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Michael Hancock

@personofcon.bsky.social
837 followers 1.5K following 3.1K posts

Phd haver and UWaterloo English instructor. Interested in games, digital media, comic books, and gamebooks. He/him

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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 2h
#SundayReading #BookSky This week, I finished a few academic books, and got deep into my October zombie reading. Let's lurch through them.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Me at 90 degrees.
This is a photo of me that I'm posting purely so I can copy and paste into my desktop more easily. I'd worry about using BlueSky for this, but experience suggests that if I want to make sure people ignore something, I should put it on my bluesky feed
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cmrn knzlmn @ckunzelman.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
If you are a graduate student in the humanities (construed as broadly as possible), what is the MOST EXCITING book published in the last five years to you? Please repost if you’re not a graduate student!
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
#BookSky #SundayReading This week, I finally finished reading the edited collection Historiographies of Game Studies, edited by Alisha Karabinus, Carly A. Kocurek, Cody Mejeur and Emma Vossen.
Cover of Historiographies of Game Studies: What It Has Been, What It Could Be, edited by Alisha Karabinus, Carly A. Kocurek, Cody Mejeur, and Emma Vossen.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Me, pointing to a guy's t-shirt, excitedly: that's a reference to Bartleby the Scrivener! My wife: ...what? The guy, unprompted, to a food truck person taking his order: you see it is a reference to Bartleby the Scrivener. Me: HECK YEAH IT IS
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Me, pointing to a guy's t-shirt, excitedly: that's a reference to Bartleby the Scrivener! My wife: ...what? The guy, unprompted, to a food truck person taking his order: you see it is a reference to Bartleby the Scrivener. Me: HECK YEAH IT IS
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
#SundayReading #BookSky This week, I continued my reading of Historiographies of Game Studies; I'm within 70 pages of the end now, so I'll call my shot--I should be finished it by next week. What a colossal collection it is. I found a lot that was interesting, or useful, or both.
Cover of Historiographies of Game Studies, the collection edited by Alisha Karabinus, Carly A. Kocurek, Cody Mejeur, and Emma Vossen.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Our cat-shaped S-blocks #tetris #cats
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I don't want to alarm anyone about the passage of time, but the Battle of Philiphaugh is now closer to Louis IX's Mise of Amiens than it is to today.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
#SundayReading #BookSky This week, my academic reading starts (as usual) with another chapter from the edited collection Historiographies of Game Studies. Specifically, I read victoria l. braegger's interview with Kishonna L. Gray. Gray is, as always, amazingly good.
Cover of Historiographies of Game Studies: What It Has Been, What It Could Be. Edited by Alisha Karabinus, Carly A. Kocurek, Cody Mejeur, and Emma Vossen.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
#BookSky #SundayReading This week in academic writing, I read more of Histographies of Game Studies; I'm just through a very interesting interview of Henry Jenkins by my former colleague, betsy brey. It's very interesting, and adds some context to some early 2010 game studies issues.
Cover of Historiographies of Game Studies, an edited collection edited by Alisha Karabinus, Carly A. Kocurek, Cody Mejeur, and Emma Vossen.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
One of the lasting memories of my 19th c Ecocriticism class was having to read the journals of Dorothy Wordsworth (William's sister), who, on at least three different occasions, records going at least half an hour out of her way to avoid passing cows.
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Sequential Scholars @sequentialscholars.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
DeConnick & De Landro’s “Bitch Planet” is overtly inspired by the form & content of exploitation films. Some folks might wonder: why would a self-consciously feminist comic want to engage with an historically problematic form of representation? Lots of reasons! Let’s talk thru some of them. 1/12
 A cover of BitchPlanet with a hand giving the middle finger gesture and text that reads “girl gangs… caged and enraged!”
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
#SundayReading #BookSky This week, once again, I continued my reading of Historiographies of Game Studies; most recently, I've read Lee W. Hibbard's essay on game archives, looking at the Strong Museum, the LGBTQ Archive, and the Learning Games Intiative.
Cover of Historiographies of Game Studies: What It Has Been, What It Could Be, edited by Alisha Karabinus, Carly A. Kocurek, Cody Mejeur, and Emma Vossen.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I just opened up a file on my computer titled "the script of austin powers but every reference to Dr Evil's cat Bigglesworth is replaced by Big the Cat from Sonic" and, well...
static.klipy.com
I Don'T Know What I Expected
Alt: I Don'T Know What I Expected
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
#SundayReading #BookSky This week, in academic reading, I finished Gaston Bachelard's The Psychoanalysis of Fire. It's an interesting book--it's keenly insightful in its observation that we are historically all over the place in our use of fire as metaphor.
Cover of Bachelard's The Psychoanalysis of Fire.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
#BookSky #SundayReading This week, in academic reading, I finished Sebastián Moreno Barreneche's The Social Semiotics of Populism. It's an impressive book that makes a very convincing case for the value of semiotics in the political sciences. In fact, I would say it's a book of three parts.
Cover of Sebastián Moreno Barreneche's The Social Semiotics of Populism.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
What a great cat. Absolute top tier void weirdo.
Black long haired cat named Russell. He's sitting on the stairs, looking at the camera, facing forward from torso up, with the bottom half of his furry body at a right angle. One back leg is raised and resting on the bannister.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
#SundayReading #BookSky This week, I finished a book about a dungeon and I finished a long running water-based series, and advanced my other readings as well.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Peter David Era Multiple Man story idea: madrox runs for mayor, with a different dupe running under every political party. Slogan: "vote for the true everyman "
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Dr. Emma Vossen @emmavphd.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Did you know we (@brock-ddh.bsky.social at Brock University in Ontario 🇨🇦) offer a 2-year MA in Game Studies? I teach one of our grad seminars, Methodological Paradigms in Game Studies! Feel free to DM me anytime if you have Q's about applying for Fall 2027/28! #gamestudies brocku.ca/humanities/d...
brocku.ca
Master of Arts in Game Studies
The MA in Game Studies is an interdisciplinary and interfaculty program designed to provide students with a well-rounded, high-quality venue for studying and designing games in all their forms. Throug...
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
No one: Me: What if there was Boston Brand parody character named Den Mark?
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
It's my birthday! As such, I humbly request people send me their recommendations, for any piece of media or anything else they're enjoying recently.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
It's my birthday! As such, I humbly request people send me their recommendations, for any piece of media or anything else they're enjoying recently.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
#SundayReading This week, I finished reading David Farrier's Anthropocene Poetics: Deep Time, Sacrifice Zones, and Extinctions. I went into it a little worried on whether I'd get anything out of it, as poetry isn't really my forte, and I wasn't very familiar with many of the featured works.
Cover of David Farrier's Anthropocene Poetics: Deep Time, Sacrifice Zone, and Extinction.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
I don't know if this is my favorite Disco Elysium quotation, but it's definitely the one I think of the most when I see the news. (In the context of the game, "Moralist" is basically "centrist.")
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
#SundayReading #BookSky In academic reading, I've currently got five on the go. First up is Historiographies of Game Studies, the collection edited by Karabinus, Kocurek, Mejeur, & Vossen.
The cover of Historiographies of Game Studies, edited by Alisha Karabinus, Carly A. Kocurek, Cody Mejeur, and Emma Vossen.
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POTUS @sentientpotato.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Two panel comic. Panel 1: Omni Man and Invincible are floating in the sky. Two fighter jets are flying nearby. One is labeled "double" and the other is labeled "float". Omni Man is labeled "Mathematicians". Panel 2: Omni Man / Mathematicians turn to Invincible and say "Look what they need to mimic a fraction"
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
I'm watching Once Upon a Time w/my partner--a rewatch for her, first time for me. We're starting season 3. Thought I just had, thinking back on the series thus far: are there bodies in the Storybrooke cemetery?
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
I'm watching Once Upon a Time w/my partner--a rewatch for her, first time for me. We're starting season 3. Thought I just had, thinking back on the series thus far: are there bodies in the Storybrooke cemetery?
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
#BookSky #SundayReading This week, I finished one of my academic books: the 2004 Being Made Strange by Bradford Vivian. Vivian's argument is that the history of rhetoric presents it as the means for getting at and conveying fundamental truths. A frequent alternative is viewing it as a static system.
Cover of Bradford Vivian's Being Made Strange: Rhetoric Beyond Representation
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Deaderick M. @mfrederickm.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
It’s entirely possible the sand people were sea people many years ago
Tatooine was the homeworld of the Jawa and Tusken
Raider species. It once had vast oceans of surface water, lush rainforest 6] and flowered fields. 48]
According to the Legend of Lehon, Tatooine had also been inhabited by a group called the Kumumgah during this time, but there was little evidence to support the story. 36] Sometime in Tatooine's history, the whole planet became a desert by unknown means 8] when the oceans dried away. 49] Much later, it would be colonized
by early settlers and explorers, who mistook the planet for a third sun owing to its highly reflective silicate surface. 81
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Every now and then, I hear someone claim that people only turned against Trump when he became republican. And that claim has always been weird to me as an 80s kid who grew up with this, Doonesbury, and Bloom County.
The comic strip Bloom County had a storyline where Donald Trump's brain was implanted into a cat. Here, he's introduced to his litter box, and replaces it with a fancy, impossible to use container labelled Trump Dump. It's impractical, implies Trump poops in a litter box, and is probably an insult on Trump Towers as well.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
"The products cost the district $57,590, according to the contract attached to the school board agenda." The robot is doing a new, untested service for the creating company. That the school board is paying them instead of being paid for testing their untried product makes them the rubes here.
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Charlotte Hancock @charlotteahancock.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
More adventures of #Tetris #Cats
Black long haired cat sitting on his side on the stairs, head and shoulders up, middle horizontal, tail down the next riser, one back leg up against the balustrade, one back leg forward, front legs lost in the shadows.Short haired orange cat sitting on his side on the couch, head and shoulders up, middle horizontal, all legs coming forward.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
#SundayReading In academic reading, this week, I finished Claire Battershill & Shawna Ross' Using Digital Humanities in the Classroom: A Practical Introduction for Teachers, Lecturers, and Students. In this case, though, "finished" is probably misleading.
Cover of Claire Battershill & Shawna Ross' Using Digital Humanities in the Classroom: A Practical Introduction for Teachers, Lecturers, and Students
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
My headcanon for TAS Batman is that unlike most of Batman's enemies, he's actually totally sane, but puts on the act because it lets him further his narcissism and pettiness.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
#SundayReading #BookSky I didn't finish any books this week, which bucks recent trends. But I'll take advantage of that to go into what I am reading in a little more detail.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
#BookSky. A little late for the usual #SundayReading, but a migraine that lasted most of yesterday made it necessary. In academic reading, I finished Matthew Leggatt's Play in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction. I enjoyed it a lot.
Cover of Matthew Leggatt's Play in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
No weekly book round up today. Maybe tomorrow, after my day job
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
#SundayReading #BookSky I got less reading in general done this week, as it's also the week that my university deployed a brand new digital system for all sessionals to apply for positions. Figuring that out took some time.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
#BookSky #SundayReading This week, I'm still on roughly the same set of academic texts, though I've made a lot of progress, on the first one in particular. That's Matthew Leggatt's Play in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction.
Cover of Matthew Leggatt's Play in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction.
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Lunar Finch 🌙 @lunarfinch.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
🚨🐛This is not a drill! 🐛🚨 Imago Season is OUT NOW!! Get ready to explore an alien city, roll dice, make impactful choices and most importantly, become a bug! 🐜 s.team/a/4207140/
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
#SundayReading #BookSky This week in academic reading, I'm a good ways into Matthew Leggatt's Play in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction. Specifically, I'm nearing the end of the first two chapters, which look into utopia and play, and utopia's relationship to stasis.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
I went through some not-great periods in my 20s, and I honestly think that one of the big factors that kept me from an incel direction was reading book series like this as a kid. Glad to see they're still around. (And the TV series is still missed.)
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
#BookSky #SundayReading This week, in academic reading, I finished R Lyle Skains' Neverending Stories: The Popular Emergence of Digital Fiction. The book is essentially a map and a history of the digital fiction field.
Cover of R Lyle Skain's The Popular Emergence of Digital Fiction
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Just spent about an hour and a half lining my cats’ litter area with plastic. And the main thing I’ve learned from this is that I’d be very bad at setting up a killing room.
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k’eguro @keguro.blacksky.app · 29/05/2026
Fascinating! Ann Pellegrini explaining the gendered history of microphones.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
#SundayReading #BookSky In academic reading, I'm further along R Lyle Skains' Never Ending Stories, which is shaping up to be a survey of digital narrative forms. In the sections I read this week, Skains has discussed webcomics, visual novels, walking sims, and general digital economies.
Cover of R Lyle Skains' Never Ending Stories.
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Michael Hancock @personofcon.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
I was prepping for a date when a glass frame fell, shattering. I tossed my keys down and they hit a soda that exploded. I was late for the date
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