The end of the academic year is near and the last two months I did a lot of talks and presentations. I added them to the presentations list, but here’s a list as well. There’s only one upcoming talk (for now) but it’s a very good and high-profile one. On September 7 I will open the new season of Universiteit Utrecht’s Studium Generale lecture series on social media and politics. The talk will be open to the public and will be taped as well.

Upcoming:
- September 7. “Nieuwe media & politiek – Obama’s campagne. Tussen hoop en Hype”. Studium Generale Universiteit Utrecht. Academiegebouw Universiteit Utrecht, Utrecht.

As for academic talks, I presented my book chapter at the Digital Material book launch event.

- 2009. (May 15). “Empower yourself, do research! Playing games during times of war”. Digital Material book launch. Studio T, Utrecht.

What I haven’t talked about that much here were my two visits to the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OC&W). During my first visit I met with the ministry’s Secretary-General and the Director of Communications and gave an informal talk on new media and politics. Later in May, I gave a talk at the weekly “Director’s Lunch” which all the (25) ministry’s directors attend. This was of course a huge honor :).

- 2009. (May 11). “Transparantie, Communicatie & Participatie Obama en Nieuwe Media”. Talk at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. The Hague.

And to wrap up, I did two gigs for The Next Speaker. One talk for the recruitment software company Connexys which was on the potential of using games (i.e. America’s Army) for recruiting purposes. And a series of keynote talks for Brunel for their annual Innovation Evening. The talks were on game culture in general and about all the stereotypical discussions on games, and were hilarious. I learned a lot myself about what the Dutch middle-aged non-gamer thinks of ‘us’ gamers.

- 2009. (June 4). “Recruiting en games: America’s Army.” Talk at Connexys‘ Doeltreffend werven! Seminar. Inn Style, Maarssen.
- 2009. (May 28, June 2, 9). “Gaming 101”. Series of keynotes for Brunel‘s Innovation Evening. Various locations.

As I blogged here, I participated in this really cool book project by Universiteit Utrecht. The book “Digital Material – Tracing New Media in Everyday Life and Technology” is now available (for free!) under a creative commons license (.pdf). Check it out ya’ll!

Here’s the Dutch blurb on the book (N.B. the book is in English):

Nieuwe media zijn vanaf hun opkomst begeleid door revolutionaire beloften en bedreigingen: hypertekst zou lezers veranderen in auteurs, digitale beelden zouden de waarheid en werkelijkheid ondermijnen, en online communicatie zou alle afstanden overbruggen. ‘Cyberspace’ werd gevierd dan wel gevreesd als immaterieel en autonoom, losgezongen van onze dagelijkse leefwereld. Na twee decennia ‘cyberrevolutie’ zijn nieuwe media vanzelfsprekend geworden en blijken zij allesbehalve immaterieel. Vanuit dat perspectief belicht de bundel Digital Material digitale culturen. De bijdragen onderzoeken onder meer computer games, mobiele communicatie, interfacemetaforen, weblogculturen, software ontwikkeling en digitale beeldproductie. Bij elkaar vormen zij een inspirerend theoretisch kader om de hedendaagse betekenis van nieuwe media te doorgronden.