[SIGCIS-Members] Teaching history with video games

[NOVEMBER, JOSEPH]

Dear SIGCISers,

First, thanks to Andy for the plug of _Playing with the Past_. Granted, I’m an interested party as a contributor to the volume, but I can’t help but share my enthusiasm for it. The book is a wonderful demonstration of how critically engaging video games can lead to substantial historical discussion. I believe it’ll be especially stimulating to undergraduate and graduate students whose interest in history has been shaped by historically-oriented games.

Incorporating video games into history courses is a development that many young people find exciting, and it’s a development that may provide a lot of opportunities for historians of computing to do outreach.

I have learned through experience (see below) that getting students to make the actual transition from casual musing about the historical content of games to serious historical thinking requires three things on the part of the instructor: 1) experience playing the games being examined; 2) knowledge of the historical events and people represented in the games; 3) a strong command of the history of computing. Giving students enough background in history of computing so that they can treat the video games themselves as historical objects has been crucial in helping them to understand the ways hardware constraints, software constraints, company culture, and the marketplace have all shaped games’ engagement with history. 

Like Nicholas Trépanier, the author of the historians.org piece to which Dag linked, I’ve also had the privilege of offering an undergraduate course that explores the way history is presented in video games. Unlike the University of Mississippi course, enrollment in my “History and Computer Games” course was not restricted to elite students. Good students were, of course, attracted to the class, but in several cases, otherwise under-performing students excelled because they found the subject matter engaging and/or they could draw from their mastery of particular games. 

Despite a fairly challenging workload, demand for the course was overwhelming. My students’ discussions of the course on various new media websites prompted coverage by gaming news sites and school newspapers as well as a great deal of public conversation about history and gaming.

As was the case in the Mississippi course, mine made use of (among other games) the Assassin’s Creed series. My students played Assassin’s Creed 2, which is set in Renaissance Florence, and read parts of Ross King’s Brunelleschi’s Dome to complement their gameplay experience. Later in the semester, the class held a Skype discussion with Corey May, Ubisoft’s lead story writer for the Assassin’s Creed series. By that point the students had engaged in many classroom conversations (and watched videos) related to history of computing, something that I believe prepared them to hold a very meaningful exchange with May, one that transcended the issue of his games’ “inaccuracy” and got to the more substantive issue of the process of building computer programs that enable people to connect to the past.

Student essays for the class were generally good. Several of the end-of-semester research papers would be, in my estimation, strong enough to be published in a volume like _Playing with the Past_, and it is encouraging that Trépanier’s contribution to the volume was co-authored by one of the undergraduates in his class.a

For anyone interested in more details about my course, the UofSC Center for Digital Humanities hosts a webpage containing a video of a talk I gave about the course as well as links to some of the media coverage. See: http://cdh.sc.edu/DBB01


Best,
Joe

Joseph November, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and McCausland Faculty Fellow (on leave 2013-2014)
Department of History
University of South Carolina
223 Gambrell Hall
Columbia, SC 29208
november at sc.edu

________________________________________
From: members-bounces at sigcis.org [members-bounces at sigcis.org] on behalf of Andrew Russell [arussell at stevens.edu]
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2014 12:38 PM
To: members at sigcis.org
Cc: Thomas Haigh
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] List reminders: Links are OK, digest is available

I believe the link Dag refers to is http://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/may-2014/the-assassin%E2%80%99s-perspective.

It’s a fascinating article (thanks for mentioning it Dag). The author (Trepanier) mentions an edited volume on game studies and history; I note that SIGCIS member Joe November has a chapter in the book, titled “Playing with the Past” (see http://playingwiththepast.com/contents/).

Cheers,

Andy



On May 19, 2014, at 10:48 AM, Thomas Haigh <thaigh at computer.org> wrote:

> Dag is confused. SIGCIS welcomes links, but bars large attachments because
> they don't archive, don't go in the digest version of the email, and are not
> something that everyone on the list would want chewing up their time and
> bandwidth. Again, links cause none of these problems and are fine.
>
> Every now and then we have a flurry of emails to the list. So I also want to
> remind those who would prefer their history of computing discussion
> compartmentalized rather than periodically flaring up to dominate their
> inbox that our mail management system allows mail to be dispatched in a once
> a day digest format. Just log in at
> http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members (you should receive an email
> every month reminding you of your login details and subscription options)
> and change the format option.
>
> Tom
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: members-bounces at sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org] On
> Behalf Of Dag Spicer
> Sent: Monday, May 19, 2014 8:52 AM
> To: members at sigcis.org
> Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Teaching history with video games
>
> Dear group,
>
> There is a very thoughtful article on this often noisy topic in the current
> "Perspectives on History" by the AHA.
>
> It is entitled "The Assassin's Perspective: Teaching History with Video
> Games," by Nicolas Trepanier.
>
> I'd love to provide the link to it but SIGCIS has decided not to allow that.
>
> Best,
>
> Dag
> --
> Dag Spicer
> Senior Curator
> Computer History Museum
> Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
> 1401 North Shoreline Boulevard
> Mountain View, CA 94043-1311
>
> Tel: +1 650 810 1035
> Fax: +1 650 810 1055
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of
> SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/
> and you can change your subscription options at
> http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
>
> _______________________________________________
> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members

_______________________________________________
This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
Joseph November, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and McCausland Faculty Fellow (on leave 2013-2014)
Department of History
University of South Carolina
223 Gambrell Hall
Columbia, SC 29208
november at sc.edu

________________________________________
From: members-bounces at sigcis.org [members-bounces at sigcis.org] on behalf of Dag Spicer [dspicer at computerhistory.org]
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2014 9:52 AM
To: members at sigcis.org
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Teaching history with video games

Dear group,

There is a very thoughtful article on this often noisy topic in the current “Perspectives on History” by the AHA.

It is entitled "The Assassin’s Perspective: Teaching History with Video Games,”  by Nicolas Trepanier.

I’d love to provide the link to it but SIGCIS has decided not to allow that.

Best,

Dag
--
Dag Spicer
Senior Curator
Computer History Museum
Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
1401 North Shoreline Boulevard
Mountain View, CA 94043-1311

Tel: +1 650 810 1035
Fax: +1 650 810 1055



_______________________________________________
This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members