Dr. Emily Friedman

Sometimes the universe just knows we need to be reminded that we’ll never be first-rate human beings until we have some compassion for human frailty.

And/or that it’s time to get wasted on champagne.

Celebrating this win for you!

Fat white woman in a black dress in a power wheelchair, photographed in a park.

this is #WhatAGameDevLooksLike. my games are taught in schools, i'm the published author of six books on game design, taught game design for nine years, and one of my games was in a recent movie. i'm in my ninth month of unemployment. what a cool field to work in

AND with the Provost of my alma mater, the poet @aireadee.bsky.social — ANASSA KATA!

worth remembering, David Lynch directed “fix your hearts or die” specifically at transphobes. it wasn’t a generic “no mean people allowed” statement, it was said by his Twin Peaks character in defense of a trans woman he cared for and deeply respected.

Me: this chapter is really hard, I’m doing to turn to the next one, which has so much done on it, surely it will be an easy win. Let’s see… what do I still have to finish?

Chapter: Complete except for walkthrough of @friends-table.bsky.social

Me: Oh God.

It’s shit like that that tempts me to do a whole semester of “Jane Austen’s Bookshelf” of all the 18/19C novels where the heroine says “nah, son, I choose me”

(This should have alt text that somehow got eaten: Quinns makes sweeping generalization about Actual Play and Em can be heard to say “citation needed” from the audience)

Call for Applications: Visiting Research Fellowships at the Samuel Beckett Research Centre, University of Reading The Samuel Beckett Research Centre (SBRC) at the University of Reading is pleased to announce that up to 3 SBRC Visiting Research Fellowships are now available to scholars and researchers looking t…

Great opportunity for Samuel Beckett scholars to work on the Beckett archive at Reading samuelbeckettsociety.org/2026/03/10/c...

At Busted Halo, we love the Catholic Church, and we also have a heart for reaching those who question, struggle, or feel they have no place in the Church. That’s why we're thrilled to announce our new section, Voices From the Back Pew. Check out Voices From the Back Pew here: buff.ly/mXBGGFC

In some ways, this is my book’s interventions in a nutshell.

The deadline for proposals for the "Play Make Learn" 2026 conference is March 9!
The conference will be held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on July 9-10.

Here's the link to apply:
web.cvent.com/event/3559d2...

Read on and I hope to see you there! 🙂
#playmakelearn #conference #edusky

What's your favourite TTRPG that is free, only a few pages long, and has a GM?

ZOMG in Philly when I am in Philly!

Free Online Talk · The Key is in the Images—Using Rare Books to Create Tarot Cards with Elisabeth Brander & Angela He — Morbid Anatomy Join Elisabeth Brander and Angela He, the rare book librarians at Becker Medical Library, who are introducing a new Major Arcana tarot deck they created, along with its historical sources that inspire...

My colleague and I are chatting about our library Tarot project on May 18!

I feel like I have played Birds are Amazing without meaning to for the last six months.

Thanks Ross! We want to see people make their own games in this format, too. bullypulpitgames.com/pages/desper...

Me pulling the level on a press with a litho stone on it.

Last semester a student taking my Early Medieval Art class told me she’s a studio major specializing in print. After I said that I’ve long wanted to wrap my head around lithography she said “I’m doing that next semester! I’ll invite you to the studio!” Today was that day & my student became my prof.

What TTRPG designer would you like to hear GM a one-shot of their own game?

(Bonus question: who would be the coolest special guest player for that one-shot?)

Give me some actual plays to listen to!
- preferably edited
- good audio
- cool story
- extra points for smaller creators!

Something where you're like, "This has one of the best openings/first episode ever!"

Need something to do while I pack up/organize for a small move in a few weeks.

From the correspondence course craze in the early 20C to MOOCs one hundred years later, the commodification of education was but a lucrative side hustle for unis. Now the compulsory technologization of education is fully integrated into extractive capitalism. What a time to be a professor.

Graffito on a page in a copy of Tristram Shandy: a line drawing in profile of Slawkenbergius, recognizable because of his large nose.

Niche but cool. I mentioned in class that there was little evidence that #18thc readers had ever responded to the invitation tendered by the blank page in Tristram Shandy & drawn the Widow Wadman. & then a student revealed the portrait of Slawkenbergius she found inscribed into her copy of our novel

This quote has been with me every day since I first heard it and I love her so much for saying it.

Somehow, some way! (It was part of negotiations to plan for how to make it happen in different scenarios)

BTW I’ll be reading from the book for the first time this Thursday, in a virtual talk at U Edinburgh History & Games Lab:

‘I wish I could push ChatGPT off a cliff’: professors scramble to save critical thinking in an age of AI As AI has upended the way students learn, academics worry about the future of the humanities - and society at large

I'm one of many professors quoted in this report from Alice Speri. I really appreciate The Guardian taking an angle which has basically eluded every other major outlet.

🎉🎉🎉 Congratulations!!!

Screenshot of the homepage of Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies digital archive.

I've put online a #c18th side project on Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies that uses data extraction for mapping & network analysis, exploring questions of urban history, genre and print culture, geography, and social worlds across editions:

harrisslist.prisms.digital

#HarrissList #DH #WIP

I WIN