e299. Things You Missed in 2023!

Happy New Year! If you listen to podcasts which you must if you’re listening to this, then you probably know by now that they way people end a year in their podcasts is typically to do a “best of the year” in whatever field or genre that they happen to cover. You’ve probably listened to…

e224. A Filler Episode on Filler Episodes

One of the most important things about academia is being in conversation with other academics. That is to say that the way knowledge happens is one scholar says something and then another scholar builds on it and so on and so on. About a week ago, our friends over at the Protagonist Podcast did an…

Call for Comments: Gaming in the time of COVID

From Hannah: Fairly early into the pandemic last year, it felt like almost everyone was playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. (We actually did an entire episode on the relationship between cozy games and what was going on it the world.) In fact, the Nintendo Switch felt impossible to find for most of 2020. And the…

e127. Dungeons & Diversity

In our contemporary moment pop culture is controlled by two forces. A focus on so-called “geek culture” and a push for more inclusive diversity across media forms. While there is certainly a long way to go, in many cases, leaps and bounds of progress have been made in the last several years, with greater attention…

Call for Comments: Revising Race in Dungeons and Dragons

Dark elves aka drow From Katya: Wizards of the Coast recently announced (by recently I mean mid-June. It’s been a YEAR y’all) ways that they’re attempting to address the game’s racist characterizations of, well, in-game races. In their announcement, they acknowledge the widespread critique of their rules surrounding races, particularly the ways that stereo-typically dark-skinned…