Critical Distance: Keywords in Play
Leisure:Video Games
This episode we speak with Alenda Y. Chang about games, ecology, literature, and environmental relations. Alenda is an Associate Professor in Film and Media Studies at UC Santa Barbara. With a multidisciplinary background in biology, literature, and film, she specializes in merging ecocritical theory with the analysis of contemporary media. Her writing has been featured in Ant Spider Bee, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, Qui Parle, the Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, and Ecozon@, and her first book Playing Nature: Ecology in Video Games (University of Minnesota Press, December 2019), develops ecological frameworks for understanding and designing digital games.
“Keywords in Play” is a monthly interview series about game research supported by Critical Distance and the Digital Games Research Association. As a joint venture, “Keywords in Play” expands Critical Distance’s commitment to innovative writing and research about games while using a conversational style to bring new and diverse scholarship to a wider audience.
Our goal is to highlight the work of graduate students, early career researchers and scholars from under-represented groups, backgrounds and regions. The primary inspiration comes from sociologist and critic Raymond Williams. In the Preface to his book Keywords: a vocabulary of culture and society, Williams envisaged not a static dictionary but an interactive document, encouraging readers to populate blank pages with their own keywords, notes and amendments. “Keywords in Play” follows Williams in affirming that “The significance is in the selection”, and works towards diversifying the critical terms with which we describe games and game culture. For more on games writing and culture please visit https://www.critical-distance.com/
Please consider supporting Critical Distance at https://www.patreon.com/critdistance
Production Team: Darshana Jayemanne, Zoyander Street, Emilie Reed.
Audio Direction and Engineering: Damian Stewart
Double Bass: Aaron Stewart
Keywords in Play Episode 31 - Brendan Keogh
Keywords in Play Episode 30 - Xavier Ho
Keywords in Play Episode 29 - Stephanie Harkin
Keywords in Play Episode 28 - Felania Liu
Keywords in Play Episode 27 - Tingting Liu
Keywords in Play Episode 26 - Gejun Huang
Keywords in Play Episode 25: Florence Smith-Nicholls
Keywords in Play Episode 24: Mahli-Ann Butt, Amanda Cote, Emil Lunedal Hammar and Cody Mejeur
Keywords in Play Ep. 23: Everest Pipkin
Keywords in Play Ep. 22: Alesha Serada
Keywords in Play Ep. 21: Gregory Whistance-Smith
Keywords in Play Episode 20 - Jaroslav Švelch
Keywords in Play Episode 19 - Regina Seiwald and Ed Vollans - Paratexts
Keywords in Play Episode 18 - Esther Wright on Rockstar and History
Keywords in Play Episode 17 - April Tyack on Ordinary Player Experience
Keywords in Play Episode 16 - Felan Parker on Cutural Intermediaries
Keywords in Play Episode 15 - Leon Xiao
Keywords in Play Episode 14 - Adrienne Shaw
Keywords in Play Episode 12 - Aaron Trammell
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