It will be one of the last events I will undertake before I go into ‘crunch-mode’ the coming (six) months to finish my PhD. Tuesday March 2 I will moderate an evening of Pecha Kucha style presentations titled “FAQ Masteravond Media- en Cultuurwetenschappen”. Utrecht University scholars, students and alumni will talk (fast and to the point) about their research and it will be my duty to host the event. I will open the evening with a short keynote on the ins and outs (or the good, bad and ugly side) of media studies related scholarship, titled “de zin en onzin van Media- en Cultuurwetenschappen”.

The evening will start at 7pm and will officially last till 10:30 (drinks afterwards of course). The venue is Studio T (downtown Utrecht) and the programme looks promising (very diverse!). Entrance is free, but Studio T is small so if you’re coming, send an email to blik.tijdschrift[at]gmail.com (NB Im not part of the organization). The event is in Dutch. More information about the event (and the programme) are to be found here. Hope to see you there!

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One of my gamejournalism colleagues, Nick Kivits, wrote an insightful article on the Dutch military’s perspective on military games. The article is titled “‘Ik heb je, motherfucker!’” and appeared in last week’s Revu magazine. I contributed with my view on military games in general. The entire 5-paged article, which has an unusual and fancy lay-out, is downloadable as a .pdf here.

Utrecht University (my alma mater) has a vibrant (new media) student community and a very good student magazine called BLIK. I sat down with the magazine’s editor and had a long conversation about my views on social politics, the Obama campaign and new media in general (of course, in Dutch). The result is a 6-page interview, you can download the .pdf here. I had a decent amount of interviews on this subject but I think this interview captures my recent thinking on this subject really well! Also, the magazine looks great.

Summary from BLIK’s website:

Alhoewel het voorheen een onderbelicht thema bleek in BLIK komt in beide interviews van deze uitgave de wisselwerking tussen politiek en nieuwe media uitgebreid aan bod. Toepasselijk, want precies een jaar geleden behaalde de Amerikaanse presidentskandidaat Barack Obama een historische overwinning die ten minste ten dele te danken was aan een innovatieve inzet van nieuwe media tijdens diens verkiezingscampagne. UU alumnus en nu docent Nieuwe Media aan de UvA David Nieborg ervoer als vrijwilliger in het campagneteam van Obama van dichtbij de politieke bevlogenheid van de Amerikaanse burger. In ons openingsinterview vertelt hij hoe hij in Nederland die bezieling voor politiek en nieuwe media vooralsnog mist.