About

Aaron Trammell is an Assistant Professor of Informatics and Core Faculty in Visual Studies at UC Irvine. He writes about how Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, and board games inform the lived experiences of their players. Specifically, he is interested in how these games further values of white privilege and hegemonic masculinity in geek culture. He serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Analog Game Studies and is the Multimedia editor of Sounding Out!.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Law
• Artificial Intelligence
• Psychology
• Epistemology
• Data science
• Gender studies
• Media studies
• Philosophy
• Aesthetics
• Criminology
• Art

Selected publications

• From Where do Dungeons Come?

  KiltHub Repository · 2026-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This essay suggests that the emergence of the “dungeon” in Dungeons and Dragons as a representational fantasy trope in the 1950s/ 60s is symbolically related to popular perspectives on nuclear attacks circulating in Cold War America. It is posited that maps determine the action and functions of a site, and that they also tell much about the cultures that have produced them. The systems of representation, epitomized by the dungeon, showcase how the rules of Dungeons and Dragons dealt with far more than just the mapping of the underground. They were instead systems that helped players to manage their affects, and in so doing, offer strategies for coping with a variety of Cold War fears.

  PublisherDOI

• From Where do Dungeons Come?

  KiltHub Repository · 2026-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This essay suggests that the emergence of the “dungeon” in Dungeons and Dragons as a representational fantasy trope in the 1950s/ 60s is symbolically related to popular perspectives on nuclear attacks circulating in Cold War America. It is posited that maps determine the action and functions of a site, and that they also tell much about the cultures that have produced them. The systems of representation, epitomized by the dungeon, showcase how the rules of Dungeons and Dragons dealt with far more than just the mapping of the underground. They were instead systems that helped players to manage their affects, and in so doing, offer strategies for coping with a variety of Cold War fears.

  PublisherDOI

• Misogyny and the Female Body in Dungeons & Dragons

  KiltHub Repository · 2026-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This essay addresses the problem of historical attitudes of racism and misogyny in game culture by offering a close read of two articles on the topic from The Dragon, TSR Hobbies’ flagship magazine for all things Dungeons & Dragons (1974). Unlike Jon Peterson’s recent essay, “The First Female Gamers,” which argues that TSR Hobbies was instrumental in bringing women into the hobby, this essay concerns the unfortunate amount of currency still afforded to misogynist attitudes in the gaming community. It proposes that these attitudes reproduce themselves by way of the community privileging the accuracy of simulation over the ethics of simulation.

  PublisherDOI

• Misogyny and the Female Body in Dungeons & Dragons

  KiltHub Repository · 2026-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This essay addresses the problem of historical attitudes of racism and misogyny in game culture by offering a close read of two articles on the topic from The Dragon, TSR Hobbies’ flagship magazine for all things Dungeons & Dragons (1974). Unlike Jon Peterson’s recent essay, “The First Female Gamers,” which argues that TSR Hobbies was instrumental in bringing women into the hobby, this essay concerns the unfortunate amount of currency still afforded to misogynist attitudes in the gaming community. It proposes that these attitudes reproduce themselves by way of the community privileging the accuracy of simulation over the ethics of simulation.

  PublisherDOI

• Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Redox Imbalance in Group 3 Pulmonary Hypertension Smooth Muscle Cells

  Free Radical Biology and Medicine · 2025-10-30

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Seeking the Unimaginable: Rules, Race, and Adolescent Desire in Dungeons & Dragons

  The MIT Press eBooks · 2024-05-14

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Role-Playing Games as Subculture and Fandom

  2024-04-25

  book-chapterSenior author

  This chapter examines role-playing games (RPGs) as a subculture and fan activity. It defines some of the key terms needed to understand these ideas, providing a brief overview of relevant schools of thought and linking these theories to RPGs. The chapter focuses on how and where subcultural and fan practices take place and discusses whether RPG communities identify themselves as a subculture or not. Subcultures must exhibit a distinctive enough shape and structure to make them identifiably different from their “parent” culture. They must be focused around certain activities, values, uses of material artifacts, territorial spaces, etc. which significantly differentiate them from the wider culture. There is a great deal of overlap between the theories and work examining subcultures and fan studies. This includes some of the critical terms and concepts used as well as studies that assume fans exist within their own subcultures.

  PublisherDOI

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Role-Playing Games

  2024-04-25 · 2 citations

  book-chapter

  This chapter introduces the stakes of diversity, equity, and inclusion in role-playing games (RPGs). We trace how the structure and culture of RPGs have reproduced stereotyping, essentializing, and exclusionary representations of marginalized social categories. We show how representations of diverse communities in games interact with a long history of not only a lack of this kind of representation, but also an active exclusionary culture This chapter unpacks how computer role-playing games, tabletop role-playing games, and live-action role-playing games offer an exciting space for diversity despite these struggles. The chapter closes by highlighting positive initiatives promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in RPG communities and useful educational resources for future learning.

  PublisherDOI

• Precarity and Privilege: The White Politics of Board Game Streamers

  The MIT Press eBooks · 2023-08-22

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The National Mind as a Prison: Fortress America

  The MIT Press eBooks · 2023-08-15

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Aram Sinnreich

  3 shared

• Nathan Graham

  Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

  2 shared

• Evan Torner

  University College Cork

  2 shared

• Zack Lischer‐Katz

  University of Arizona

  2 shared

• Joe Sanchez

  University of North Texas

  2 shared

• Amanda L. L. Cullen

  2 shared

• Nikki Crenshaw

  2 shared

• Esther MacCallum‐Stewart

  2 shared