This course investigates one of the core technologies of our culture: Games. Working from Ancient Greece and Rome to contemporary culture, we’ll think about games as a critical technology of life. We’ll read about theories of gaming, we’ll write about culture, we’ll play some games, and we’ll think about ourselves in relations to the games that surround us—but mostly, we’ll think about the ways in which games provoke a player to act, to think, or to play—in other words, we’ll think about the rhetoric of games. My goal is to help you work as a critical reader of digital media, to join you in thinking about games as an inherent element of human culture, and to subject the practice of gaming to the ordinary sorts of critical thinking we reserve for higher forms of culture. Welcome!
