SNAFUBAR
SNAFUBAR
Podcast Description
SNAFUBAR explores American military mistakes from the beginning of the country’s founding to the present day. Environmental Historian Jeff Crane and Professor of Religious Studies Sara Hart bring an honest and candid look and analysis at costly errors, victory culture and the fetishization of the military in the United States.
Presented by Cal Poly Humboldt's College of Art Humanities & Social Sciences.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast covers themes of military history, societal reflections on war, and critiques of the American military culture. Specific episodes explore George Washington's military decisions, such as his leading role at the Battle of Jumonville Glen and the implications of military failures, while addressing the tradition of romanticizing military actions and the support issues faced by veterans.
SNAFUBAR is a show about strategic and moral military errors and mishaps, and the myths that both lead to and then justify them. The histories they look at will make clear the degree to which the U.S. is a warful nation, contrary to the myth of a peaceful nation regularly compelled, against its will, to go to war. Through every episode, the show uncovers how we romanticize and fetishize the military while not always providing the support it needs to carry out its intended (or stated) goals, or to meet veterans’ needs when they return from combat.
Chat, are we cooked? Not quite, we just have a couple of guest hosts today! Welcome to SNAFUBAR, a podcast on American militarism and national myths. Today’s episode explores the action packed history of video games, specifically military themed video games. We’ll chart the history of early war games, from the classic boardgame Kriegspiel, used in Prussian military officers training, to major blockbuster video games like Battlefield I. Military themed war games brings up an important question: If we spend our free time immersed in online war games, does that shape our perceptions of or responses to news of international conflict? Do war games diminish the degree to which we’re able to approach war as trauma? Or are we overthinking here and it really is “just a game”? We’ll discuss on this episode of SNAFUBAR
Today's episode is hosted by Liam Salcuni, lecturer with the History Department at Cal Poly Humboldt, and our writer/researcher Roman Sotomayor, an alum of Cal Poly Humboldt who has worked on different research projects and on engaging with the local veterans community here in Humboldt County.
SNAFUBAR is regularly hosted by Sara Hart, who Chair of the Applied Humanities Department at Cal Poly Humboldt, and Jeff Crane who is an Environmental Historian and Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cal Poly Humboldt.Research and writing for the show is done by Liam Salcuni and Roman Sotomayor (who also hosted today's episode)
SNAFUBAR is produced by Abigail Smithson and brought to you by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cal Poly Humboldt.
Works Cited:
AMRDEC Public Affairs, “America’s Army: Proving Grounds launches on Steam”
Cox, “Army Using Xbox, PS4 Technology to Build New Virtual Trainers”
Espinosa, “From Military Tools to Toys: A History of Video Games”
Goodpastor, “How the Military Uses Call of Duty As A Recruitment Tool”
Keller, “The US military will fight the next big war with Xbox-style video game controllers”
Maas, “How ‘Call of Duty’ Says It Is Getting More Veterans Jobs Than the US Government”
Schaeffer, “The changing face of America’s veteran population”
Disclaimer
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