This week co-hosts Toben (English Language and Literature) and Sid (Environment) interview faculty member Dr. Gerald Voorhees (Communication Arts), about his past, present, and future research on race, decolonization, whiteness, and masculinity in games.

Voorhees reminisces on past research about masculinity and “Dadification” in games, and discusses his research in eSports examining the performance of gender, whiteness, and masculinity. He also talks about joining the GI and First Person Scholar over a decade ago and leading the ADE speaker series that was held at the GI last year.

Links:

Daddy Issues: Constructions of Fatherhood in The Last of Us and BioShock Infinite

Masculinities in Play

Performing Neoliberal Masculinity: Reconfiguring Hegemonic Masculinity in Professional Gaming

The Culture of Digital Fighting Games: Performance and Practice: Todd Harper

Made in Asia/America: Why Video Games Were Never (Really) About Us: Matt Howard

ADE for Games Communities Workshop and Speaker Series

Skins Deep: Race, Gender, and Nationality in eSports: Tara Fickle

Research Disability & Play: Where's the Fun in That?: Katta Spiel

Dungeons, Dragons, and Digital Denizens: The Digital Role-Playing Game

First Person Scholar

Bio:

Gerald Voorhees earned a Ph.D. from The University of Iowa (2008) and holds a B.S. in Speech Communication from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a Senior Fellow in the Honors Program of the College of Communication. His research focuses on games and new media as sites for the construction and contestation of identity and culture. He is also interested in public discourse pertaining to games and new media, as well as rhetorics of race and ethnicity in mediated public discourse. He is Vice-President of the Canadian Game Studies Association, a former member of the Executive Board of the Digital Games Research Association, and a former co-chair of the Game Studies area of the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Nation Conference.