Something New

I am undertaking something new here at Casa Skylark--something almost unheard of.

I am purging books.

So far I've got about twenty in a box. There are more I want put in the box, but they belong to Mat so I suppose the polite thing to do is to wait.

The other thing that I should do is start returning books to people who have lent them to me. I have some that I've had for several years now (and yes, that's years plural).

What brave new world, gentle reader. What brave new world.

academic foot steps

Great news! The PCA/ACA people are willing to let me make a video of my paper on race and narrative in World of Warcraft, so I can still present as part of the MMORPGs and Narrative Panel at the SW/TX region conference. I am super excited about this (almost as much as if I were actually going, but doing it this way will save me almost $900, so I really can't complain). The downside? I need to get cracking on writing the actual paper. Good thing I have Sean to motivate me.

I've also been asked to take part in NipissingYou's speaker series, so I think I will rework the paper to fit that format, as well.

Having lived under a rock for the now 12 years that I've been a frequent and habitual users of the interwebs, I only discoveredthe blogging awesomeness of Terra Nova. A recent topic of discussion has been the upcoming Virtual Worlds and New Realities stuff that's going to be happening at Emory University in a couple of weeks, and the kind folks there are seeking answers to some questions to promote discussion for their panel. Here are my thoughts:

1. QUESTIONS THAT MATTER: What research questions or inquiries are important with regard to studying virtual worlds in the next several years (think 2008-2015)?

*Do synthetic worlds (sorry, my Castronova is showing) support, subvert, or reinscribe dominant ideologies?
*In the case of heavily male-centric MMORPG worlds like that of Azeroth, what are the critical and social implications for women who choose to participate in those worlds?
*What opportunities do synthetic worlds provide for transgression?
*How do sythetic worlds function as liminal spaces?
*What is the ceiling for growth?


2. METHODS: What research methods and approaches are valuable in the study of, and study in, virtual worlds?

I believe that an under utilized approach is that of literary/cultural studies. I use that term to cover a multitude of theoretical approaches, from feminist and postcolonial studies, to phenomenological (sp?) approaches and beyond. I think this type of research is particularly for MMORPGs, because of the way that narrative is integrated into the synethic world.

3. COLLABORATIVE INITIATIVES: What might be some ways to effectively establish more multi-university and multi-institutional research, both with regard to studying virtual worlds as well as using virtual worlds to facilitate research collaborations?

I think that establishing networks of interested parties could potentially be quite useful. For example, one of my current interests is in queer identities in MMORPGs. If I could find similarly minded people, we could construct a plan to create queer identities in game, and then collectively share and analyze the data collected from our experiences.