Computer Game Culture

Tuesdays, Spring 2005 -- 13:30-16:00 room 2A14 & 16:00-18:30 Lab3

T.L. Taylor (tltaylor@itu.dk) (office: 3D18, phone: 7218 5035).
Teaching assistant: Peter Niebling (niebling@itu.dk)

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: community management and maintenance in games; 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. Midterm group presentation and final project/synopsis with oral examination (can be undertaken solo or in a group). The midterm group presentation will be produced in collaboration with team members in and out of class sessions and marked pass/fail. Final examination will be oral format and based on short (3-5 page) 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 have an active account in one of the following for the duration of the course: World of Warcraft, Second Life, or CounterStrike .

Course plan:

All readings are available in the course compendium.

Jan 31 - Introduction

Feb 7 - Technology & Culture

Winner, "Do Artifacts Have Politics?"
Latour, "Where are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts"
Bijker and Law, "General Introduction"

Feb 14 - Playing Somewhere

Flynn, "Geography of the Digital Hearth"
Powell, "Space, Place, Reality and Virtuality in Urban Internet Cafe"

Exercise period: Game Lecture Series (speaker: Helen Kennedy)

Feb 21 - Embodied Game Worlds

Turkle, "Aspects of the Self"
Lahti, "As We Become Machines"
Nakamura, "Race In/For Cyberspace"
Haraway, excerpt from "A Cyborg Manifesto"

Video: Avatars Offline

Feb 28 - Women & Gaming

Kerr, "Women Just Want to Have Fun"
Taylor, "Mutiple Pleasures"
Carr, "Contexts, Pleasures and Preferences: Girls Playing Computer Games"

Exercise period: Game Lecture Series (speaker TBA)

March 7 - Mid-Semester Presentations

March 14 - Mid-Semester Presentations

Exercise period: Game Lecture Series (speaker TBA)

March 21 - Video: Gamers

March 28 - Social and Communicative Aspects

Jakobsson & Taylor, "Sopranos Meets EQ"
Steinkhueler, "The Mangle of Play"
Sun, Lin, and Ho, "Game Tips as Gifts"

Exercise period: Game Lecture Series (speaker TBA)

April 4 - Gaming Communities?

Wellman & Gulia, "Virtual Communities As Communities"
Lockard, "Progressive Politics, Electronic Individualism and the Myth of Virtual Community"
Anderson, excerpt from Imagined Communities

Exercise period: Game Lecture Series (speaker TBA)

April 11 - Spring holiday

April 18 - Productive Players

Taylor, "Whose Game is this Anyway?"
Jenkins, "Interactive Audiences?"
Lastowka, "You Will Rule the Planes of Power!"

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

June 6-8 - Exams