What are Games and why do they interest historians?
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Key Ideas
definition of "game"
trends in game studies scholarship
historical approaches to games
Goals for this week (September 18th)
To understand how scholars define "Games" and why academics might be interested in them.
To reflect upon the position of games in our society and try to extrapolate from that, why games were important in other societies and at other times
To consider key terminology about games and how to describe and categorize them.
Practice using social annotation for reading scholarly articles and use Obsidian for note taking.
Overview:
The week introduces you to the field of Historical Games Studies. The professor will lead a discussion about the different ways to define what a "game" is and scholars have talked about them in the past.
we will have a discussion about the readings by Nguyen, Spanos and Draycott about games. This class, students should seek to answer the fundamental question: What are games?
We will have a joint brainstorming session to try to establish a game typology: i.e. how to distinguish between different kinds of games, where do we draw the lines between game, play, and sport?
we will also try to think about what games can teach us as historians.
Questions to guide the readings
What is a game?
How have scholars defined games differently over time?
How does Nguyen categorize existing scholarship? (his literature survey will be useful for comparison when we read others in later weeks) and how would his survey fit with Draycott's?
How to categorize games?
Read/Watch/Listen
Here are the readings to annotate this week:
Nguyen, C. Thi. “Philosophy of Games.” Philosophy compass 12, no. 8 (2017)
And also by C. Thi. Nguyen, Games : Agency as Art. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2020. Link to Library Catalogue. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190052089.003.0001, accessed 17 Sept. 2022.
Apostolos Spanos, "Pregame", in Games of History : Games and Gaming as Historical Sources. Routledge, 2021, "Pregame" Link to Library catalogue.
Jane Draycott, "A short introduction to women in historical and archaeological video games," in Women in Historical and Archaeological Video Games, De Gruyter, 2022, Link to Library Catalogue.
Optional Readings
And in addition, you may wish to listen and take notes from a recent podcast hosted by media scholar Cameron Kunzelman and literature scholar Michael Lutz, called Game Studies Study Buddies.
Listen to the review/ engagement with Nguyen's work on an excellent podcast, Game Studies Study Buddies. If you are in working in the field of Games Studies, this podcast is designed for you!
http://rangedtouch.com/2023/07/31/60-nguyen-games-agency-as-art/ (you can also listen to the podcast on most other podcasting apps).
[Optional] C.T. Nguyen also was interviewed on the Ezra Klein show in February 2022, where he states in a slightly different (and more approachable) way what is in his book. A link to the podcast and a transcript can be found here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-c-thi-nguyen.html
Listen to “The Ezra Klein Show”: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, How to Listen
Practice
Make annotations using hypothes.is for the readings.
Write up a game user log [Instructions here] Make a list of all the games you have played in your life - games you played with toys, commercial games, games you made up. Be as exhaustive as possible. Try to organize them into groups or categories (or a typology). Be prepared to discuss this in class.
Prepare
After this class, set up Obsidian and install the provided class "vault". Exercises 3 and 3b.
Going Further
When you are encountering a new field of study, it is useful to use a tertiary source (reference works like dictionaries and encyclopedias) to learn terminology, get basic definitions and be introduced generally to key topics.
I recommend the online Encyclopedia of Ludic Terms (English "ludic" is an adjective derived from the Latin, ludus – game, play, sport, pastime). It is a useful and developing resource for studying games.
If you want to read more about this topic, here is another detailed academic texts:
Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Simon, Jonas Heide Smith, and Susana Pajares Tosca. “What Is a Game?” In Understanding Video Games, 31–60. 4th ed. Routledge, 2020. Link to library catalogue.
Also, there are a number of good podcasts about the field of Games Studies, such as:
Games Studies Study Buddies - long podcasts (up to 2 hrs) discussing important books (both new and classic) in the field of games studies
Gaming the Past - As a covid activity, historian Jeremiah McCall talked to game designers about how they use history in their game design
Studying Pixels - two scholars talking about videogames, including current releases (now archived)
Designer Notes - an experienced game designer sits down with noted designers to find out by examining their careers as a whole.
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