Category Archives: Theory

Two Recent Publications Of Mine About Games

Posted on 11/05/2018 by kunzelman

I have two newish academic publications that you might want to check out if you’re the kind of person who enjoys academic publications. The first is a piece about speculation and video game play that is published in Science Fiction Film … Continue reading →

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On At The Existentialist Café

Posted on 06/19/2018 by kunzelman

I. I’ve been reading At The Existentialist Café a chapter at a time for a couple months now. It’s a weird way to read a book but, you know, things get in the way when you’re writing a dissertation. I barreled through … Continue reading →

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Alfred Bester on What a Science Fiction Author Does

Posted on 05/22/2017 by kunzelman

The mature science fiction author doesn’t merely tell a story about Brick Malloy vs The Giant Yeastmen from Gethsemane. He makes a statement through a story. What is the statement? Himself, his own dimension and depth. His statement is seeing … Continue reading →

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Bernard De Koven on approaching death

Posted on 04/03/2017 by kunzelman

If you want to do something for me or because of me, grieving is not what I need. What I need is for you to continue your play/work however you can. Play games. Play the kind of games I like to … Continue reading →

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George Orwell on Atrocities

Posted on 09/14/2016 by kunzelman

But unfortunately the truth about atrocities is far worse than that they are lied about and made into propaganda. The truth is that they happen. The fact often adduced as a reason for skepticism–that the same horror stories come up … Continue reading →

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On X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

Posted on 06/27/2016 by kunzelman

I. SOME HISTORY Fox’s X-Men franchise has had more hits than misses. 2000’s X-Men was an excellent introduction to the world and the film franchise’s core character Wolverine. Following three years later, X2 solidified many of the themes that director Bryan Singer evoked in the first … Continue reading →

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A Thousand Plateaus as thriller

Posted on 06/08/2016 by kunzelman

The first thought that came to my mind after finishing A Thousand Plateaus for the nth time for my comps is that you could read it as a thriller contemporary thriller novel. It has all the trappings of a Dan Brown novel: there … Continue reading →

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Radiation, Animals, Media

Posted on 04/27/2016 by kunzelman

Ron Broglio has a short article up at The Atlantic that does a little bit of delving into the animals who live in and around highly radioactive sites like Chernobyl. There’s something really interesting going on with the example of the radioactive … Continue reading →

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Justin Erik Halldór Smith on the Badiou Studies Hoax

Posted on 04/14/2016 by kunzelman

I would normally excerpt something here so that you could get a sense of what’s happening in the piece, but Smith’s short essay is really well put together and I had a hard time choosing a paragraph that made sense … Continue reading →

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Robert Macfarlane on Anthropocene Affects

Posted on 04/12/2016 by kunzelman

Where the pain of nostalgia arises from moving away, the pain of solastalgia arises from staying put. Where the pain of nostalgia can be mitigated by return, the pain of solastalgia tends to be irreversible. Solastalgia is not a malady … Continue reading →

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