ARB is now a paying venue for sff criticism. This is a dream come true thanks to the efforts of @casella.bsky.social and the many writers, editors, and interviewees who have made @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org and @mealofthorns.bsky.social one of the best places for contemporary sff criticism.

Wednesday, June 3rd, I will be discussing my book Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right on Zoom with the Left Bank Books reading club, Great Books of the 22nd Century. See the link below for instructions on how to join.

🧵1/3 🎮 What if cultural history disappears because no one is allowed to preserve it? Jordan Mechner, creator of Prince of Persia, reflects on the fragility of games, media, and cultural memory in his essay in VANISHING CULTURE, from the #InternetArchive. Read it here: archive.org/details/vani...

We’re excited to announce the three winners of this year’s Diana Jones Award Emerging Designer Program: @classicalglaiza.com, @yesnogoodbye.ca, and @jaztice.bsky.social!

There will be another launch on Friday, 5 June, which will be in-person in Edinburgh, Scotland, and also streamed online. That one is at 4pm UTC (5pm BST; noon ET) 📖🥳 In person: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launc... Online: events.teams.microsoft.com/event/6362c3...

A reminder that the online launch for my book is this Wednesday, 3 June, 7pm UTC (8pm BST; 3pm ET) - timezones are hard! I hope to see you there! 📖🥳 www.facebook.com/events/16107...

Happy Pride! Last year, we did a special issue on Queer Analog Game Studies that is now available on our new site. Open access and free to read, sourced & edited by humans. escholarship.org/uc/analoggam...

🐺📚Here it is! "Translating The Witcher. Publishing Fantasy Fiction in Europe" is available online for free for 2 weeks, until June 15! Feel free to share widely! www.cambridge.org/core/element...

It's publication day for Writing Game Histories!! 🥳🎉 Please do recommend it for your library, but it's also out in paperback so not as hideously expensive as academic books can be: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/writing-g... @doktornick.bsky.social @doni.bsky.social @historygamesnet.bsky.social

Spinning out of my essay on D&D novels earlier this week, I'm very happy to launch the D&D novel reading series with this essay on R.A. Salvatore's THE CRYSTAL SHARD (1988). And, uh, it kinda rocks.

Wanna write a book review? Have a book to review? See AGS's book review guidelines: escholarship.org/uc/analoggam...

Also, this great, whip smart essay by Sean Guynes about D&D franchise novels. It had a ton of interesting history I didn't know about. I also appreciated the shout out to fandom.

🎉 One month of Fansplaining 2.0! 🎉 We launched on April 29th, and what a whirlwind it's been! Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who's supported the project so far. We genuinely could not get off the ground without this early support. Since we launched, we've published some incredible writing:

And @mariakalberto.bsky.social's dope dissertation on canon, procedural narrative, and D&D novels about the drow:

Staggeringly delighted to see this fantastic post about D&D novels, detailing the many very good reasons to read and research them with care! (also the shout-out, thank you Sean!)

Who cares about D&D novels anyway? Some thoughts on why scholars of fantasy probably should, and a bunch more people, too. This is the first essay in my forthcoming Dungeons & Dragons reading series.

Support our libraries!

Subscribed so fast 🤩

I'll be launching my D&D novel reading series this week, beginning with an essay on "Who Cares about D&D Novels Anyway?" which highlights the frustrating response to D&D novels in fantasy studies and argues why we should pay attention to media tie-in fiction more generally. Consider subscribing!

In Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo apologizes for the Doctrine of Discovery, which sanctioned colonialism & slavery, to talk about AI. Here, I thought I went off the rails in Data Empire, where I insist the Doctrine of Discovery is critical to the history of data’s power www.vatican.va/content/leo-...

I remember the panel where I was in the audience and was moved to say this. @thedovetailor.bsky.social was on the panel, & graciously allowed me to weigh in. I forget the name of the panel, but I remember the urgency I felt as I asked to speak.

I find it very funny that some people are talking about Terry Pratchett being forgotten on this, the glorious 25th of May. Truth! Justice! Freedom! Reasonably priced love! And a hard boiled egg! #gnuterrypratchett

One of the problems with the reactionary centrist schtick is that they see students at Stanford in the 1980s protesting the all-male, all-white Western canon as having the same amount of power and influence as the world's richest man. In fact, they see the latter as a plucky underdog.

The left: The Homeric epics are really important and we should fund the humanities and everyone should study literature. But hey, did you know other people three thousand years ago also told stories? The right: Black woman movie bad The Atlantic: I can't believe the left did this.

Are you still a Fansplaining Patreon supporter? When you have a moment, please log on and cancel—we'll be closing the account soon, and we're trying to get an accurate sense of who, if anyone, might still subscribe on the new site. (Paying supporters, the discount codes to switch expire soon!) 🙏🏼

Co fucking signed 🤬

I'm super proud of this project. It's designed to help, especially, humanities scholars building datasets. It's a style guide, with tips and guidance for all the many little decisions one makes when making data. Em Nordling did an amazing job writing it. Funded by the NEH until twas terminated!

We only have ONE MORE DAY to leave comments to the FCC regarding their intention to institute a new version of the Hays Code. glaad.org/fcc Deadline to leave comments i tomorrow May 22

Interested in reviewing books for us? We have several titles on analog gaming that we'd love for experts to weigh in on. Get in touch at: [email protected]

Our program for #GenerationAnalog2026 is now available! #GameInLab #StayAnalog analoggamestudies.org/generation-a...

GENDER QUEER: THE ANNOTATED EDITION is out today from @oni-press.bsky.social! I'm so grateful to everyone who read, bought, recommended & defended this book over the past 7 years (5 of which it spent within the top 3 most challenged books in the US). www.simonandschuster.com/books/Gender...

In our latest, @soila.bsky.social writes about the complicated ways colonialism and cultural hegemony can separate English (for fanfiction, fun) from non-native speakers' local languages (for Serious Literature, everyday life). Read or listen to an audio version: fansplaining.com/the-elation-...

If you're going to GenCon, you can come see the documentary I've been working on! Great if you're interested in LARP or Star Wars or immersive design! Screening is free for badge holders. :)

I still remember the incredible primary source quote I had to leave out of my dissertation because I lost the citation to it. But to lose a citation, you had to have had it in the first place, because you read things. If reading the sources in your field is too much, I don't know why you're in it.

NOW WITH DOIs: @analoggamestudies.bsky.social's Volume 12, Issues 1-4 (including the #QueerAnalogGameStudies special issue) are now available on AGS's eScholarship site, starting with Issue 1: escholarship.org/uc/analoggam... -- more back catalog coming soon! #analoggamestudies #gamestudies

Generation Analog 2026 "GREEN" Conference Registration open: www.eventbrite.com/e/generation... -- free to attend, registration required! July 15 & 16, 2026, feat. keynotes by Alenda Chang & Matteo Menapace! Full schedule forthcoming! #StayAnalog! w/ @analoggamestudies.bsky.social & #GameinLab!

god gives his toughest monkeys to his strongest circuses

🐺📚 My short upcoming book Translating The Witcher: Publishing Fantasy Fiction in Europe (@universitypress.cambridge.org, series "Elements in Publishing and Book Culture") will be available online May 14, and as paperback in June! share.google/gbKrSC06L7Cv...

I have a book coming out soon! It’s fan studies / literary studies and about the complex relationships between the internet and twenty-first century fiction and fanfiction. Please join me at the online launch: Wednesday 3 June, 7pm UTC: www.facebook.com/events/16107...

People will be like ‘Bluesky is all academics & historians’ & I’ll be like, ‘You mean the people who enthusiastically tell me the coolest shit I ever heard?????’

A huge congratulations is in order for @marthawells.com on hitting the @nytimes.com, @usatoday.com, AND Indie bestseller lists with #PlatformDecay !🎉 Congrats, Martha, for this well-deserved recognition! And a big thank you to the readers who made this possible!✨

the only reason any of the 90s star wars books work at all is because they weren’t polished to appeal to everyone. they were written for sci-fi freaks who were still interested in films more than a decade old. they did weird shit, and mostly aspired to telling interesting stories with sacred images

Rawbraining it

“A citation is a formal assertion of a relationship between works, and when that relationship is fabricated, the integrity of the entire document and the scholarly record is compromised.”

SUNDAY! SUNDAY!! SUNDAY!!! this is your reminder that the deadline to submit to present at the 2026 FSNNA #FanStudies conference is THIS SUNDAY (May 17)!

I love zines about how AI sucks. I love queer zines. Feel the same? Queer Zineographies might be for you! deepblue.lib.umich.edu/items/8fb952... 🏳️‍🌈 🚫🤖

🎶 'Alas, what hast thou done? Thou art a pynke ponye girle Yn the daunse at the clubbe!' 'Nay, modir! Ich am but seekinge mirthe On the stage yn myne heeles It ys wher Ich belonge: Downe at the Pynke Ponye Clubbe! Ich shal keepe on daunsinge, Downe yn West Hollywoode' [LUTE SOLO] 🎶

Shout this from the rooftops!!!!

Thank you @mariakalberto.bsky.social for this lovely review of Mytholudics! Always extremely cool to hear and read about people engaging with the book. doi.org/10.1386/jgvw...