This is a class where we will think about games with respect to social and political life; it is not a game design course. It puts Game Studies and Critical Theory in conversation with each other in order to invite questions and thought about what the formal, aesthetic, historical, sociopolitical, and affective dimensions of games could teach us about the formal, aesthetic, historical, social, and affective dimensions of politics.

We will read games across genre and type - from First-Person Shooter video games to collaborative board games to Role-Playing mobile games to drinking card games (without the drinking). We will also read theory across disciplines and fields - from theories of embodiment (like queer theory or race and ethnicity studies) to debates in game studies (like ludology v. narratology) to concepts behind design elements (like game mechanics or player interaction) to questions of contemporary sociopolitical life (like critiques of capitalism or Science and Technology Studies).

Expect to read things like: José Esteban Muñoz (on queer of color performance studies) alongside Jane McGonigal (on immersive aesthetics in Alternate Reality Games), Bruno Latour (on sociology of science and technology) alongside Mary Flanagan (on critical play and radical game design), and Michel Foucault (on subjectivity and subjectivzation) alongside Anna Anthropy's Adobe Flash video game Dys4ia. Also expect to play some games and to write short, though regular, critical analyses.