I argue that the overt subjugation in the system of American slavery and its subsequent effects offer a case study for an existentialist analysis of freedom, oppression and humor. Concentrating on the writings and experiences of Frederick Douglass and the existentialists Simone De Beauvoir and Lewis Gordon, I investigate how the concepts of…[Read more]

In the first part of this paper, I will briefly introduce the concept of incongruity and its relation to humor and seriousness, connecting the ideas of Arthur Schopenhauer and the contemporary work of John Morreall. I will reveal some of the relations between Schopenhauer’s notion of “seriousness” and the existentialists such as Jean Paul Sartr…[Read more]

In this paper I borrow from Maria Lugones’ work on playful ” world-traveling ” and W.E.B. Du Bois’ notion of ” double consciousness ” to make the case that humor can facilitate an openness and cooperative attitude among an otherwise closed, even adversarial audience. I focus on what I call ” subversive ” humor, that which is employed by or on…[Read more]

The majority of philosophers of religion, at least since Plantinga’s reply to Mackie’s logical problem of evil, agree that it is logically possible for an omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God to exist who permits some of the evils we see in the actual world. This is conceivable essentially because of the possible world known as heaven.…[Read more]

This paper begins by taking seriously former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass’ response in his What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? to systematic violence and oppression. He claims that direct argumentation is not the ideal mode of resistance to oppression: ” At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.” I…[Read more]

This paper investigates the relationships between forms of humor that conjure up possible worlds and real-world social critiques. The first part of the paper will argue that subversive humor, which is from or on behalf of historically and continually marginalized communities, constitutes a kind of aesthetic experience that can elicit enjoyment…[Read more]

More and more artists from all over the world are engaging in the production of AI art. Because of this, art historians need to start thinking about how the histories of AI art should be articulated. This paper aims to take part in this conversation by addressing the problem of whether the AIs created by human artists should be considered as…[Read more]

Spanish Abstract: Reseña del artículo de José Luis Pardo ‘El futuro de la Universidad Pública’, donde se medita sobre la finalidad social y sentido último de la Universidad como institución, en el contexto de la reforma española de titulaciones emprendida en 2005. ______…[Read more]

This is perhaps the world’s first book in which a philosopher himself illustrates his own philosophical investigation into hard problems on time, being, solipsism, and life, in the form of “Manga.” This book was originally published in Japanese in 2013 and translated into English by Robert Chapeskie in 2021.

This article explores the nature of remembering as a lake, with a lake, or through a lake; the differential relationships, knowledge, and perspectives contained within; and the potentially troubling implications found at the intersection of scientific and humanistic perspectives on lake being. It also reflects on the totalizing nature of assuming…[Read more]

This is a gut-reaction response to the recent article “The value of mass-digitised cultural heritage content in creative contexts” by Melissa Terras, et al, published in Big Data and Society on April 6, 2021, doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517211006165. My main argument is that exploiting labor and appropriating cultural heritage are int…[Read more]

This presentation brings together and builds on previous studies of queer representation using the LGBTQ Video Game Archive and the Represent Me games database (Cole et al. 2017) in order to investigate unexplored trends and invisible queer intersections in video games. Specifically, we draw on Queer Intersections in Video Games (Mejeur 2018), a…[Read more]

Abstract: In Star Wars Episode I: Racer (1999), players choose between several different podracers (including Anakin Skywalker and Sebulba), and compete in racing tournaments on several planets. While the game currently holds the Guinness record as the best-selling sci-fi racing game of all time and was re-released for Nintendo Switch in 2020,…[Read more]

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected our lives in many ways, including how we choose to spend our time and deal with unprecedented circumstances. Anecdotal reports suggest that many have turned to playing video games during the pandemic. To better understand how games are being used during the lockdown, we conducted an online survey (N = 781) that…[Read more]

The Star Wars films have probably spawned more video game adaptations than any other franchise. From the 1982 release of The Empire Strikes Back on the Atari 2600 to 2019’s Jedi: Fallen Order, around one hundred officially licensed Star Wars games have been published to date. Inevitably, the quality of these adaptations has varied, ranging from t…[Read more]

This paper examines one intellectual and historical premise upon which the foundational distinction between reproduction and resistance rests in critical education: the line of critique against the French communist philosopher Louis Althusser’s theory of education. In the paper, I claim that a particular reading of Althusser coming out of B…[Read more]

“The narratives of the world are numberless”; yet, all stories may be seen as chapters of a single story, the story of universal evolution as uncovered by contemporary science, with processes of human emergence and cultural development as a prominent backdrop to the understanding of any narrative process. Evolutionary approaches to literary and…[Read more]

This is a reflection zine from a course I taught in Spring 2020, ENG 342: “Studies in Popular Culture,” which had a course topic of “Playful Literature and Literary Games.” My goal with this course was to teach students about the ways in which games and literature overlap, particularly through the frame of the zine — DIY print publications that…[Read more]

This is the zine-version of my syllabus from a course I taught in Spring 2020, ENG 342: “Studies in Popular Culture,” which had a course topic of “Playful Literature and Literary Games.” My goal with this course was to teach students about the ways in which games and literature overlap, particularly through the frame of the zine — DIY print…[Read more]