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  Editor's Note: This article reflects a talk given by then-Assistant Professor Caitlin Rosenthal in 2017. Her most recent work, including the book discussed below, can be found here . For UC Berkeley professor Caitlin Rosenthal, the history of capitalism will remain impenetrable as long as we continue to provide weak definitions for capitalism. Though countless scholars have tried to define capitalism, no clear definition has been settled on. In her new book Accounting for Slavery , Rosenthal hopes to change that, and argued as such in her talk. One of the premier historians of capitalism, Rosenthal fielded questions about the arguments at the center of her forthcoming book. Put simply, she contends that nineteenth century southern plantations need to be studied as businesses, much as northern factories are, in order to better understand capitalism. For Rosenthal, capitalism is about commodification. As such, she argues that the commodification of slaves allows us to better unders...

The original 3DS XL came out in 2012, following the release of the 3DS in 2011. In the age of PS5 and Switch 2 it can be easy to forget about the 3DS. Released in 2011 to replace the aging DS, the 3DS promised a new era of gaming featuring a glasses-less 3D screen. And yet, early on there was little promise of success. I remember thinking about buying a 3DS in 2011, only to decide against it after witnessing the thin lineup of games available, the limited 3D function, and how weak the system was graphically (about on par with the much older PSP). However, as time went on, I began to appreciate the 3DS more. I eventually was gifted one for my birthday, with my first games being Pokémon Black, Chrono Trigger, and Mario Kart 7. Over the years my collection of 3DS games grew to incorporate titles like Pokémon X and Pokémon Moon. Then in 2016 I put my 3DS into semi-retirement, where it gathered dust in a drawer most of the time, the exception being when I had the urge play Pokémon. I redisc...

Photo credit: Amazon.com. Editor's Note: This review has some spoilers, but most of the important details are left intentionally vague. Vicious  by V.E. Schwab is a superhero story about Victor Vale and Eli Cardale, two college students who ostensibly have it all—both are handsome rich geniuses, so intellectually gifted that even their professors look to them for guidance. In reality, they are tortured by their compulsion to test the limits of reality. While researching their undergraduate thesis, Cardale and Vale discover that superpowers do exist, and that the key to unlocking them is to temporarily die. They soon succeed in their quest to gain powers for themselves, but things go drastically wrong, and former friends Victor and Eli become mortal enemies. As far as superhero origin stories go, this is perfect. Schwab is an excellent writer who employs short chapters and multiple perspectives to keep the reader interested. And if you're familiar with her  Shades of Magic...

Unbeknownst to me at the time, I began playing the Anno series as a kid way back in the 1990s. Back then I only knew it as "1602 A.D." given that is what it said on the $9.99 disc I got at Walmart (also, I clearly remember a British person saying "1602 AD" every time the game started). It's better known as Anno 1602, and as a seven year old it blew my mind with its complexity. I had always been a fan of real-time strategy games while growing up, and Anno 1602 was neat in that it made trading and maintaining an economy equal to warfare and fighting in importance.  My memories are hazy now, but I remember Anno 1602 being just a bit too complicated for me at the time. I managed to get surprisingly far into the game, but didn't get a handle on how to manage my soldiers while crafting a functioning economy with working supply chains. I would go on to play similar but slightly less complex games like the original Tropico, and from there the Anno games would recede...

Academia preaches diversity while at the same time  locking its doors to people of color . This problem has only become worse in recent years, with the academic job market crashing just as new cohorts of non-white PhD Candidates are beginning to seek tenure-track positions.  This has not been helped by the fact that universities have tried to tackle the issue of job scarcity with solutions that perpetuate academia's lack of diversity.  Indeed, in attempting to find solutions to the lack of available tenure-track positions, universities have barred people of color from the Ivory Tower and secured its status as a white institution. One example might be the growth of  "diversity" programs  adopted by several PhD-granting institutions — I put diversity in quotes because they are referring to  career  diversity rather than how the word is generally defined. These programs attempt to re-imagine the PhD, making them less about preparing students for academia ...

Editor's Note: This article was originally published in response to the release of NBA 2K22 back in 2021, but we feel it is still relevant today with the release of NBA 2K26. Thus, we have decided to re-release this archived content. Enjoy. --- I've been playing NBA 2K for years now, my first being 2K6 on the original Xbox. At the time, I thought it was a revelation compared to NBA Live. The movement, the shooting, the presentation, everything felt better and more realistic.  Flashforward to the present, and I think it's true that most people view NBA 2K as a stagnant franchise. It has no competition in the industry, and its yearly releases are glorified roster updates with a few boondoggles taped on here and there to encourage folks to spend money on microtransactions.  That said, at its core, the 2K series still deliverers a good basketball experience. This is primarily true of its offline singleplayer modes, like MyNBA, or what is usually called "Franchise Mode...

From left to right - Nora, Kat, Swann, and Autumn. Editor’s note: Although the author has not revealed major plot points, some spoilers are unavoidable. As always, be sure to play the game first if you are interested in experiencing the story for yourself. From the makers of Life is Strange , Lost Records: Bloom and Rage is a familiar experience to anyone who has played DON'T NOD’s games. There’s a slew of dialogue options to choose from and a story wrapped in tragedy and nostalgia, fused with a supernatural twist. Yesterday I finished the game, and my initial impressions are very positive, with a few constructive critiques about characterization that I'll ruminate on below. When you think of DON'T NOD, the first game to come to mind is likely Life is Strange.  If I had to compare Lost Records to it, Life is Strange had more innovative gameplay thanks to Max’s time reversal power. Lost Records , on the other hand, substitutes time reversal and powers in general for a cam...

The space 4X genre is one of my favorites (4X stands for "Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate"). As a kid I played games like Galactic Civilizations II, and later on I was always eager to jump into games like Endless Space, Distant Worlds, and StarDrive. But of them all, Stellaris is probably my favorite.  In Stellaris your goal is relatively simple: Develop your spacefaring civilization in any way you deem fit. You can stick to one star system and pour all of your resources into a hyper-advanced ecumenopolis, or you can choose to be more expansionary, sending scouts to nearby stars and colonizing outwards. You can be a warring civilization or a peaceful one, you can choose the direction of your society's research, you can prioritize certain resources over others, you can engage in diplomacy and market manipulation, and you can build spy networks to snoop on AI opponents. And there is much more beyond that.  Here I want to spin for you a tale about a playthrough I had a...

  Good morning everyone and welcome to another article! This is one I've been thinking about for a while now, and yet could never find the time to write. I'll admit, it's been some time since I've played the first two Trails of Cold Steel games (I have yet to play three and four for reasons explained below), but my impression of them is still rather clear. Conversely, I just finished playing Persona 4 Golden and finished Persona 5 a few years back, so both are fresh in my mind.  As a disclaimer, this isn't so much a critique of either series (as I very much enjoy both) so much as it is a comparison of certain aspects that stood out to me. I will also attempt to avoid spoilers as best I can. Finally, I'll organize the article into categories so that you can skip to the part you want to read. Without further ado, let's begin!  Story The Cold Steel games take place within a much larger universe dubbed "The Legend of Heroes," and are technically the si...