business meeting to look for those opportunities. I'm now on the AV (audio visual) subcommittee, their new social media guru and I'm going to help the executive secretary out with a post conference quantitative survey. I'm extremely happy and pleased to be helping out!
I ended the day attending a film panel. All of the speakers were extremely captivating and I walked away with some great book suggestions to help me in my own research. Beyond being an interesting and enjoyable movie I never thought about Inglorious Basterds to the extent they did. They discussed how the movie really makes us look at the dehumanizing process to make brutality acceptable and about the genius directing of this movie. As one panelist said, "This is a movie that teaches us to watch movies". They pointed out little things I never noticed in the movie like how one of Shosana's dresses had a 1970s zipper on it (completely intentional), how the projector scene was an intentional Romeo and Juliet discourse, the scene prior to Bridget von Hammersmark's death is very much a reverse Cinderalla story and that Quentin Tarantino's hands were the ones used in her death scene, not actor Christoph Waltz's hands. Paul Booth talked about director Richard Kelly's work - Donnie Darko, Southland Tales and The Box. I learned a new respect for this director and the complexity of his films and cinematography.
This conference has made me pine to join the ranks of academia and teach again but I also gained a newfound respect for what I do. It has given me a unique set of skills that I can use in my continuing research. It has given me renewed vigor to know that I'm absolutely in the right field of studies and have the drive and confidence to go forward and finish my PhD. There's absolutely a feeling of belonging and respect.
I'm sad tomorrow is the last day but ready to get home to see my kids and husband. Hopefully the death plague and the push I'm making to get through the conference won't do me in!
Friday, October 1, 2010
MPCA 2010
Greetings from Minnesota!
I'm attending the Midwest Popular Culture Association's annual conference.
So far it has been extremely enlightening and the networking has been fantastic. It has restored my faith in professional studies and understanding of popular culture as well as brought to light some fantastic "food for thought".
So much of what has been discussed also has implications for research in social media. It has been nothing short of amazing.
The first annual video games panel presented today. Despite having acquired the death plague the night before leaving I was able to make it through the entire presentation. It went fantastic (although I wished I'd had gotten the memo from my panelists that purple was the in color to wear).
Will and Jameson were not only great speakers/presenters they also had great, well thought out and discussed topics.
Will discussed historical narrative (or the lack thereof) within Panzer General but make it clear that it extrapolates to many other historical games. "It's history without memory".
Jameson presented on the narrative of the Playstation 2 game "Siren". I found the talk to be of particular interest, looking at how we understand classical narrative and how we can use narrative theory to understand video games.
I presented, using World of Warcraft as an example, on understanding how fun isn't what we typically think and play is work. Virtual and real are blurred distinctions that we need to not think as dichotomous.
I recorded the panel (cut off some of Will...I forgot to turn it on to record...sorry Will!!!). As soon as I get home I'll uploaded this for you to watch which should provide context for my presentation and allow you to see the other two panelists. (You can't see me.... lol...but you can hear me. I promise that's me!)
Here is my presentation. Keep in mind this was designed to be orally presented. I'll try to get some notes on at a later date to make it easier to understand and follow.
For some reason it's cutting off the presentation here on the blog...you can access the presentation directly at: HERE
I'm attending the Midwest Popular Culture Association's annual conference.
So far it has been extremely enlightening and the networking has been fantastic. It has restored my faith in professional studies and understanding of popular culture as well as brought to light some fantastic "food for thought".
So much of what has been discussed also has implications for research in social media. It has been nothing short of amazing.
The first annual video games panel presented today. Despite having acquired the death plague the night before leaving I was able to make it through the entire presentation. It went fantastic (although I wished I'd had gotten the memo from my panelists that purple was the in color to wear).
Will and Jameson were not only great speakers/presenters they also had great, well thought out and discussed topics.
Will discussed historical narrative (or the lack thereof) within Panzer General but make it clear that it extrapolates to many other historical games. "It's history without memory".
Jameson presented on the narrative of the Playstation 2 game "Siren". I found the talk to be of particular interest, looking at how we understand classical narrative and how we can use narrative theory to understand video games.
I presented, using World of Warcraft as an example, on understanding how fun isn't what we typically think and play is work. Virtual and real are blurred distinctions that we need to not think as dichotomous.
I recorded the panel (cut off some of Will...I forgot to turn it on to record...sorry Will!!!). As soon as I get home I'll uploaded this for you to watch which should provide context for my presentation and allow you to see the other two panelists. (You can't see me.... lol...but you can hear me. I promise that's me!)
Here is my presentation. Keep in mind this was designed to be orally presented. I'll try to get some notes on at a later date to make it easier to understand and follow.
For some reason it's cutting off the presentation here on the blog...you can access the presentation directly at: HERE
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
