Humanities Prof. Kocurek co-edits journal issue, "Teaching with and about Games"
Dr. Carly Kocurek, Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities and Media Studies, is the co-editor of a special issue of Syllabus recently published. The issue's focus is "Teaching with and about Games." Syllabus is a peer-reviewed publication of course syllabi and other teaching materials.
The introduction to the issue reads in part:
"That video games are big business is nothing new. Statistically, this multibillion-dollar industry has grown 9.7 percent between 2009-2012 (compared to the 2.4 percent growth of the US economy) and has added $6.2 billion in U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Siwek 2014). Further, the soft power of video games can be equally felt as evidenced by this following anecdote: Sir Paul McCartney is currently promoting the game Destiny (Activision/Bungie, 2014) for which he wrote some of the soundtrack. Even a few years ago, perhaps we would have struggled to imagine an iconic rock star who rose to fame in the 1960s helping with public relations for a massively multiplayer shooting game, but today, games are such a key part of the entertainment landscape that these kinds of spectacles have become familiar.
"That video games are becoming “big education” is slightly less known. Currently in the US, at least one university in each of the fifty states offers a university degree or program in video games. The Princeton Review ranks video game design programs at both the undergraduate and graduate level, and more and more schools are rolling out programs in game design and related fields. The University of Texas, for example, launched its Denius-Sams Gaming Academy, focused on issues of management and leadership, in 2013. Across the United States and internationally, games are being used to teach, to engage students, and to train students in important skills. In some ways, this seems to correlate to market demand—we need to train more people to enter a highly skilled and in-demand industry. And one that is decentralized (unlike Hollywood).
"Yet not all of the classes appear to have this economic incentive. Courses cover game development and design, but also treat games as a topic in fields such as computer science, history, media studies, and rhetoric. In other words, video games are not just an economic force (they make lots of money and so we should teach students to make them) nor are they only a psychological force (games teach people violence and so we need to study policy to limit them); they are also a cultural and creative force, and courses are cropping up that attend to games in this particular framework. Games are worthy of study in the same way that film, literature, and art are worthy of study. These are media that simultaneously reflect and drive culture."
