Plumbing Game Studies
Graham Culbertson
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Recent Episodes
S1E16 Is Science a Game?
Today I'm joined by two social scientists to address the question: is science a game? Michael Penkler, Stefan Sulzenbacher, and Stephan Voss recently published an article on this topic: Playing…
S1E15 Learning Against Gamification -- Molly Worthen
Molly Worthen joins me to discuss her recent NYTimes article "You Can't Game Your Way to a Real Education," which argues that the gamification of classroom learning stems from a fundamental…
S1E14 The Creative Challenge of Cozy Games -- Lex Play
Lex Play, a video game YouTube streamer, joins me to discuss her specialty: cozy games. We quickly figure out that cozy games are less about winning and more about creating, a trend that Lex…
S1E13 Playing the Part in Japanese Video Games -- Rachael Hutchinson
This episode is co-hosted by David Hall, PhD Candidate in ECL at UNC. David and I are joined by Rachael Hutchinson, Professor in Japanese Studies and Game Studies at the University of Delaware, to…
S1E12 The Meta of Free to Play Games -- Donald MacKenzie
Sociologist Donald MacKenzie joins me to discuss his recent article in the London Review of Books, "Hey Big Spender: What Your Smartphone Knows About You."Game Studies rarely focuses on phone games -…
S1E11 Adapting The Lord of the Rings as Trick-Taking -- Bryan Bornmueller
Game designer Bryan Bornmueller joins me to discuss his new game The Fellowship of the Ring: The Trick Taking Game. This game pushes narratology and ludology together in a way I had never seen…
S1E10 The Malaise of Modern Video Games -- Simon Parkin
Simon Parkin, host of the podcast My Perfect Console and contributing writer (mostly on video games) to The New Yorker, joins Plumbing Game Studies to talk about his recent NYTimes article on modern…
S1E9 A Board Game Whose Rules Will Never be Known -- Amabel Holland
Board game designer Amabel Holland joins me to discuss her recent board game The City of Six Moons. City of Six Moons isn't an ordinary game - the game is presented as an alien object, and the rules…
S1E8 The Emulation Game of Japanese Culture -- Morgan Pitelka
This episode is co-hosted by David Hall, PhD Candidate in ECL at UNC. David and I are joined by Morgan Pitelka, Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and of History at UNC - Chapel Hill,…
S1E7 1.7 Graeber's Fun -- Aris Politopoulos
Aris Politopoulos joins me to discuss David Graeber's essay "What's the Point if We Can't Have Fun?" We also discuss Aaron Trammel's recent book Repairing Play, which you can find here:…
S1E6 1.6 Huizinga's Homo Ludens -- Martin Roth
Martin Roth, of the Ritsumeikan Center for Game Studies at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, joins me to discuss Homo Ludens, Johan Huizinga's 1938 study of play and culture. Martin and I discuss the…
S1E5 1.5 Agon and Ancient Greek Society -- David Potter
Historian David Potter joins me to discuss the concept of agon, or competitive play, and how it animated everything in ancient Greek society from sports to education to politics to art. And Plato's…
S1E4 1.4 Maria Lugones (and David Graeber) -- Miguel Sicart
Miguel Sicart, author of Playing Software, joins me for a playful, even anarchist discussion which was supposed to be about the work of Maria Lugones but ended up being about Lugones, Graeber,…
S1E3 1.3 Bernard Suits' The Grasshopper - C. Thi Nguyen
Thi Nguyen joins me to discuss The Grasshopper, a work which takes up Wittgenstein's challenge to define a game and does so in a very productive way. Thi and I discuss the Suitsian definition of a…
Schopenhauer on Using Games Against Anxiety (Minigame 2)
Why do you feel anxious, according to Schopenhauer?Excess energy!What should you do about it?Play a game!
Seeing Like a Game -- C. Thi Nguyen
Philosopher of games C. Thi Nguyen joins me to discuss his current work on the intersection of anarchism and games studies. The conversation was so much fun that I started this podcast to continue…
S1E3 1.2: Wittgenstein and Game Definitions --Jonne Arjoranta
Jonne Arjoranta the of Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies joins me to talk about games and definitions in Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. You can find Jonne's articles…
S1E2 Mario, Roguelites, and Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence (Minigame 1)
How would you feel if you had to live life over and over again? Would it be like playing Slay the Spire? Or maybe Super Mario Bros?
S1E1 1.1: Philosophical Plumbing and Games of Truth
This episode of How to Do Things with Games begins with Mary Midgley’s 1974 question: “Why do philosophers talk about games so much?” Well, why do they (she continues)? I’m not sure, but I’m sure…
Frequently Asked Questions
Plumbing Game Studies has published 19 episodes since March 2024, covering topics in Games, Leisure.
Plumbing Game Studies is currently highly active with new episodes monthly. Average episode length is 48m.
