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Mike Piero

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Recent News:

Books, Game Studies, Interview, Media Appearance, Publication - Scholarly

Interview @ ReviewFix.com about Being Dragonborn: Critical Essays on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim with Patrick Hickey, Jr.

An interview with the incredible Patrick Hickey Jr. at ReviewFix.com just dropped about my and Marc A. Ouellette‘s edited collection…

April 23, 2025Read More
Books, Endorsement, Publication - Fiction

M. C. Benner Dixon endorses Rogue Burnout

I’m so honored by M. C. Benner Dixon‘s generous endorsement of Rogue Burnout. Dr. Benner Dixon is author of The…

April 9, 2025Read More
Awards, Teaching, Technology

ACUE Certification: Effective Teaching Practices Framework, 2025

Throughout the 2024-2025 academic year, I worked weekly toward earning the certification in online “Effective Teaching Practices Framework” offered by…

March 24, 2025Read More
Books, Endorsement, Publication - Fiction

Jacob Appel endorses ROGUE BURNOUT

The first endorsement of my debut novel, Rogue Burnout, is in! And by none other than the singularly brilliant Jacob…

March 1, 2025Read More
Books, Publication - Fiction

Mike Piero secures representation from Mark Gottlieb @ Trident Media Group for ROGUE BURNOUT

Mike Piero, Ph.D. is now represented by SVP and Literary Agent Mark Gottlieb and Trident Media Group, an exciting partnership.…

February 15, 2025Read More
Publication - Fiction

Publication – “The Keeper of Numbers” appears in J Journal

Mike Piero’s short story, “The Keeper of Numbers,” appeared in J Journal: New Writing on Justice, a publication of CUNY’s…

January 22, 2025Read More

Recent Books:

Video Game Chronotopes and Social Justice: Playing on the Threshold, Palgrave Macmillan, Games in Context Series, 2022

Available at:
Palgrave Macmillan
Amazon

Video Game Chronotopes and Social Justice examines how the chronotope, which literally means “timespace,” is an effective interpretive lens through which to understand the cultural and ideological significance of video games. Using ‘slow readings’ attuned to deconstruction along the lines of post-structuralist theory, gender studies, queer studies, continental philosophy, and critical theory, Mike Piero exposes the often-overlooked misogyny, heteronormativity, racism, and patriarchal structures present in many Triple-A video games through their arrangement of timespace itself. Beyond understanding time and space as separate mechanics and dimensions, Piero reunites time and space through the analysis of six chronotopes―of the bonfire, the abject, the archipelago, the fart as pharmakon, madness, and coupled love―toward a poetic meaning making that is at the heart of play itself, all in affirmation of life, equity, and justice.

Video Game Chronotopes and Social Justice
Book Cover with an Evil Looking Dragon on it

Just Released: Being Dragonborn: Critical Essays on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, McFarland, 2021, co-edited with Marc A. Ouellette.

Available for purchase at:
McFarland & Company
Amazon

Being Dragonborn: Critical Essays on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (forthcoming from McFarland Press) takes the massive video game hit, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, as its site of multidisciplinary, scholarly interrogation. This epic fantasy role playing game hails its player as “dragonborn,” a calling that merges political, social, and religious narratives in the game toward the player’s assumption of the dragonborn identity position: savior of Skyrim. Our collection identifies and explores these positions within the cultural ecology of the game. The outstanding authors featured in this collection unpack Skyrim as a topological space that encodes and extends cultural ideologies in the game’s design, gameplay experience, modding tradition, and online game forums. In other words, the dragonborn player is interpellated into a series of ideological roles that mirror the gendered, racially inscribed, neoliberal, and colonialist attitudes and subject positions proffered to players in their out-of-game-existence. For a game like Skyrim that goes to great lengths to construct a fantasy world that is detailed and immersive, the hidden ideologies encoded into the game are important to understanding how a game this popular—and by extension, the video game medium itself—reinscribes the familiar in ostensibly unfamiliar ways.

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