Always-thoughtful Georgetown alum and level–80 economist-mage Ted Castronova has been thinking about the ongoing recession and, in an interesting thought exercise, traces it back to the virtual world. An Exodus Recession? “I thought we would not see a real-world recession caused by the removal of consumption energy into virtual environments until sometime in the far [...] Read more – ‘Terra Nova: An Exodus Recession?’.
I’m happy to announce that this spring, I’ll become a Visiting Assistant Professor of Communication, Culture, and Technology at Georgetown University. I’ll be offering the following two graduate courses: Exploring Synthetic Worlds Synthetic worlds — persistent, networked 3D spaces that mimic certain aspects of reality — are increasingly popular sites for work and play. This [...] Read more – ‘Spring semester’.
The University opened registration this AM, and CCTP628, Arcade Theory, is almost full. If you are interested in taking the class but are unable to register (due to a hold on your record, et cetera), please email me to let me know, and I’ll save you a seat. Read more – ‘Arcade Theory Almost Full’.
I have started to build an information website to accompany the new course I’ll teach this fall at Georgetown, CCTP628: Arcade Theory. As of now, only the course description is available, but I will add more in the coming weeks. Visit arcadetheory.org Read more – ‘New Course: CCTP628 Arcade Theory’.
In addition to my work on games, play, and virtual worlds at The Program in Communications, Culture, and Technology, I am fortunate enough to coordinate the undergraduate senior seminar in American Studies at Georgetown. It’s a fantastic job. One of the goals of my work with these students is to find novel ways of leveraging [...] Read more – ‘Thesis Tweetstream’.
Dr. D. Linda Garcia and I are excited about a paper we recently submitted to the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, entitled “Synthetic Excellence: Standards, Play, and Unintended Outcomes.” As the first co-authored paper I’ve ever participated in, it was a challenging paper to write. The paper’s interdisciplinary approach made for a lot of great [...] Read more – ‘Forthcoming in Journal of Virtual Worlds Research’.
Here’s a course description for the new graduate course I’ll offer next fall at Georgetown. Frankly, the course is a work–in–progress, and so the semester is still a bit blurry. Still, I’m excited about the early drafts of a syllabus, which will draw on Samuel Taylor Coleridge, robotic vacuums, gospel choirs, Aristotle, horror films, Star [...] Read more – ‘CCTP-628: Interactivity, Immersion, and Play’.
D. Linda Garcia and I, together with Hanan Gazit at H.I.T., will serve as guest editors for a forthcoming special issue of the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research. In addition to regular papers, the special issue will feature some of the papers presented at the SLACTIONS conference in late September. The metaverse is emerging, through [...] Read more – ‘The Metaverse (Some Assembly Required)’.
Winston Churchill once observed that first, we make our buildings, and then they make us. By which he meant, quite sensibly, that the spaces in which we live and work condition and determine our behavior. With Mario CarBarn, our desire was to reappropriate the space, if tentatively, on behalf of the ludic. The Situationists were [...] Read more – ‘Unintended Nostalgia Delays Revolution’.
