The Guy in the Black Hat

Category: Philosophy

  • Losing Friends and the Stories We Tell Ourselves: Just a Little Lovin’ Denmark 2015

    “Hat ein einziges [Werk] seinen Zweck erreicht? Haben sie das Rad aufhalten können, das unaufhaltsam stürzend seinem Abgrund entgegeneilt?” –– Heinrich von Kleist When we finish a book, exit a movie theater, let the record needle hit the center label, we might ask ourselves: What did this experience mean? Am I moved? Did the work […]

  • Gedankenspiel III: The Facebook

    After being carefully steered through our existence by others, it should come as no surprise that we are granted legitimacy only as nodes of a social network much larger than ourselves. Facebook is what you might call a vulgar expression of that network, a vast human information-gathering service that interpenetrates business, art, personal, and public […]

  • Immersive Gameplay – Interview with Katherine Castiello Jones

    Katherine Castiello Jones talks about Gary Alan Fine and his legacy on role-playing game studies.

  • Gedankenspiel II: The iPhone

    How ephemeral is that which we type with our thumbs? And if it’s so ephemeral, why do we commit so many moments of our limited lives to entering such text? Importance itself, so it seems, has been awarded too much importance. Ever wonder how, for example, Coca-Cola possesses so much clout in the world? Remember […]

  • Immersive Gameplay – Interview with Evan Torner

    In honor of the release of Bill White’s and my co-edited volume with McFarland, Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Role-Playing and Participatory Media, I am conducting interviews with some of my talented and erudite contributors. The eighth interview is with myself, Evan Torner, conducted by my co-editor Bill White. In addition to co-editing the book and […]

  • Immersive Gameplay – Interview with Nathan Hook

    In honor of the release of Bill White’s and my co-edited volume with McFarland, Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Role-Playing and Participatory Media, I am conducting interviews with some of my talented and erudite contributors. The seventh interview is with role-playing designer and writer Nathan Hook. His article “Circles and Frames: The Games Social Scientists Play,” […]

  • Immersive Gameplay – Interview with William J. White

    In honor of the release of Bill White’s and my co-edited volume with McFarland, Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Role-Playing and Participatory Media, I am conducting interviews with some of my talented and erudite contributors. The sixth interview is with role-playing designer, professor and my co-editor Bill White. He co-authored the article in the volume “Role-Playing […]

  • Immersive Gameplay – Interview with Jussi Holopainen

    In honor of the release of Bill White’s and my co-edited volume with McFarland, Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Role-Playing and Participatory Media, I am conducting interviews with some of my talented and erudite contributors. The fifth interview is with game scholar Jussi Holopainen. In the volume, he co-authored  “First Person Audience and the Art of […]

  • Immersive Gameplay – Interview with Todd Nicholas Fuist

    In honor of the release of Bill White’s and my co-edited volume with McFarland, Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Role-Playing and Participatory Media, I am conducting interviews with some of my talented and erudite contributors. The fourth interview is with sociologist Todd Nicholas Fuist. His article in the volume “The Agentic Imagination: Tabletop Role-Playing Games as […]

  • Immersive Gameplay – Interview with J. Tuomas Harviainen

    In honor of the release of Bill White’s and my co-edited volume with McFarland, Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Role-Playing and Participatory Media, I am conducting interviews with some of my talented and erudite contributors. The third interview is with role-playing designer, librarian and scholar J. Tuomas Harviainen. He co-authored the article in the volume “Role-Playing Communities, […]