Course Schedule

This course introduces and helps students to practice a set of critical skills developed specifically for understanding the socio-cultural impacts of video games. Over the course of the semester we will: 1) survey the history of video games and their industry, paying particular attention to how developers - and the technologies they deploy - shape the game medium; 2) unpack game sights, sounds, and stories, with an analytical eye toward their formal and ideological qualities; and 3) collaboratively examine video games as sites of cultural exchange, that is, as teaching and learning tools, playful companions, and complex social and physical stimuli.

This course introduces and helps students to practice a set of critical skills developed specifically for understanding the socio-cultural impacts of video games. Over the course of the semester we will: 1) survey the history of video games and their industry, paying particular attention to how developers - and the technologies they deploy - shape the game medium; 2) unpack game sights, sounds, and stories, with an analytical eye toward their formal and ideological qualities; and 3) collaboratively examine video games as sites of cultural exchange, that is, as teaching and learning tools, playful companions, and complex social and physical stimuli.