EPISODE 36: RECOMMENDED READING
Episode 36: Recommended Reading | 28 July 2026
Stephen and Trent retrace the books, articles, and other thought-provoking media that have most inspired their scholarly work. Along with specific resources to help listeners chart their own worldbuilding journeys, the duo gets into:
The transformative influence of James Paul Gee’s (2003) What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy;
Causes and consequences of university faculty lacking formal pedagogical training;
Recognizing learner potential and providing opportunities for actualization;
Connecting the dots between biology, philosophy, cognition, and design;
Curiosity about the genetic mechanisms behind the human mind and consciousness;
Bruner’s narrative psychology and how storytelling organizes reality;
“Unstable realities,” magical realism, and using speculative fiction to challenge singular, colonial perspectives;
How messy, complex worldbuilding more accurately reflects the “broken” nature of our world;
Jurassic Park, fractal paradigms, and the logic of systemic failure;
Scholarly lineage and identifying the right advisor;
Social construction, “unmaking” systems, and the benefits of designing for inclusivity;
Connecting personal identity with the rise, fall, and rebirth of institutions; and
How the Clark-Kozma debate pushes us to ask “how” rather than “whether.”
Episode References:
Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954–1955). The lord of the rings. George Allen & Unwin.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (1977). The Silmarillion (C. Tolkien, Ed.). Houghton Mifflin.
Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. Palgrave Macmillan.
Harrigan, P. & Wardrip-Fruin, N. (Eds.). (2007). Second person: Role-playing and story in games and playable media. MIT Press.
Grubb, J. & Winter, S. (1984). Marvel super heroes role-playing game [Box set]. TSR, Inc.
Bethesda Game Studios. (2011). The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim [Video game]. Bethesda Softworks.
Behe, M. J. (1996). Darwin’s black box: The biochemical challenge to evolution. Free Press.
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Chalmers, A. F. (1976). What is this thing called science? University of Queensland Press; Open University Press.
Bernays, A. & Painter, P. (1991). What if? Writing exercises for fiction writers. HarperPerennial.
Roberts, A. (2019). For the queen [Board game]. Evil Hat Productions.
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King, S. (1982–2004). The dark tower (Vols. 1–7). Donald M. Grant; Viking; Scribner.
Crichton, M. (1990). Jurassic park. Alfred A. Knopf.
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Bruner, J. S. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Harvard University Press.
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Chaucer, G. (2003). The Canterbury tales (N. Coghill, Trans.). Penguin Classics. (Original work published ca. 1387–1400)
Milton, J. (2003). Paradise lost (J. Leonard, Ed.). Penguin Books. (Original work published 1667)
Tolkien, J. R. R. (1977). The Silmarillion (C. Tolkien, Ed.). Houghton Mifflin.
Shelley, M. (1818). Frankenstein; or, the modern Prometheus. Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones.
Marlowe, C. (2005). The tragical history of Doctor Faustus. IndyPublish. (Original work published 1604)
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Clark, R. E. (1983). Reconsidering research on learning from media. Review of Educational Research, 53(4), 445–459.
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Young, M. F., Slota, S. T., Cutter, A., Jalette, G., Mullin, G., Lai, B., Simeoni, Z., Tran, M., & Yukhymenko, M. (2012). Our princess is in another castle: A review of trends in serious gaming for education. Review of Educational Research, 82(1), 61-89. doi: 10.3102/0034654312436980
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Bogost, I. (2008). “The Rhetoric of Video Games.” The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning. Katie Salen (Ed.). The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. The MIT Press. 117–40.
Wardrip-Fruin, N. & Harrigan, P. (Eds.). (2004). First person: New media as story, performance, and game. The MIT Press.
Harrigan, P. & Wardrip-Fruin, N. (Eds.). (2009). Third person: Authoring and exploring vast narratives. The MIT Press.
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Mukherjee, S. (2016). The Gene: An intimate history. Scribner.