G Kirkpatrick
Biographic Data
| ID | 36900 |
|---|---|
| NAME | G Kirkpatrick |
| GIVEN NAMES | G |
| FAMILY NAME | Kirkpatrick |
| SIGNATURE | KIRKPATRICK G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Manchester |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5040-3746 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 38 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Positioning Sartre for Success: Patrick Baert and the Sociology of the Existentialist Moment
Sartre remains an exemplary case for the sociology of intellectuals because of the unique way that he combined a prominent role in public life with achievements as a philosopher, novelist and playwright. Sartre's success has been examined by Patrick Baert through the lens of his theory of positioning, according to which specific actions and events serve to give a writer the edge in unfolding social games of recognition. This article argues that B…
Ludic form and contemporary performance arts
Four performance artists who have used computer games in their work were interviewed for their reflections on aspects of that process, including the decision to make use of games; difficulties and challenges entailed by that choice, and aesthetic values realized in implementing it. Their reflections are related to foundational questions of computer game studies, especially the question of what computer gameness consists in. The main argument draw…
Andrew Feenberg's critical theory of technology: A special issue
This piece introduces the special issue, providing an account of its rationale and a brief overview of each of the contributions
How gaming became sexist: A study of UK gaming magazines 1981–1995
Computer gaming was not born sexist but was codified as an exclusively male practice as it peeled itself away from the rest of the burgeoning computer culture in the mid-1980s. This article traces the development of gaming’s gender bias through a discourse analysis of gaming magazines published in the United Kingdom between 1981 and 1995. In their early years (1981–1985), these publications present a milieu that was reflective on gender issues an…
Towards reconciliation or mediated non-identity? Feenberg's aesthetic critique of technology
This article interrogates Andrew Feenberg's thesis that modern technology is in need of 're-aestheticization'. The notion that modern technology requires aesthetic critique connects his political analysis of micro-contexts of social shaping to his wider concern with civilization change. The former involves a modified constructionism, in which the motives, values and beliefs of proximal agents are understood in terms of their wider sociological si…
Ludefaction: Fracking of the Radical Imaginary
This article presents the idea of ludefaction as the negative underside of ludification. The project of transforming human practices into games to "enhance" their performance is related to new management and technology design practices that have been dominant since the 1980s. Studies suggest that this is an ambivalent process through which work comes to seem more attractive even as it makes more intense and invasive demands on its human subject. …
Making games normal: Computer gaming discourse in the 1980s
Based on a study of 1980s UK computer and gaming magazines, this article argues that a gaming discourse emerges in the middle of the decade with the strategic goal of normalizing the activity. It succeeds – gaming spreads – but fails in that to present gaming effectively as an attractive leisure pursuit, gaming discourse has to absorb accusations of abnormality that were levelled at computer culture from the outset. Hence, ‘addictive’ gameplay be…
Players Unleashed: Modding The Sims and the Culture of Gaming
Controller, Hand, Screen: Aesthetic Form in the Computer Game
This paper tries to clarify the place of the handheld controller in computer game aesthetics. It starts from the premise that aesthetic form, perhaps the central category of modernist critical theory, is present in our play with computer games. The central argument is that controllers and our use of them are repressed in gameplay and that this repression facilitates a diversion of the player's energy that helps explain the compulsive nature of go…
Meritums, Spectrums and Narrative Memories of ‘Pre-Virtual’ Computing in Cold War Europe
The paper describes narrative interviews with 12 first generation users of home or personal computers (PCs) in Poland and the UK. Insights are gained into how computers were perceived and interpreted on either side of the Cold War divide in the decade prior to the end of the socialist system and the period of transition in the early 1990s. The narratives are suggestive in their implications for contemporary social theory, much of which has tended…
Between Art and Gameness: Critical Theory and Computer Game Aesthetics
This article argues that the computer game can be a locus of aesthetic form in contemporary culture. The context for understanding this claim is the decline of the artwork as bearer of form in the late 20th century, as this was understood by Adorno. Form is the enigmatic other of instrumental reason that emerges spontaneously in creative works and, in the modern era, is defined as that which makes them captivating and enigmatic yet resistant to a…
Evolution or Progress? A (Critical) Defence of Habermas's Theory of Social Development
Habermas's theory of social evolution has been subjected to critique by environmentally motivated sociologists. They argue that his decision to recast social theory in terms of an extended, if selective analogy with biology leads him into a set of practical positions that are irreconcilable with Green politics and inconsistent with the goals of traditional critical theory. This article argues that these criticisms are based on an inaccurate asses…
Modernism and the Esthetics of Personal Computing
This paper is a contribution to the study of the esthetics of personal computing. The personal computer (PC) is shaped by ideas, including esthetic values, which it in turn carries into the broader social and cultural context where it is used. Until the early 1990s, this context was limited to a minority subculture who enjoyed interaction with the machine through the medium of learnt “command lines” in arcane computer languages. In the past decad…
On Analytical Marxism: Reply
Philosophical Foundations of Analytical Marxism
The Analytical Marxian paradigm is motivated by a desire to make Marx's theory “clear.” Its criteria for success in this venture are drawn from one tendency within contemporary analytical philosophy. The works of G.A. Cohen and Jon Elster on Marx are best understood in the light of this philosophical background. The ultimately fatal limitations of the analytical paradigm as a whole, and of its interpretation of Marx's theory of history in particu…
How gaming became sexist: A study of UK gaming magazines 1981–1995
Computer gaming was not born sexist but was codified as an exclusively male practice as it peeled itself away from the rest of the burgeoning computer culture in the mid-1980s. This article traces the development of gaming’s gender bias through a discourse analysis of gaming magazines published in the United Kingdom between 1981 and 1995. In their early years (1981–1985), these publications present a milieu that was reflective on gender issues an…
Making games normal: Computer gaming discourse in the 1980s
Based on a study of 1980s UK computer and gaming magazines, this article argues that a gaming discourse emerges in the middle of the decade with the strategic goal of normalizing the activity. It succeeds – gaming spreads – but fails in that to present gaming effectively as an attractive leisure pursuit, gaming discourse has to absorb accusations of abnormality that were levelled at computer culture from the outset. Hence, ‘addictive’ gameplay be…
Controller, Hand, Screen: Aesthetic Form in the Computer Game
This paper tries to clarify the place of the handheld controller in computer game aesthetics. It starts from the premise that aesthetic form, perhaps the central category of modernist critical theory, is present in our play with computer games. The central argument is that controllers and our use of them are repressed in gameplay and that this repression facilitates a diversion of the player's energy that helps explain the compulsive nature of go…
Between Art and Gameness: Critical Theory and Computer Game Aesthetics
This article argues that the computer game can be a locus of aesthetic form in contemporary culture. The context for understanding this claim is the decline of the artwork as bearer of form in the late 20th century, as this was understood by Adorno. Form is the enigmatic other of instrumental reason that emerges spontaneously in creative works and, in the modern era, is defined as that which makes them captivating and enigmatic yet resistant to a…
Philosophical Foundations of Analytical Marxism
The Analytical Marxian paradigm is motivated by a desire to make Marx's theory “clear.” Its criteria for success in this venture are drawn from one tendency within contemporary analytical philosophy. The works of G.A. Cohen and Jon Elster on Marx are best understood in the light of this philosophical background. The ultimately fatal limitations of the analytical paradigm as a whole, and of its interpretation of Marx's theory of history in particu…
Towards reconciliation or mediated non-identity? Feenberg's aesthetic critique of technology
This article interrogates Andrew Feenberg's thesis that modern technology is in need of 're-aestheticization'. The notion that modern technology requires aesthetic critique connects his political analysis of micro-contexts of social shaping to his wider concern with civilization change. The former involves a modified constructionism, in which the motives, values and beliefs of proximal agents are understood in terms of their wider sociological si…
Players Unleashed: Modding The Sims and the Culture of Gaming
Meritums, Spectrums and Narrative Memories of ‘Pre-Virtual’ Computing in Cold War Europe
The paper describes narrative interviews with 12 first generation users of home or personal computers (PCs) in Poland and the UK. Insights are gained into how computers were perceived and interpreted on either side of the Cold War divide in the decade prior to the end of the socialist system and the period of transition in the early 1990s. The narratives are suggestive in their implications for contemporary social theory, much of which has tended…
Ludefaction: Fracking of the Radical Imaginary
This article presents the idea of ludefaction as the negative underside of ludification. The project of transforming human practices into games to "enhance" their performance is related to new management and technology design practices that have been dominant since the 1980s. Studies suggest that this is an ambivalent process through which work comes to seem more attractive even as it makes more intense and invasive demands on its human subject. …
Evolution or Progress? A (Critical) Defence of Habermas's Theory of Social Development
Habermas's theory of social evolution has been subjected to critique by environmentally motivated sociologists. They argue that his decision to recast social theory in terms of an extended, if selective analogy with biology leads him into a set of practical positions that are irreconcilable with Green politics and inconsistent with the goals of traditional critical theory. This article argues that these criticisms are based on an inaccurate asses…
Modernism and the Esthetics of Personal Computing
This paper is a contribution to the study of the esthetics of personal computing. The personal computer (PC) is shaped by ideas, including esthetic values, which it in turn carries into the broader social and cultural context where it is used. Until the early 1990s, this context was limited to a minority subculture who enjoyed interaction with the machine through the medium of learnt “command lines” in arcane computer languages. In the past decad…
On Analytical Marxism: Reply
Philosophical Foundations of Analytical Marxism
The Analytical Marxian paradigm is motivated by a desire to make Marx's theory “clear.” Its criteria for success in this venture are drawn from one tendency within contemporary analytical philosophy. The works of G.A. Cohen and Jon Elster on Marx are best understood in the light of this philosophical background. The ultimately fatal limitations of the analytical paradigm as a whole, and of its interpretation of Marx's theory of history in particu…
Evolution or Progress? A (Critical) Defence of Habermas's Theory of Social Development
Habermas's theory of social evolution has been subjected to critique by environmentally motivated sociologists. They argue that his decision to recast social theory in terms of an extended, if selective analogy with biology leads him into a set of practical positions that are irreconcilable with Green politics and inconsistent with the goals of traditional critical theory. This article argues that these criticisms are based on an inaccurate asses…
Modernism and the Esthetics of Personal Computing
This paper is a contribution to the study of the esthetics of personal computing. The personal computer (PC) is shaped by ideas, including esthetic values, which it in turn carries into the broader social and cultural context where it is used. Until the early 1990s, this context was limited to a minority subculture who enjoyed interaction with the machine through the medium of learnt “command lines” in arcane computer languages. In the past decad…
Meritums, Spectrums and Narrative Memories of ‘Pre-Virtual’ Computing in Cold War Europe
The paper describes narrative interviews with 12 first generation users of home or personal computers (PCs) in Poland and the UK. Insights are gained into how computers were perceived and interpreted on either side of the Cold War divide in the decade prior to the end of the socialist system and the period of transition in the early 1990s. The narratives are suggestive in their implications for contemporary social theory, much of which has tended…
Between Art and Gameness: Critical Theory and Computer Game Aesthetics
This article argues that the computer game can be a locus of aesthetic form in contemporary culture. The context for understanding this claim is the decline of the artwork as bearer of form in the late 20th century, as this was understood by Adorno. Form is the enigmatic other of instrumental reason that emerges spontaneously in creative works and, in the modern era, is defined as that which makes them captivating and enigmatic yet resistant to a…
Controller, Hand, Screen: Aesthetic Form in the Computer Game
This paper tries to clarify the place of the handheld controller in computer game aesthetics. It starts from the premise that aesthetic form, perhaps the central category of modernist critical theory, is present in our play with computer games. The central argument is that controllers and our use of them are repressed in gameplay and that this repression facilitates a diversion of the player's energy that helps explain the compulsive nature of go…
Players Unleashed: Modding The Sims and the Culture of Gaming
Making games normal: Computer gaming discourse in the 1980s
Based on a study of 1980s UK computer and gaming magazines, this article argues that a gaming discourse emerges in the middle of the decade with the strategic goal of normalizing the activity. It succeeds – gaming spreads – but fails in that to present gaming effectively as an attractive leisure pursuit, gaming discourse has to absorb accusations of abnormality that were levelled at computer culture from the outset. Hence, ‘addictive’ gameplay be…
Ludefaction: Fracking of the Radical Imaginary
This article presents the idea of ludefaction as the negative underside of ludification. The project of transforming human practices into games to "enhance" their performance is related to new management and technology design practices that have been dominant since the 1980s. Studies suggest that this is an ambivalent process through which work comes to seem more attractive even as it makes more intense and invasive demands on its human subject. …
How gaming became sexist: A study of UK gaming magazines 1981–1995
Computer gaming was not born sexist but was codified as an exclusively male practice as it peeled itself away from the rest of the burgeoning computer culture in the mid-1980s. This article traces the development of gaming’s gender bias through a discourse analysis of gaming magazines published in the United Kingdom between 1981 and 1995. In their early years (1981–1985), these publications present a milieu that was reflective on gender issues an…
Towards reconciliation or mediated non-identity? Feenberg's aesthetic critique of technology
This article interrogates Andrew Feenberg's thesis that modern technology is in need of 're-aestheticization'. The notion that modern technology requires aesthetic critique connects his political analysis of micro-contexts of social shaping to his wider concern with civilization change. The former involves a modified constructionism, in which the motives, values and beliefs of proximal agents are understood in terms of their wider sociological si…
Ludic form and contemporary performance arts
Four performance artists who have used computer games in their work were interviewed for their reflections on aspects of that process, including the decision to make use of games; difficulties and challenges entailed by that choice, and aesthetic values realized in implementing it. Their reflections are related to foundational questions of computer game studies, especially the question of what computer gameness consists in. The main argument draw…
Andrew Feenberg's critical theory of technology: A special issue
This piece introduces the special issue, providing an account of its rationale and a brief overview of each of the contributions
Positioning Sartre for Success: Patrick Baert and the Sociology of the Existentialist Moment
Sartre remains an exemplary case for the sociology of intellectuals because of the unique way that he combined a prominent role in public life with achievements as a philosopher, novelist and playwright. Sartre's success has been examined by Patrick Baert through the lens of his theory of positioning, according to which specific actions and events serve to give a writer the edge in unfolding social games of recognition. This article argues that B…
Sociology (13 works) · Epistemology (11 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Digital Games and Media (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Aesthetics (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Art (5 works) · Political science (5 works)