Obscurantism in Academic Writing: What It Is and Why It Is Bad

Obscure academic writing is vague, ambiguous, jargon-filled, or otherwise difficult to interpret. Obscurantists use such writing to hide the shallowness or incoherence of their ideas. There is value in being able to see through their attempts so that one does not waste one’s time on, for example, the psychoanalytic verbiage of Jacques Lacan. Therefore, this article identifies five recognizable characteristics of obscure—and especially of obscurantist—academic writing. Specifically, obscurantists tend to (1) fail to distinguish between truistic and radical versions of their claims, (2) employ paradoxical formulations, (3) avoid giving examples of their ideas (4), overuse abstract nouns, and (5) insist on their own lucidity. The article concludes by suggesting that the deepest problem with obscure academic writing is that it insulates arguments and theories from criticism

Why Publish, and Why Publish in Leviathan: Interdisciplinary Journal in English?

In this editorial, I discuss the reasons why students would want to publish their academic work, as well as the benefits of publishing in Leviathan: Interdisciplinary journal in English specifically. I then introduce the articles in the first issue

Studying English at Aarhus University: The Unknown Unknowns

This editorial offers some tips for first-year students in the Department of English at Aarhus University. It advices students to get organized, hack their habits, use the library, and write shitty first drafts

Narrative video game aesthetics and egocentric ethics: A Deweyan perspective

This article argues that video gaming allows for player-focused (egocentric) moral experience that can be distinguished from the other-focused (allocentric) moral experience that characterizes literature and film. Specifically, a Deweyan perspective reveals that video games aff ord fi rst-personal rehearsals of moral scenarios that parallel how, in real life, individuals mentally rehearse the diff erent courses of moral action available to them. This functional equivalence is made possible because the aesthetics of video games bear unique affinities to the human moral imagination. However, whereas the moral imagination may be limited in terms of the complexity and vividness of its analog imaginings, the ethically notable video game may draw on the medium’s digital capacities in order to stage elaborate and emotionally compelling ethical rehearsals. The article concludes by applying this perspective to the ethically notable video game Undertale

Gregory Currie: Imagining and Knowing: The Shape of Fiction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2020

Book revie

A Consilient Approach to Horror Video Games: Challenges and Opportunities

In response to the crisis in the humanities, some scholars have proposed consilience as a solution. They argue that humanists should build on recent findings in the sciences of mind, including cognitive and evolutionary psychology. We discuss the benefits and pitfalls of such an approach, illustrating our discussion with an analysis of the horror video game Amnesia: The Dark Descent. We argue that recent theoretical and empirical developments in the evolutionary social sciences can make sense of how and why horror games so effectively foster immersion and predictable psychophysiological responses. They target evolved survival mechanisms and are structured to reward vigilance and persistence in the face of fear- and anxiety-provoking stimuli. Finally, we discuss and refute a number of common criticisms of the consilient approach

A Cross-Disciplinary Survey of Beliefs about Human Nature and Culture.

How far has the Darwinian revolution come? To what extent have evolutionary ideas penetrated into the social sciences and humanities? Are the “science wars” over? Or do whole blocs of disciplines face off over an unbridgeable epistemic gap? To answer questions like these, contributors to top journals in 22 disciplines were surveyed on their beliefs about human nature, culture, and science. More than 600 respondents completed the survey. Scoring patterns divided into two main sets of disciplines. Genetic influences were emphasized in the evolutionary social sciences, evolutionary humanities, psychology, empirical study of the arts, philosophy, economics, and political science. Environmental influences were emphasized in most of the humanities disciplines and in anthropology, sociology, education, and women’s or gender studies. Confidence in scientific explanation correlated positively with emphasizing genetic influences on behavior, and negatively with emphasizing environmental influences. Knowing the current actual landscape of belief should help scholars avoid sterile debates and ease the way toward fruitful collaborations with neighboring disciplines

Interdisciplinary: To Be or Not to Be? Working Across Disciplinary Boundaries in the Humanities (and Beyond)

This article introduces student readers to the realm of the interdisciplinary, with a primary focus on the humanities. We first introduce interdisciplinarity and other related terms as concepts. We then present eight specific examples, on which we illustrate interdisciplinary research. Finally, we address the question of when one should be interdisciplinary

A Conceptual Critique of the Use of Moral Disengagement Theory in Research on Violent Video Games

Moral disengagement refers to cognitive processes of misrepresenting immoral acts in order to justify them. Research on moral disengagement factors in violent video games assumes that the digital representation of violence in video games is meaningfully similar to the cognitive misrepresentation of immoral acts that defines moral disengagement. Thus, the story worlds of violent video games are thought to misrepresent violence as being justified in order that players may morally disengage from their violent actions. This article challenges the moral disengagement perspective on violent video games by demonstrating its empirical reliance on a conceptual misunderstanding: The story worlds of most video games are not representational; they do not deviously misrepresent an underlying reality against which players ought rightfully to judge their own in-game conduct. Rather, video games simply present a story world that is as real or unreal as the violence that occurs within it. Therefore, moral disengagement theory is not readily applicable to the story worlds of video games. The article proceeds to show how this misconception leads researchers to draw empirically false and topically fraught conclusions about how players perceive and respond to violence in video games. Thus, the article challenges the moral disengagement literature’s claim to meaningfully inform the pervasive debates surrounding violent video games

Evil Voices

Supplementary materials for "Evil Voices in Popular Fictions: The Case of The Exorcist