Posts Tagged 'geek culture'

Spot Check 14: Gamer Evangelism

Spot Check 14: Gamer Evangelism

As promised, here is the most recent episode of Spot Check, the video series documenting my dissertation research into tabletop gaming. New episodes will be posted every Thursday. If you’d like to start at the beginning, you can go directly to the Youtube channel, or catch the archived episodes as they go up every Saturday. In this episode I talk about insider anthropology and gamers’ enthusiasm for bringing new people into the hobby.

As Always, it Started With Star Trek: A Study On Geek Girls

As Always, it Started With Star Trek: A Study On Geek Girls

For many years, whenever people would tell me that girls are rare in geek culture, my instant reaction would always be: well, no.

I would be surprised and a little puzzled at their assumption and would instantly think of all the women who were fans or contributors to the Star Trek fanchise.

Just to Vex and Be Vexed in Return

Just to Vex and Be Vexed in Return

I suppose it’s my turn to introduce myself.

My name is Nick Mizer, and I’m a PhD candidate in cultural anthropology at Texas A&M University, where I’m working on a dissertation analyzing the historical relationships between story, play, and imagined spaces in Dungeons & Dragons.  I’ve been studying D&D since my senior year as an undergraduate, when I came to the topic by way of studies in folklore and mythology. The parallels between ritual and myth on the one hand and play and narrative on the other are the first thing that caught my interest in D&D. Gaining a better understanding of those relationships has been the driving force behind a lot of my research since then.  Here on the blog I’ll probably be posting a lot about gaming, but also about other areas of geek culture too.

Let’s get acquainted

Let’s get acquainted

Greetings loyal readers and newcomers!

I have been AFK (away from keyboard) for a while, as I was busy writing, then presenting a paper in Finland, among other things, but I am back with some great news!

First of all, TGA has new contributors! Emma Louise Backe and Nicholas Mizer will be publishing their first post shortly about their interests in anthropology and their ties to their geek background. Look out for the very interesting pieces they have lined up for upcoming months. You can find out more about them here.