first person

Stephen Ramsay introduces a short film in which he does a live reading of composer Andrew Sorensen's performance "Strange Places" and provides commentary.

David Shepard heads off the discussion regarding Stephen Ramsay's live reading of Andrew Sorensen's "Strange Places." His initial contribution is followed with posts by Amanda French, Mark Marino, Max Feinstein, Jeremy Douglass, Daren Chapin, John Bell, Jeff Nyoff, Jennifer Lieberman, and Stephen Ramsay, as well as Andrew Sorensen himself.

David Lavery ponders the "neo-baroque" tap-dancing of TV's most playful and commercially successful serial drama.

Emily Short interrogates Ian Bogost's Unit Operations and finds his approach to videogame criticism too capacious in its attempt to account for a variety of expressive media, and too narrow in its focus on low-order choices in videogames.

Stephen Schryer contrasts narratological and postsecular readings of postmodernism in a review of Gerhard Hoffmann's vast study, From Modernsism to Postmodernism (2005), and John McClure's narrower but more pointed exploration, Partial Faiths (2007).

Through a mini-experiment Robert Lecusay explores the differences between gamers' and non-gamers' interactions with non-player characters in Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern's Façade.

A review of John Farrell's magnificent Paranoia and Modernity: Cervantes to Rousseau, in light of contemporary literary criticism: Where Brian McHale declares an end to postmodernism, and where many discount paranoia as a passing literary interest, reviewer Tim Melley sees postmodern paranoia everywhere. As long as corporations are regarded by law as 'individuals' and conspiracy is the preferred way of understanding political and social systems, it seems that we'll remain in the longue duree of the postmodern moment.

Tim Uren argues that each improvisational theater scene functions as a game that generates its own rules within a few seconds of its inception, rules based on each performer's observation of the audience and/or other actors.

Adriene Jenik describes a project of virtual performances via avatars in online chat spaces.

Celia Pearce applies the logics of identity politics, diaspora studies, and cultural studies to an online gaming community.