Writing

Games and Pop Culture (Academic)

“Dudes, Boobs, and GameCubes: Video Game Advertising Enters Adolescence” (with Megan Condis). Media, Culture & Society (2023).


“I’d Like to Buy the World a Nuka-Cola: The Purposes and Meanings of Video Game Soda Machines.” Game Studies 20, no. 1 (March 2020).


“The Politics of Passionate Patti: Sex Positivity and the Problematic Past of Patriarchal Play.” First Person Scholar (2 October 2019).


“Dark as a Dungeon: Fallout 76 and the Coal Mining Industry.” First Person Scholar (17 April 2019).


“Glory to Arstotzka: Morality, Rationality, and the Iron Cage of Bureaucracy in Papers, Please.” Game Studies 17, no. 1 (July 2017).


“Elaine Marley.” 100 Greatest Video Game Characters, ed. Jaime Banks, Robert Mejia, and Aubrie Adams (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017).


“Zombies, International Relations, and the Production of Danger: Critical Security Studies versus the Living Dead.” Studies in Popular Culture 36, no. 2 (Spring 2014): 1-27.


“Marxferatu: The Vampire Metaphor as a Tool for Teaching Marx’s Critique of Capitalism.” PS: Political Science & Politics 46, no. 3 (July 2013): 637-642.

 

Games and Pop Culture (General Audience)

“Lara Croft: The Art of Virtual Seduction Is the Ultimate Cringey Relic of Late ’90s Game Advertising.” PC Gamer (26 July 2023).


“Werewolves of Bavaria: Gabriel Knight 2, Then and Now.” VICE Games (4 February 2021).


Second Life‘s Dream Is Alive in Fortnite.” Wireframe (3 December 2020).


“The Game Journo’s Guide to Gamifying Girlfriends.” Wireframe (7 May 2020).


Overwatch and the Return of the Trolls.” Wireframe (9 April 2020).


“How Games Marketing Invented Toxic Gamer Culture.” VICE Games (25 March 2020).


“Playing with Power.” Wireframe (13 February 2020).


“The Video Game Vending Machines That Defined a Decade” VICE Games (31 December 2019).


“The Myth of the Video Game Auteur.” Wireframe (7 November 2019).


“The Pause That Refreshes: Drinks Machines and Game Design.” Wireframe (26 August 2019).


“Gatekeeping in the Golden Age of Video Games.” Wireframe (1 August 2019).

 
Other Topics

“Beyond 2014: Afghanistan’s Agricultural Revival, Water Scarcity, and Regional Insecurity” (with Douglas A. Borer). Marine Corps University Journal 5, no. 2 (Fall 2014): 25-45.


“Land Grabs, Radicalization, and Political Violence: Lessons from Mali and Beyond” (with Douglas A. Borer). CTX: Combating Terrorism Exchange 3, no. 1 (February 2013): 10-16.


“Middle East Turmoil: Is It 1989 All Over Again?” Small Wars Journal (February 2011).


“Rationality and Risk-Taking in Russia’s First Chechen War: Toward a Theory of Cognitive Realism.” European Political Science Review 2, no. 2 (July 2010): 187-210.


“Russian Authoritarian Pluralism: A Global Trend?” (with Douglas A. Borer). Cambridge Review of International Affairs 19, no. 4 (December 2006): 571-588.


“Where Oil and Water Do Mix: Environmental Scarcity, Political Legitimacy and Future Conflict the Middle East and North Africa” (with Douglas A. Borer). Parameters: US Army War College Quarterly 34, no. 4 (Winter 2004/05): 86-101.

For more details on my research, check out my curriculum vitae.