John Wills

Introducing the "American Dream/American Nightmare" conference speakers! Our second roundtable of the day is on "Perspectives within "New" and "Emerging" Media" and will feature Prof John Wills (University of Kent), Dr Stephen Morgan (KCL), and Dr Sara Polak (Leiden University). 📍Online 🗓️ 3rd July 2025, 14:15-15:30 BST Don't forget to sign up (for free!) using the QR code or the link in our bio ✨ i with sign "American Indian Movement" on the grounds of the Washington Monument, Washington, D.C., during the "Longest walk" by Warren Leffler “Martin Luther King, Jr., half-length portrait, facing left, speaking at microphones, during anti-war demonstration, New York City” by Don Rice “AIDS quilt on display in Washington, D.C., with the U.S. Capitol in the background” by Carol Highsmith “Washington Crossing the Delaware” by Emmanuel Leutze

John Wills is a Professor in Film and Media at the University of Kent, UK and a co-editor of the European Journal of American Culture (Intellect). His research interests include atomic film and culture, environmental protest and environmental disaster, and US game studies. John is the author of seven books, including, most recently, Gamer Nation: Video Games and American Culture (Johns Hopkins UP, 2019) and with Esther Wright, Red Dead Redemption: History, Myth and Violence in the Video Game West (Oklahoma UP, 2023). He is currently completing a new book, on Doom Town and atomic culture, with the University Press of Kansas Social Media: @drjonw (X); @drjohnwills.bsky.social (BlueSky) John is pictured wearing glasses.

Dr. Stephen Morgan (he/him) is Lecturer in Film Studies at King’s College London. His research focuses on the cinemas of settler nations, as well as the Indigenous cinemas of Australia, Canada, and Aotearoa / New Zealand. Broader efforts to reconceptualise settler national cinema in these spaces includes his upcoming monograph, Ealing Abroad: Post-War British Cinema, Settler Colonialism and Ealing Studios in Australia, which will be published by BFI/Bloomsbury in 2026. Bluesky: @drsmorgan.com Stephen is pictured in black and white smiling

Sara Polak (she/her) is university lecturer in American Studies at Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society, research fellow on the NWO project Playing Politics: Media Platforms Making Worlds, and PI of the ERC project Worlding America: How Play Shaped the United States from New Media to Politics, 1503-2028. She has published a monograph FDR in American Memory (John Hopkins UP, 2021) and is working on a book about How Trump Plays. @sarapolak.bsky.social Sara is pictured smiling.

Introducing the "American Dream/American Nightmare" conference speakers!

Our second roundtable is on "Perspectives within "New" and "Emerging" Media" and will feature Prof John Wills (@drjohnwills.bsky.social ), Dr Stephen Morgan (@drsmorgan.com ), and Dr Sara Polak (@sarapolak.bsky.social )...

www.loc.gov/static/progr...

Hey Ayesha, yeah a classic. I wrote about it for Film Registry at Library/Congress, can always send you link. I was in touch with creators a while back, not sure, may be able to find them…

Had the pleasure of recently guesting on @everyscififilm.bsky.social podcast alongside the brilliant Tom Docherty, talking about On the Beach (1959).

Great to present on horror videogames at #BDigra in Birmingham today. Thanks to @poppywilde.bsky.social @doktornick.bsky.social & team for a great conference day. #BritishDiGRA #DiGRA

Day one of #BDiGRA25 and we've already had excellent provocations to start - lightning talks on rougelikes, queer game studies, transgender emergence in games, ecogaming, and historical affects in our first session. Now on to panels exploring Game making and Culture, getting to more in depth papers.

Happy Martin Luther King Jnr Day.

A worrying situation at Paw Patrol HQ. Please do not ‘Yelp for Help’ and expect a speedy response!

Legend lost. RIP David Lynch.

Let me know how it goes. I think I had that set once!

Chart: Top 20 largest California wildfires (1932 - 2021)

"A reminder that frequent megafires in California are a relatively recent phenomenon"

via @zacklabe.com -> @calfire.bsky.social
(and not even including 2024 Park fire...)

My heart goes out to everyone affected by the current fires in Los Angeles County. Southern California, and especially LA, has been like a second home to me. Hoping it gets better soon.

Who’s in Control?: Negotiating Hierarchies, Neoliberal Subjectivation, and Feminist Resistance in the World of Work In Control (Remedy Entertainment, 2019), the player-protagonist Jesse Faden starts a journey looking for her missing brother and ends up as Director of a secret agency—the Federal Bureau of Cont...

Control is free on @epicgamesoffical.bsky.social for another 20mins, then another game free after that! Control is ace, and I wrote a chapter on it: "Who’s in Control?: Negotiating Hierarchies, Neoliberal Subjectivation, and Feminist Resistance in the World of Work" link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

List of 2024-25 GREEN BAAS roundtables more info at this address: https://baas.ac.uk/community/green-baas/2024-2025-green-baas-roundtable-series/

A few GREEN BAAS announcements for 2025:

- Our 1st event of the new year is a collaborative, online writing session on Zoom Thur 16 Jan 2025 at 2-4pm (GMT). Connect, set an intention, write!
Register for "let's writing together" here: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

@officialbaas.bsky.social

Call for Contributions - Medievalism | Historical Games Network Guest Chair/Convenor: Robert Houghton  The Middle Ages are almost everywhere in games. From the painstaking reconstructions of medieval buildings and cityscapes in Assassin’s Creed (2007-) and Kingdom...

We are excited to announce our new quarterly theme: Medievalism! Guest-chaired/convened by @robehoughton.bsky.social, the theme will accept contributions from right now until March 2025. More details here: www.historicalgames.net/call-for-con...

#historicalgames #gamestudies #gtp

My favorite albums of 2024.
GNX Kendrick Lamar
From Zero Linkin Park
The Great American Bar Scene Zach Bryan
Brat and Its Completely Different But Also Still Brat Charlie XCX
The Death of Slim Shady Eminem
+ Apple informed me that I listened to the Westworld soundtrack 1,772 minutes this year!

Last week I gave an invited lecture on Doom Town and Las Vegas for the Atoms & Archives Research Group, Andrew Hook Centre for American Studies & Scottish Centre for War Studies at the University of Glasgow, research kindly sponsored by @leverhulme.bsky.social, thanks to @drtimpeacock.bsky.social

New here moots! #promosky

Game Studies
Film Studies
Horror
Writing
Paranormal TV (current fav: Project Fear)
Old Audi TTs and old BMWs
Sega Dreamcast collector, Nintendo lover
Rock, Alt, Nu-Metal, Grime
Yoga & Tai Chi
Running
Buddhism
Nicolas Cage
Coffee
Americana, Los Angeles, Las Vegas

great pic!

Pleasure to provide a film talk on Gilda (1946) at the Gulbenkian arts centre in Kent yesterday. #universityofkent #hollywood

Many congratulations!!!

Intense week so I am returning to my early 2000’s self with Linkin Park’s From Zero.

Star Trek is more important than electricity or WiFi

Did you survive?

Isn’t Keanu Reeves really following you?

Great game, really enjoy this one

Bad tables

Wasteland 3 is a classic

Nice list!

Here’s my prior book on video games (Johns Hopkins UP)