Joleen Blom
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jjol33n.bsky.social
Joleen Blom
@jjol33n.bsky.social
|Ph.D. in Games |Postdoctoral Researcher @CoEGameCult |Editor @Eludamos |Author of Video Game Characters and Transmedia Storytelling |(she/her)
Reposted by Joleen Blom
🚚🚚🚚New article alert! Part of a special issue on games + container technologies, it’s about truckers who play Truck Simulator in their trucks, but also simulation, battlestations, and the logistics of work and play. It's open access, so please take a look 🚚🚚🚚 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Truck simulator, trucker-simulators, and the containment of neoliberal capitalism
This paper discusses truckers who play games (including Truck Simulator) while on the road. Inspired by the concept of “container technologies” and more recent work which distinguishes between cont...
www.tandfonline.com
November 12, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
✨Hello friends, I'm launching #EmergentGenders @dukepress.bsky.social next month in Busan 🇰🇷 hosted by @thekpopprof.bsky.social at Pusan National University, Global Studies Department

📅 Dec 9 (Tues)
🕰️ 10:30am (GMT+9)
📍 PNU CEIT #203 & Zoom
📧 TheKpopProf@gmail.com (for Zoom link)
November 12, 2025 at 8:50 AM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
For the past decade, I've been slowly cooking a small and humble book.

Part (alternative) history, part analysis, and part social critique, this is a look at what games also are and have always been.

ZEN AND SLOW GAMES
Out 20/1/2026 by MIT Press

mitpress.mit.edu/978026255356...
November 3, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
GREEN GAMING

An educational innovation project in which 55 of my students researched ecogames and ecogamemaking.

The result is a white paper that's meant to be accessible and useful for scholars, students, and the industry.

tinyurl.com/greengamingtcm

If you like it, please share it around!
March 14, 2025 at 10:08 AM
November 19th, I'll take a (virtual) seat in Dr. Sebastian Möring's plan from Lublin to Helsinki. I'll be talking during the flight about my book on Video Game Characters and Transmedia Storytelling, and about my experiences of having lived in Japan.

Find the link to the stream below!
October 24, 2025 at 11:57 AM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
Now it is official! The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Games is now, like, actually, surely, coming out! (This has been in the pipeline since 2018.) I have a piece here on this brand new thing called 'magic circle'. Everyone will be talking about it.
The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Games
Playing games is a basic human activity, and games raise a great number of fascinating philosophical questions. What, exactly, are we doing when we play a game? What is the value of games for human li...
www.routledge.com
October 23, 2025 at 5:16 PM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
Following multiple requests, we are publicly extending the deadline for the ACM Games: Research and Practice Special Issue on Game Advertising by two weeks to Sunday, 16 November 2025. We look forward to your submission.
October 21, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
Mark Maletska (@ markmaletska.bsky.social) will give an Oasis Lunchtime Talk on "Why being a Ukrainian game studies scholar is… complicated?” on Thursday 23 October at 12:00-13:00 EEST. Join us at Oasis, Tampere University, or follow online: www.youtube.com/live/EBRRynA...
OASIS Lunchtime Talk: Why being a Ukrainian game studies scholar is… complicated?
YouTube video by oasis_tuni
www.youtube.com
October 20, 2025 at 11:16 AM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
Since this article is making the rounds again, I guess this is a good moment as any to plug my book (despite me feeling super weird about self promotion), as I describe these dynamics in (some would argue) excruciating detail.
October 18, 2025 at 12:00 AM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
This weekend Cassandra Bookshop in Porto hosted the launch of the book Inteligências Entretecidas, which includes my essay “Imitation Aesthetics”. The book documents the workshop series organized by Earthsea Association and is edited by Ana Carvalho, Isabel Carvalho, and Vera Carmo.
October 13, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Just now I discovered that with the acquisition of Amsterdam University Press (AUP) by Taylor & Francis (TF), the eBook version of my book is sold for €41,95 on their website with no OAPEN link available. I hope that this is just a mistake on TF's part and I just contacted them for clarification.
October 7, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
We‘d all like to make Rowling and her franchise disappear, but her transphobia & large-scale political influence and the reboot TV show make it hard to ignore from a scholarly perspective. Cassie Brummitt has written a salient study on what became of Harry Potter post-book that I got to blurb:
October 4, 2025 at 10:31 AM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
Bryan Hikari Hartzheim will give an Oasis Lunchtime Talk on “Institutions of Play: Mapping Japan’s Indie Game Scene" on Thursday 2 October at 12:00-13:00 EEST. Join us at Oasis, Tampere University, or follow online: www.youtube.com/live/IuTUH27...
OASIS Lunchtime Talk: Institutions of Play: Mapping Japan’s Indie Game Scene
YouTube video by oasis_tuni
www.youtube.com
September 29, 2025 at 9:55 AM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
I am very pleased to see this super insightful piece by @jingwangnyu.bsky.social out in @platformsnsociety.bsky.social! It examines how the “productization of APIs allows Alipay+ to extend its platform logic into global financial infrastructures.

Read it here: doi.org/10.1177/2976...
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doi.org
September 17, 2025 at 8:18 AM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
Just adding some tags to this symposium announcement! #larp, #gamestudies, #analoggames, #trpg
jarps.net JARPS @jarps.net · Sep 20
Save the Date: JARPS 2025 Symposium on "Tools of the Trade: Props, Techniques, and Inspirations for Analog Role-Playing," Nov. 22, 2025.
「アナログロールプレイングのための七つ道具:小道具,技術,インスピレーション」についてのRPG学研究2025年度シンポジウム、2025年11月22日。
jarps.net/journal/anno...
September 21, 2025 at 4:27 AM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
The new issue of Countertext includes a paper by Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone and myself on libraries in digital games - their significances, (non-)functions, meanings. It's not open-access (boo), but ask and you shall receive
www.euppublishing.com/toc/count/11/2
September 18, 2025 at 9:34 AM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
Meet me next week in Bochum (Germany) speaking about the concept of virtuality from the perspective of my own research, somewhere inbetween virtual prototyping and sensing.
#NextWeek
The ECF conference, »Reflecting Virtuality«, will take place on September 24 and 25 at Ruhr University Bochum.
Registration information: www.virtuelle-lebens...
September 19, 2025 at 7:11 AM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
UK Gamescenes Symposium will take place in Tampere/Hybrid on 16th September. Program and details for joining are attached. 1/2

Features work from skypeeps @digdems.bsky.social @nitessine.bsky.social @merilainen.bsky.social @rosgakori.bsky.social @vkankainen.bsky.social
September 9, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
The programme for the East Asian Pop Culture workshop, documenting 30 years of transformation is now out. It features @tbaudinette.bsky.social as the keynote speaker this coming Sept @ NUS, Singapore.
ari.nus.edu.sg/events/east-...

#EastAsianPopCulture #FanStudies #AsianStudies
August 27, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
Jolly news: My new book with Jan-Noël Thon, "AI Aesthetics: AI-Generated Images between Artistics and Aisthetics", is now available as OPEN ACCESS with Routledge Focus. Check it all out:
www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edi...
🥳
September 6, 2025 at 5:37 AM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT! @mahliann.bsky.social, @marcuscarter.com, and myself have combined our collective brains and written a wide-reaching introduction to the complex and interdisciplinary field of Game Studies in this forthcoming book for Polity. www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...
September 4, 2025 at 4:59 AM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
DiGRA 2026 will be hosted at Maynooth University in Maynooth, Ireland from 14 to 18 June 2026.
The 2026 conference theme is Intersectional Pleasures.

digra.org/digra-2026-h...
DiGRA 2026 Conference Announcement - DiGRA
The DiGRA Executive Board is pleased to announce that DiGRA 2026 will be hosted at Maynooth University in Maynooth, Ireland from 14 to 18 June 2026.
digra.org
September 2, 2025 at 2:29 PM
For my fellow colleagues working in the Dutch game sector and interested in game development & design, the Stimuleringsfonds has a call for funding proposals you might be interested in:

www.stimuleringsfonds.nl/en/grants/op...
Open Oproep Game Sector Professionalisation and Practice Development | Stimuleringsfonds
For individual game professionals, game designers, game developers, or (temporary) collectives working within the Dutch games sector who wish to make their practice or studio future-proof.
www.stimuleringsfonds.nl
September 1, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Reposted by Joleen Blom
📚💻💰📝
If you are thinking about applying for an ERC grant and want inspiration, I've updated my paper where I tell how I got mine.

It now includes the application (B1+B2), the manuscript for the presentation I gave at my interview, the slides, and the nine peer reviews.

pure.au.dk/portal/en/pu...
How I got an ERC Consolidator Grant. Idea, application, interview, and reviews.
pure.au.dk
August 29, 2025 at 4:14 PM