Game Culture

Thursdays, Fall 2006 -- 13:30-16:00 room 2A20 & 16:00-18:30 Lab3

T.L. Taylor (tltaylor@itu.dk) (office: 2D18, phone: 7218 5035).

Description: This course will examine computer games from a cultural and sociological perspective. Rather than focusing on tasks like level construction, it will explore the ways culture, socialization, and values are a part of gaming. Using a variety of theoretical & methodological approaches (drawn from the humanities and social sciences) a range of topics will be discussed in an attempt to understand not only the internal workings and social dynamics of computer games, but their place in the broader culture. Topics include: social processes and interaction; games as communication spaces and virtual worlds; intellectual property and commodification in games, players as producers of game content, political/ideological analysis of games; gender and race in gaming; and design & values.

Format and Grading: Lectures, discussion, groupwork, classroom exercises. Final project/synopsis with oral examination (can be undertaken solo or in a group), based on short synopsis. Grading will be according to the 13-scale. The language for the course is English (including all written materials).

Literature: The course compendium should be purchased from the ITU Bookstore. Many articles are available online and will be linked at the online syllabus.

Software: All students must particpate in some multiplayer space (an MMOG, XBoxLive, Second Life, etc.).

Course plan:

Aug 31 - Introduction

Sept 7 - Technology & Culture

Bijker and Law, "General Introduction"
Winner, "Do Artifacts Have Politics?"
Crawford and Rutter, "Digital Games and Cultural Studies"

Sept 14 - Embodied Play

Turkle, "Aspects of the Self"
Lahti, "As We Become Machines"
Flynn, "Geography of the Digital Hearth"

Video: Avatars Offline

Sept 21 - Interface & Experience

Dovey & Kennedy, "Bodies and Machines: Cyborg Subjectivity and Gameplay"
Latour, "Where are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts"
Haraway, excerpt from "A Cyborg Manifesto"

Sept 28 - Video:Gamers & Avatars Offline

Oct 5 - Doing Research, Thinking about Methods

Booth, selection from The Craft of Research
Deacon et. al, selection from Researching Communications
Mann, "Generating Data Online"

Oct 12 - Women & Gaming

Kerr, "Women Just Want to Have Fun"
Taylor, "Where the Women Are"
Carr, "Games and Gender"

Oct 19 - Fall Holiday

Oct 26 - Fan Cultures with guest lecturer Susana Tosca

Burn, "Reworking the Text: Online Fandom"

Nov 2 - Fieldwork and preparation for mid-term presentation

Nov 9 - Mid-term presentation of student research projects to date

Nov 16 - Productive Players

Jenkins, "Interactive Audiences?"
Postigo, "From Pong to Planet Quake: Post-Industrial Transitions from Leisure to Work"
Dovey & Kennedy, "Interventions and Recuperations?"

Nov 23 - Social and Communicative Aspects

Jakobsson & Taylor, "Sopranos Meets EQ"
Sun, Lin, Ho, "Game Tips as Gifts"
Wellman & Gulia, "Virtual Communities As Communities"
Lockard, "Progressive Politics, Electronic Individualism and the Myth of Virtual Community"

Nov 30 - Regulated Game Lives

Koster, "Declaring the Rights of Players"
Castronova, "The Right to Play
Grossberg, "Power and Daily Life"

Dec 7 - Jonas Heide Smith dissertation defense

Smith, material from dissertation to be distributed later

Dec 14 - Wrap-up, final presentation to group of status of research

Dec 20 @ 15:00 - Synopsis (3 copies) due in exam office.

Jan 25 - Exams