Tom Boellstorff's Books

Coming of Age in Second Life

An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human

By: Tom Boellstorff

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Coming of Age in Second Life

An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human

By: Tom Boellstorff

Millions of people around the world today spend portions of their lives in online virtual worlds. Second Life is one of the largest of these virtual worlds. The residents of Second Life create communities, buy property and build homes, go to concerts, meet in bars, attend weddings and religious services, buy and sell virtual goods and services, find friendship, fall in love--the possibilities are endless, and all encountered through a computer screen. At the time of its initial publication in 2008, Coming of Age in Second Life was the first book of anthropology to examine this thriving alternate universe. Tom Boellstorff conducted more than two years of fieldwork in Second Life, living among and observing its residents in exactly the same way anthropologists traditionally have done to learn about cultures and social groups in the so-called real world. He conducted his research as the avatar "Tom Bukowski," and applied the rigorous methods of anthropology to study many facets of this new frontier of human life, including issues of gender, race, sex, money, conflict and antisocial behavior, the construction of place and time, and the interplay of self and group. Coming of Age in Second Life shows how virtual worlds can change ideas about identity and society. Bringing anthropology into territory never before studied, this book demonstrates that in some ways humans have always been virtual, and that virtual worlds in all their rich complexity build upon a human capacity for culture that is as old as humanity itself. Now with a new preface in which the author places his book in light of the most recent transformations in online culture, Coming of Age in Second Life remains the classic ethnography of virtual worlds.

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Page Count

348

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0691168342

ISBN 13

9780691168340

Ethnography and Virtual Worlds

A Handbook of Method, Updated Edition

By: Tom Boellstorff,Bonnie Nardi,Celia Pearce,T. L. Taylor

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Ethnography and Virtual Worlds

A Handbook of Method, Updated Edition

By: Tom Boellstorff,Bonnie Nardi,Celia Pearce,T. L. Taylor

A practical guide to the ethnographic study of online cultures, and beyond Ethnography and Virtual Worlds is the only book of its kind—a concise, comprehensive, and practical guide for students, teachers, designers, and scholars interested in using ethnographic methods to study online virtual worlds, including both game and nongame environments. Written by leading ethnographers of virtual worlds, and focusing on the key method of participant observation, the book provides invaluable advice, tips, guidelines, and principles to aid researchers through every stage of a project, from choosing an online fieldsite to writing and publishing the results. Provides practical and detailed techniques for ethnographic research customized to reflect the specific issues of online virtual worlds, both game and nongame Draws on research in a range of virtual worlds, including Everquest, Second Life, There.com, and World of Warcraft Provides suggestions for dealing with institutional review boards, human subjects protocols, and ethical issues Guides the reader through the full trajectory of ethnographic research, from research design to data collection, data analysis, and writing up and publishing research results Addresses myths and misunderstandings about ethnographic research, and argues for the scientific value of ethnography

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Page Count

264

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0691264856

ISBN 13

9780691264851

A Coincidence of Desires

Anthropology, Queer Studies, Indonesia

By: Tom Boellstorff

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A Coincidence of Desires

Anthropology, Queer Studies, Indonesia

By: Tom Boellstorff

In A Coincidence of Desires, Tom Boellstorff considers how interdisciplinary collaboration between anthropology and queer studies might enrich both fields. For more than a decade he has visited Indonesia, both as an anthropologist exploring gender and sexuality and as an activist involved in HIV prevention work. Drawing on these experiences, he provides several in-depth case studies, primarily concerning the lives of Indonesian men who term themselves gay (an Indonesian-language word that overlaps with, but does not correspond exactly to, the English word “gay”). These case studies put interdisciplinary research approaches into practice. They are preceded and followed by theoretical meditations on the most productive forms that collaborations between queer studies and anthropology might take. Boellstorff uses theories of time to ask how a model of “coincidence” might open up new possibilities for cooperation between the two disciplines. He also juxtaposes his own work with other scholars’ studies of Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore to compare queer sexualities across Southeast Asia. In doing so, he asks how comparison might be understood as a queer project and how queerness might be understood as comparative. The case studies contained in A Coincidence of Desires speak to questions about the relation of sexualities to nationalism, religion, and globalization. They include an examination of zines published by gay Indonesians; an analysis of bahasa gay—a slang spoken by gay Indonesians that is increasingly appropriated in Indonesian popular culture; and an exploration of the place of warias (roughly, “male-to-female transvestites”) within Indonesian society. Boellstorff also considers the tension between Islam and sexuality in gay Indonesians’ lives and a series of incidents in which groups of men, identified with Islamic fundamentalism, violently attacked gatherings of gay men. Collectively, these studies insist on the primacy of empirical investigation to any queer studies project that wishes to speak to the specificities of lived experience.

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Page Count

309

Publisher

Duke University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0822389533

ISBN 13

9780822389538

Intellivision

How a Videogame System Battled Atari and Almost Bankrupted Barbie®

By: Tom Boellstorff,Braxton Soderman

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Intellivision

How a Videogame System Battled Atari and Almost Bankrupted Barbie®

By: Tom Boellstorff,Braxton Soderman

The engaging story of Intellivision, an overlooked videogame system from the late 1970s and early 1980s whose fate was shaped by Mattel, Atari, and countless others who invented the gaming industry. Astrosmash, Snafu, Star Strike, Utopia—do these names sound familiar to you? No? Maybe? They were all videogames created for the Intellivision videogame system, sold by Mattel Electronics between 1979 and 1984. This system was Atari’s main rival during a key period when videogames were moving from the arcades into the home. In Intellivision, Tom Boellstorff and Braxton Soderman tell the fascinating inside story of this overlooked gaming system. Along the way, they also analyze Intellivision’s chips and code, games, marketing and business strategies, organizational and social history, and the cultural and economic context of the early US games industry from the mid-1970s to the great videogame industry crash of 1983. While many remember Atari, Intellivision has largely been forgotten. As such, Intellivision fills a crucial gap in videogame scholarship, telling the story of a console that sold millions and competed aggressively against Atari. Drawing on a wealth of data from both institutional and personal archives and over 150 interviews with programmers, engineers, executives, marketers, and designers, Boellstorff and Soderman examine the relationship between videogames and toys—an under-analyzed aspect of videogame history—and discuss the impact of home computing on the rise of videogames, the gendered implications of play and videogame design at Mattel, and the blurring of work and play in the early games industry.

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Page Count

429

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262380544

ISBN 13

9780262380546

Ethnography and Virtual Worlds

A Handbook of Method, Updated Edition

By: Tom Boellstorff,Bonnie Nardi,Celia Pearce,T. L. Taylor

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Ethnography and Virtual Worlds

A Handbook of Method, Updated Edition

By: Tom Boellstorff,Bonnie Nardi,Celia Pearce,T. L. Taylor

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Page Count

264

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0691264864

ISBN 13

9780691264868

Gaming Rhythms

Play and Counterplay from the Situated to the Global

By: Tom Apperley

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Gaming Rhythms

Play and Counterplay from the Situated to the Global

By: Tom Apperley

Global gaming networks are heterogenous collectives of localized practices, not unified commercial products. Shifting the analysis of digital games to local specificities that build and perform the global and general, Gaming Rhythms employs ethnographic work conducted in Venezuela and Australia to account for the material experiences of actual game players. This book explores the materiality of digital play across diverse locations and argues that the dynamic relation between the everyday life of the player and the experience of digital game play can only be understood by examining play-practices in their specific situations." -- Website.

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Page Count

169

Publisher

Lulu.com

Published Date

ISBN 10

908160211X

ISBN 13

9789081602112

How the World Changed Social Media

By: Daniel Miller,Elisabetta Costa,Nell Haynes,Tom McDonald,Razvan Nicolescu,Jolynna Sinanan,Juliano Spyer,Shriram Venkatraman,Xinyuan Wang

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How the World Changed Social Media

By: Daniel Miller,Elisabetta Costa,Nell Haynes,Tom McDonald,Razvan Nicolescu,Jolynna Sinanan,Juliano Spyer,Shriram Venkatraman,Xinyuan Wang

How the World Changed Social Media is the first book in Why We Post, a book series that investigates the findings of anthropologists who each spent 15 months living in communities across the world. This book offers a comparative analysis summarising the results of the research and explores the impact of social media on politics and gender, education and commerce. What is the result of the increased emphasis on visual communication? Are we becoming more individual or more social? Why is public social media so conservative? Why does equality online fail to shift inequality offline? How did memes become the moral police of the internet? Supported by an introduction to the project’s academic framework and theoretical terms that help to account for the findings, the book argues that the only way to appreciate and understand something as intimate and ubiquitous as social media is to be immersed in the lives of the people who post. Only then can we discover how people all around the world have already transformed social media in such unexpected ways and assess the consequences

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Page Count

288

Publisher

UCL Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1910634476

ISBN 13

9781910634479

Traveling through Video Games

By: Tom van Nuenen

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Traveling through Video Games

By: Tom van Nuenen

This book unlocks an understanding of video games as virtual travel. It explains how video game design increasingly takes cues from the promotional language of tourism, and how this connection raises issues of power and commodification. Bridging the disciplinary gap between game and tourism studies, the book offers a comprehensive account of touristic gazing in games such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Minecraft, and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. Traveling through video games involves a mythological promise of open-ended opportunity, summarized in the slogan you can go there. Van Nuenen discusses the scale of game worlds, the elusive nature of freedom and control, and the pivotal role of work in creating a sense of belonging. The logic of tourism is fundamentally consumptive—but through design choices, players can also be invited to approach their travels more critically. This is the difference between moving through a game world, and being moved by it. This interdisciplinary and innovative study will interest students and scholars of digital media studies, game studies, tourism and technology, and the Digital Humanities.

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Taylor & Francis

Published Date

ISBN 10

1003827179

ISBN 13

9781003827177

Scripted Journeys

Authenticity in Hypermediated Tourism

By: Tom Nuenen

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Scripted Journeys

Authenticity in Hypermediated Tourism

By: Tom Nuenen

The ubiquity of computation in daily life has had decisive influence on the imaginative aspects of tourism. Online knowledge of the world is readily available through mapping services, social media, travel blogs, and online reviews. From booking and Googling, to posting and reminiscing: all stages of one’s trip can be guided and augmented by increasingly connective, personalized, and optimized algorithmic systems. In the face of this informational abundance, hypermediated tourism is fixated on access to authenticity. Peer to peer accommodation offers tourists a chance to "live like a local." Professional bloggers instruct not just on where, but on how to travel. Review websites aggregate the feedback of millions into "objective," data-driven authentication of destinations. And virtual technologies take users to places they could not dream of reaching physically. Based on a comparative ethnography of touristic blogs and vlogs, review websites, and video game environments, Scripted Journeys presents a critical analysis of touristic practice in digital ecologies. This hypermediated tourism engages technology as a harbinger of self-possession and waywardness, yet produces its own forms of digital dependence. The resulting "scripted journeys" internalize a tension between authenticity as autonomy and control, and the implicit compliance of making use of technological extensions.

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Page Count

228

Publisher

Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published Date

ISBN 10

3110700492

ISBN 13

9783110700497

Imagining Personal Data

Experiences of Self-Tracking

By: Vaike Fors,Sarah Pink,Martin Berg,Tom O'Dell

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Imagining Personal Data

Experiences of Self-Tracking

By: Vaike Fors,Sarah Pink,Martin Berg,Tom O'Dell

Digital self-tracking devices and data have become normal elements of everyday life. Imagining Personal Data examines the implications of the rise of body monitoring and digital self-tracking for how we inhabit, experience and imagine our everyday worlds and futures. Through a focus on how it feels to live in environments where data is emergent, present and characterized by a sense of uncertainty, the authors argue for a new interdisciplinary approach to understanding the implications of self-tracking, which attends to its past, present and possible future. Building on social science approaches, the book accounts for the concerns of scholars working in design, philosophy and human-computer interaction. It problematizes the body and senses in relation to data and tracking devices, presents an accessible analytical account of the sensory and affective experiences of self-tracking, and questions the status of big data. In doing so it proposes an agenda for future research and design that puts people at its centre.

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Page Count

172

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

100018529X

ISBN 13

9781000185294

Intellivision

How a Videogame System Battled Atari and Almost Bankrupted Barbie®

By: Tom Boellstorff,Braxton Soderman

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Intellivision

How a Videogame System Battled Atari and Almost Bankrupted Barbie®

By: Tom Boellstorff,Braxton Soderman

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Page Count

429

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262380544

ISBN 13

9780262380546

Life and Adventures of Tom the Bomb

By: Tom Ryan

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Life and Adventures of Tom the Bomb

By: Tom Ryan

This book is not a biography. I consider them to often times have too much dull material in them. Instead, this is a compilation of dozens and dozens of interesting, even spell binding events in my life, so much so, that readers tell me there isn't a dull paragraph in the 221 pages of my book! In addition to being very readable, I actually believe that any thoughtful person who reads this and wants to, can easily learn how to become physically stronger, mentally more serene and courageous, and even adept at becoming more spiritually oriented." So I say to you, "Read and enjoy!

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Page Count

224

Publisher

Xlibris Corporation

Published Date

ISBN 10

1465321225

ISBN 13

9781465321220

My Father's Story

By: Tom Norton

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My Father's Story

By: Tom Norton

A father (Tom) hears his son Richard say, “School is OK except I don’t like learning numbers or arithmetic.” After dinner, Tom sits with Richard and tells him a story of a kingdom long ago where the use of numbers is forbidden by King Kcaj and of the chaos that ensues because of it. As Tom’s story unfolds, he hopes to instill in Richard a sense of the importance of learning numbers, counting, and arithmetic along with other life lessons.

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Xlibris Corporation

Published Date

ISBN 10

1450057640

ISBN 13

9781450057646

Ol' Tom and Laura

By: Tom Kelly

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Ol' Tom and Laura

By: Tom Kelly

A Classic Father-Daughter Love Story by Colonel Tom Kelly. Selected Childhood chapters from; Dealer’s Choice, Better on A Rising Tide, A Year Outside, The Boat, & A Few Loose Chapters. “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale, her infinite variety.” -William Shakespeare

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Page Count

364

Publisher

Tom Kelly, Inc.

ISBN 10

1561422142

ISBN 13

9781561422142

Mourning Doves

By: Tom Upton

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Mourning Doves

By: Tom Upton

The short story is alive and well. With this collection Upton examines the triumphs, the tragedies, and the folly of human existence. From the sad to the hilarious, from the everyday to the bizarre-- Upton covers it all, spinning beautifully written tales filled with insights for the reader to ponder long after the story is read.

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Page Count

141

Publisher

Tom Upton

Published Date

ISBN 10

1440439117

ISBN 13

9781440439117

Book's by Tom Boellstorff

Coming of Age in Second Life

Coming of Age in Second Life

Ethnography and Virtual Worlds

Ethnography and Virtual Worlds

A Coincidence of Desires

A Coincidence of Desires

Intellivision

Intellivision

Ethnography and Virtual Worlds

Ethnography and Virtual Worlds

Gaming Rhythms

Gaming Rhythms

How the World Changed Social Media

How the World Changed Social Media

Traveling through Video Games

Traveling through Video Games

Scripted Journeys

Scripted Journeys

Imagining Personal Data

Imagining Personal Data

Intellivision

Intellivision

Life and Adventures of Tom the Bomb

Life and Adventures of Tom the Bomb

My Father's Story

My Father's Story

Ol' Tom and Laura

Ol' Tom and Laura

Mourning Doves

Mourning Doves

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