Academic

Computer Education (with Linda Liukas)

Understanding the workings of computers, coding, and technological infrastructure is one of the most imperative skills of the 21st century. Even more important then is to introduce children to such concepts. But how? – With the award winning children’s book series Hello Ruby, our guest Linda Liukas rethinks how to convey computer education in an approachable yet equally…

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10 Tips to Nail Your Next Presentation

This is one of our monthly plus episodes. You can access it by subscribing to Studying Pixels Plus. You will then receive an individual plus feed that you can add to your favourite podcast app. If you only so much as look at a university building from afar you will probably be asked to do a…

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The Swastika Taboo (with Eugen Pfister)

The swastika is certainly one of the most affective historical symbols. Under its banner, terror, hatred, racism, and profound crimes against humanity have been committed. In Germany, video games were not allowed to display the swastika for a long time at all, which has only changed in recent years. Together with the cultural historian Dr….

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Reading Gonzalo Frasca: Simulation vs Narrative

In the early days of video game studies, or so the story is told, there was a raging conflict between narratologists and ludologists. However much of an exaggeration this might be, Gonzalo Frasca’s Simulation vs Narrative is still an important contribution to this debate. That is why we revisit it—and you are invited to come…

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Games in the Box (with Claudius Clüver)

We might nostalgically look back at the beauty of game boxes and fail to realize how strongly they are linked to the economization of games. With our guest, game studies scholar Claudius Clüver, we trace how games got into the box and how, with the advent of digital distribution, they made their way back out….

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Why are all games about time loops these days? (with Federico Alvarez Igarzábal)

What if we could start all over again? – These days, a whole bunch of games tries to answer this question. From Hades to Returnal, from Loop Hero to 12 Minutes, and most recently: Deathloop. To help us understand why there is such an abundance of time loop games, we are joined by game studies scholar Federico Alvarez Igarzábal. Shownotes 00:05:24 Why are all…

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Reading Roger Caillois: Man, Play, and Games

Many have tried (and many failed) to bring various games together in a set of comprehensive categories. Roger Caillois is one of them and we are diving into his Classification of Games to explore the categories and how they apply to contemporary video games. In our side quests, we discuss the biggest leack in the history of…

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How NOT to write a term paper

This is one of our monthly plus episodes. You can access it by subscribing to Studying Pixels Plus. You will then receive an individual plus feed that you can add to your favourite podcast app. Writing term papers can be a tough and tedious task. We wish to help by sharing with you the most common…

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