Drama and Speech Communication

Since 2008, I have been teaching a large (100-120 students), one-term Introduction to Theatre course, whose goal is to teach . . . I am still not sure what. When I first inherited the course it was a lecture survey perceived as a recruiting tool for the drama program at my technology-oriented institution-the University of Waterloo-as well as an outreach tool for the program, since many students from the science, mathematics, and engineering faculties were taking it to fulfill degreeprogram requirements for courses outside of their major disciplines. It might have been a theatre "appreciation" course, if appreciation could be aligned loosely with "information" and "enjoyment." Then again, the course also needed to introduce humanities research, writing, critical-thinking, and academic-integrity skills. These tend to crowd out some of the space devoted to information in a traditional lecture survey and rarely contribute to anyone's anticipation of enjoyment. To complicate matters further, since this was a required course for aspiring drama majors, it was also supposed to teach foundational knowledge that would prepare students for further study in the discipline. It looked like a recipe for failure: take something students think they will enjoy, ruin it for them, and tell them that this is what it means to study theatre.

Sid Meier's Civilization allows players to build empires that span the earth and the ages. Complementing existing scholarship on ideologies, practices, and subject positions inculcated by the game, this article interrogates the very conception of subjectivity Civilization fosters in players. Building upon ludological and cybernetic principles, the author takes a formal approach to analyze the processes of human—computer interaction that emerge in the course of players' engagement with the game. Characteristics of the turn-based genre as well as Civilization's interface mechanics, representations of historical processes, and manual are considered for the ways in which they solicit player input. The author contends that player interaction with Civilization reifies a conception of himself or herself as a sovereign agent constituted of pure internality.

This chapter examines the neo-liberal multiculturalist ideology of the Mass Effect series of digital role-playing games. I show that both games in the series profess the unmitigated superiority of neo-liberal multiculturalism as a form of dealing with difference. While the narrative conceit of the Mass Effect series is an alien threat to annihilate all sentient life in the galaxy, its key thematic is the biological and cultural differences that render the spacefaring races populating the Milky Way vulnerable to such a threat. In this context, the various systems of rules and the procedures for sorting and executing those rules valorize players’ heterogeneous configurative practices and the neo-liberal multiculturalist performances they enact.

There is a problem in the study of digital games, a problem that Ian Bogost has on multiple occasions called the “game/player problem.” According to Bogost, the problem is that critical game studies focus on games and social-scientific game studies focus on players, but in this chapter I rethink the “game/player problem” as one arising from disparate critical approaches and the notions of control that underwrite them. I argue that the real game/player problem is that the most prominent modes of game studies either center the game at the expense of the player or the player at the expense of the game – just as the narratology and ludology debate presented the false dilemma of either story or game. In other words, at issue is not determining whether the player or the game lies at the heart of the field, but rather that most game scholarship is premised upon the assumption that either one or the other concept must define the discipline. As an alternative, I put forward the notion that the meaning and significance of games is controlled by neither players nor games but rather lies in the gameplay enacted where player and game interface.

The Introduction to the anthology, Dungeons, Dragons and Digital Denizens: The Digital Role-Playing Game, this piece examines the elements and characteristics of the RPG as a digital game genre, as well as its historical development. It argues that the digital RPG is a ludic genre defined by core gameplay mechanics focused on character management and dramatism.

The Introduction to Continuum's Approaches to Digital Game Studies series, this piece examines the notion of 'genre' in relation to digital games and positons the series at the nexus of a multimodal understanding of genre. It calls for recognition and use of ludic, thematic and functional digital game genres.

Digital games are an increasingly prominent media form but are consistently ignored in critical communication scholarship. Several voices in the field of game studies have advocated the application of communication and rhetorical theory to the study of games, but this effort to cross-pollinate game studies and communication studies has not been reciprocated. This article addresses this lacunae, making the case for critical studies of communication to take up the study of digital games. I argue that digital games are both ready objects of inquiry well-suited for rhetorical methods and generative sites with the potential to stimulate thinking about communication processes in general and rhetoric in particular.

The Introduction to Guns, Grenades an Grunts: First-Person Shooter Games, this piece examines the historical development of the FPS genre as well as its current state and the frontiers of the new media form. It argues the the FPS is best understood as a ludic genre defined by the core gameplay mechanics of navigating 3D space and shooting, and discusses in detail the relationship between the aesthetics of the first-person perspective and play practices.

This chapter examines the militarization and corresponding normalization of the FPS. Once the targets of public vitriol when players ran around killing demons, zombies and aliens, now that players are more typically tasked with killing other human beings FPS games are largely uncontroversial touchstones of contemporary popular culture. Though the cultural status of the FPS vis-à-vis its increasingly realistic depictions of violence seems counterintuitive, I show that public perceptions of FPS games improved as their themes became more militaristic and their narratives more directly supportive of American imperialism. In other words, the normalization of the genre is a result of its imbrication within a powerful regime of truth that articulates militarism, nationalism, and xenophobia to the FPS game form, rendering it an intelligible nodal point in the matrix of American life.

The formation of aluminum borates (Al 18 B 4 O 33 and Al 4 B 2 O 9 ) from alumina and boron oxide occurs between 600 and 800 °C. These materials have refractory properties and corrosion resistance. The objective of this work is to develop materials from the Al 2 O 3 -B 2 O 3 system, employing alumina and boric acid as starting powders, to study the critical processing variables and describe the developed microstructure and properties. Three formulations (13, 19.5 and 26 wt% B 2 O 3 ) were studied. In order to confirm the formation of borates, the differential thermal analysis and thermogravimetric analysis were carried out. Afterwards, uniaxially pressed disc-shaped specimens were fired at four temperatures above the formation temperature. The textural properties of the ceramics were evaluated by the immersion method, this permit to evaluate the sintering processes. Then the degree of borate formation was confirmed by X-ray diffraction. Finally, the developed microstructures were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, and the diametral compression behavior was evaluated. A series of porous (≈50%) refractory materials from the Al 2 O 3 -B 2 O 3 system were developed. The processing strategy resulted in materials with Al 18 B 4 O 33 as the main crystalline phase. Needle grains with diameters between 0.2 and 1 µm and an aspect ratio over 20:1 were obtained. Thus, based on the information gathered from our research, aluminum borate ceramic materials can be designed for structural, insulating or filtering applications employing only alumina and boric acid as boron oxide source.

Seniors with chronic diseases are often called on to self-manage their conditions. Mobile health (mHealth) tools may be a useful strategy to help seniors access health information at the point of decision-making, receive real-time feedback and coaching, and monitor health conditions. However, developing successful mHealth interventions for seniors presents many challenges. One of the key challenges is to ensure the scope of possible research questions includes the diverse views of seniors, experts and the stakeholder groups who support seniors as they manage chronic disease. Our primary objective was to present a case-study of a collaborative research approach to the development of an interdisciplinary research agenda. Our secondary objectives were to report on the results of a nominal group technique (NGT) approach used generate research questions and to assess the success of including non-academic researchers to enrich the scope, priority, and total number of possible research que...

In 2012 Pat the Dog Playwright Centre held a two-day workshop for First Dance, a devised theatre and dance piece that explored the rituals of queer marriage through the protagonist, as he endeavored to select the first dance to be performed at his wedding. Reflecting on the workshop process, this article examines the traditions of the first dance, in terms of both the appropriation of a heterosexual ritual, and the role dance has played in the queer community, as a means of designating queer space and belonging. Recognizing the "first dance" as a Eurocentric, heteronormative performative ritual, expected within a white western wedding, the necessity and expectation of a first dance in a "queer" space is interrogated. The fundamental question which is addressed is then: Are members of the queer community performing the rituals of heterosexual weddings in order to gain inclusion, assimilate and conform to dominant cultural values, or are they appropriating these rituals in order to subvert them and recodify them as acts of resistance against homophobic bigotry and heterosexist cultural practices?

... I organized Le Boudoir, an annual magical retro cabaret, from 1994 to 2009 and have been organizing Meow Mix since 1995. Meow Mix puts out an almost monthly cabaret series. I am still doing Edgy Women. I am very close to dropping ''Women'' ...