The Guy in the Black Hat

The Website of Dr. Evan Torner

  • Spring 2023 Game Courses at University of Cincinnati

    Poster designed by Ella Marcil Well, the poster says it all, but I will also put it in text form for explanatory and accessibility purposes. Introduction to Game Design Taught by George “Loki” Williams DMC 2167 Tuesday-Thursday 12:30 – 1:50 pm Are you just starting on your game design journey? This is the course for…

  • RSV is a Thing

    On Thursday, I was given the opportunity to present my latest published article, which is “Anxious Trajectories: Game Studies and German Studies,” to my colleagues in Film & Media Studies at UC. In the exact middle of the 5-minute long lightning talk, I got a phone call from my son’s school and a quick request…

  • Tweeting and Back Again: A Blogger’s Tale

    For years, I more-or-less used this site as a posting board for various projects, from conferences to awards; from course assignments to petitions for saving school programs. But that’s because I was posting a lot in other places the past 10 years: gradually more on Facebook, then intensively on Google+, then overwhelmingly on Twitter. You’ve…

  • March 18th 2022: Symposium: Nosferatu –– 100 Years of Horror

    Nosferatu: 100 Years of Horror Register for the event HERE. Organizers: Ervin Malakaj & Evan Torner Date: Friday, March 18, 2022 Co-Sponsored by the CES Cinema Studies Network and the Weimar Film Network “Nosferatu: Does not this word sound like the call of the death bird at midnight?” For a century, audiences have passed into…

  • 2018 SCMS Central/East/South European Media Essay Award Winners

    On Thursday March 15th, the winner and honorable mentions of the 2018 SCMS Central/East/South European Media Essay Award were announced. The $500 award goes to an exemplary essay published in the field of Central/East/South European Cinema and Media Studies during the 2017 calendar year.  We had 19 submissions this year, which shows the robustness of scholarship in our field.…

  • More Game Quests You’ve Been Waiting For (2017)

    Well, they’re finally here. Here are some more to choose from. Attendance Poll Analysis Quest: To clean up, analyze, and visualize the dataset of attendance poll data across 2 semesters. [DIGITAL SCHOLARS] Procedure: Procure a copy of the Excel file containing the Poll Responses from both semesters and read them with an eye on how the data might…

  • 26 Game Studies Quests (2017)

      For my Film 2008 course at the University of Cincinnati this Spring 2016, each student must complete 3 quests and a Final Boss Challenge. Here are 26 distinct quests for them to choose from. (Can you tell I’m a German and RPG scholar?) A is for Affordances Quest: To describe and theorize affordances in games, and…

  • In Defense of Public Education

    All of the public schools in the United States of America, from kindergarten through doctoral programs in higher education, should be free of charge and open to anyone with sufficient intellectual curiosity and merit.   Instead, the Republican establishment has doubled down on school privatization efforts, and our president-elect looks as if he will continue…

  • Teaching Gramsci and Arendt at Wizard School

    “Jeglicher Zauber geht verloren, wenn du versuchst, ihn einzufangen.” –Helga Schäferling What role does “magic” play in our lives? Is magic already suffused with the powers of the mundane? How does magic duplicate and comment upon the logics of neoliberalism already governing us? To what extent can “rebellion” be realized within a left-leaning institution, and…

  • 26 Game Studies Quests

      For my Film 2008 course at the University of Cincinnati this Spring 2016, each student must complete 3 quests and a Final Boss Challenge. Here are 26 distinct quests for them to choose from. (Can you tell I’m a German and RPG scholar?) A is for Affordances Quest: To describe and theorize affordances in games, and…

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