Site, life updated
September 2nd, 2010 by c.ritter
Now that the dust from my recent move to Atlanta has begun to settle, I can address the dust that’s accumulated on this site over the summer since I finished my dissertation and paused all professional thought. My About page and CV are now current, and I’ll be revisiting the dissertation soon in order to figure out what to do with it next. If you have any suggestions in that arena, I’d love to hear them.
on 
on 
on 
Hello Chris,
In the interest of starting a debate about games, have you heard of Homefront? Here is the link (http://www.homefront-game.com/#/home). What I find so interesting is that it is a violent war game that is set in present day politics. Plus, it’s being developed by John Milus (who directed and wrote the original Red Dawn). The current game question is whether games are art, but soon we may need to look at examples like this and ask what role games might play in international politics.
I hadn’t heard of Homefront, but it was interesting checking it out just now. I suppose it isn’t surprising that the writer/director of Red Dawn has written another story about a theoretically-scary-but-really-impoverished commie regime invading the U.S. It makes sense to me that that fantasy was compelling to people back in the 80s, when the specter of the U.S.S.R. still loomed large in the public’s mind. But now, in the unipolar, U.S.-dominated world? ‘Course, people like Fareed Zakaria are saying now that the U.S. is declining in power while countries like China, India, and Brazil are rising, so maybe there are solid roots for this fear after all. Anyway, I’m just talking about the game’s ideological hooks, the themes I imagine will draw people in. If it actually portrays or has its players enact something significant w/r/t international politics, I’ll be surprised and impressed.