A few of us have been beta-testing my Minecraft server (1.7.3) in preparation for the fall semester. So far, so good (although I hate Creepers with a passion). Now, using a terrific third-party app called Tectonicus, together with Google Maps’ framework, *nix workhorse rsync, and a few custom-built client-side scripts, I’ve managed to create a [...] Read more – ‘Minecraft, Mapped’.
Bonus update (7 August): Now with an extra reading! This fall, I’m offering a new graduate-level course about videogames and critique, inspired in part by a course I taught last year on the death (and reanimation) of critical theory: CCTP680, Videogames in Critical Contexts. I am still working on the syllabus, but here are the [...] Read more – ‘Book List for CCTP680, Videogames in Critical Contexts’.
I’m happy to announce that this spring, I’ll become a Visiting Assistant Professor of Communication, Culture, and Technology at Georgetown University. I’ll be offering the following two graduate courses: Exploring Synthetic Worlds Synthetic worlds — persistent, networked 3D spaces that mimic certain aspects of reality — are increasingly popular sites for work and play. This [...] Read more – ‘Spring semester’.
From the University of Terra Florida University of Florida Honors Courses – Fall 2010 catalog. “21st Century Skills in Starcraft is an 8 week entirely online course that uses the popular real time strategy (RTS) game Starcraft to teach valuable 21st Century Skills through a hands-on approach. With society becoming increasingly technology-based and fast-paced, it [...] Read more – ‘University of Florida Honors Courses – Fall 2010’.
The University opened registration this AM, and CCTP628, Arcade Theory, is almost full. If you are interested in taking the class but are unable to register (due to a hold on your record, et cetera), please email me to let me know, and I’ll save you a seat. Read more – ‘Arcade Theory Almost Full’.
My normally reliable Macbook Pro has been acting up this weekend, sputtering, whirring and churning, so I’ve been thinking a lot about OS crashes and kernal panics. This semester, in my new graduate course, Arcade Theory (CCTP-628), we’ll spend some time on glitches, gaffes, bugs, and breakpoints. The digital glitch is, to my mind, the [...] Read more – ‘Are Bugs Really All That Bad?’.
Via GamePolitics, news that the new-ish Game Design BFA offered at GMU has met with“overwhelming” student response. A story in the Fairfax Times reports that the school has already enrolled around 200 students into the program, besting an internal goal of having 110 students in the program by 2012. As Scott M. Martin, Assistant Dean [...] Read more – ‘GMU “Overwhelmed” by Interest in Game Design BFA’.
In January of this year, on the day following the death of historian Howard Zinn, A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz delivered a thoughtful little talk at SUNY Buffalo. In so doing, I think he managed neatly to extend Zinn’s 20th Century civitas a little further into our own time. “I’m worried that students will take their [...] Read more – ‘What Would Tocqueville Make of the American (Digital) Farmer?’.
I have started to build an information website to accompany the new course I’ll teach this fall at Georgetown, CCTP628: Arcade Theory. As of now, only the course description is available, but I will add more in the coming weeks. Visit arcadetheory.org Read more – ‘New Course: CCTP628 Arcade Theory’.
Matthew Kirschenbaum, over at UMD, is an Associate Professor of English and the Associate Director of MITH, the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities. His blog is chock full of interesting stuff, and his tweets are prolific. A year ago, he published a good little article in the Chronicle on why humanities students must [...] Read more – ‘Kirschenbaum’s Simulations Course at UMD’.
In addition to my work on games, play, and virtual worlds at The Program in Communications, Culture, and Technology, I am fortunate enough to coordinate the undergraduate senior seminar in American Studies at Georgetown. It’s a fantastic job. One of the goals of my work with these students is to find novel ways of leveraging [...] Read more – ‘Thesis Tweetstream’.
Now here is a class from which we could all learn something. Atari Hacks, Remakes, and Demakes: Special Topics in Game Design and Analysis, Spring 2010. Georgia Institute of Technology. Hacks are works produced by making modifications to existing games by disassembling binaries, analyzing the meaning and purpose of the resulting source code, identifying desirable [...] Read more – ‘Syllabus: Atari Hacks, Remakes, and Demakes’.
Here’s a course description for the new graduate course I’ll offer next fall at Georgetown. Frankly, the course is a work–in–progress, and so the semester is still a bit blurry. Still, I’m excited about the early drafts of a syllabus, which will draw on Samuel Taylor Coleridge, robotic vacuums, gospel choirs, Aristotle, horror films, Star [...] Read more – ‘CCTP-628: Interactivity, Immersion, and Play’.
