• About
  • News
  • Books
  • Fiction & Poetry
  • Scholarship
  • Teaching
  • Rogue Burnout
  • Contact

Mike Piero

  • About
  • News
  • Books
  • Fiction & Poetry
  • Scholarship
  • Teaching
  • Rogue Burnout
  • Contact

Book Release – Being Dragonborn: Critical Essays on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Book Cover with an Evil Looking Dragon on it

Book Release – Being Dragonborn: Critical Essays on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

March 16, 2021 Uncategorized

Being Dragonborn: Critical Essays on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (McFarland & Co., 2021) 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.

Share
0

You also might be interested in

Nominated for 2025 Monarch Queer Literary Award

Nominated for 2025 Monarch Queer Literary Award

Sep 15, 2025

No better way to start a Monday than with one’s[...]

Acknowledgment in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 11th edition

Acknowledgment in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 11th edition

Jul 26, 2024

Dr. Mike Piero, Professor of English at Cuyahoga Community College,[...]

Invited Talk, “Gaming and Happiness.” Learning for Life Lecture Series, Cuyahoga Community College, Westshore Campus, November 15, 2023.

Invited Talk, “Gaming and Happiness.” Learning for Life Lecture Series, Cuyahoga Community College, Westshore Campus, November 15, 2023.

Nov 15, 2023

Dr. Mike Piero presented “Gaming and Happiness” at Cuyahoga Community[...]

Recent Posts

  • Reading of “The Pearl” at Trash Cat Lit’s What Comes to Light Event
  • Mike Piero Honored with Ralph M. Besse Excellence in Teaching Award
  • Scroll of Peace: An MLA TTRPG Game Released
  • Book Review of Stålenhag’s Sunset at Zero Point Appears in Rain Taxi Review of Books’ Summer Print Issue
  • Short Story “Rituals” Published in Vol. 48 of Soundings East

Archives

  • August 2026
  • June 2026
  • April 2026
  • March 2026
  • December 2025
  • November 2025
  • September 2025
  • August 2025
  • July 2025
  • June 2025
  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • January 2024
  • November 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • October 2022
  • July 2022
  • May 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021

Categories

  • Acknowledgment
  • Awards
  • Book Chapter
  • Books
  • Conferences
  • Cultural Studies
  • Endorsement
  • Game Design
  • Game Studies
  • Grants
  • Interview
  • Media Appearance
  • Podcasts
  • Publication – Book Review
  • Publication – Fiction
  • Publication – Poetry
  • Publication – Scholarly
  • Speaking Engagement
  • Teaching
  • Technology
  • Uncategorized
LinkedIn

© 2026 mikepiero.org

  • About
  • News
  • Books
  • Fiction & Poetry
  • Scholarship
  • Teaching
  • Rogue Burnout
  • Contact