[SIGCIS-Members] Book announcement: GAMING THE IRON CURTAIN out Dec 18 on MIT Press

Wed Dec 5 18:37:06 PST 2018

Congrats, Jaro!  I'm so excited this work is finally available in English.

________________________________
From: Members <members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org> on behalf of Barbara B Walker <bbwalker at unr.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, December 5, 2018 1:02:14 PM
To: jaroslav at svelch.com
Cc: members at lists.sigcis.org
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Book announcement: GAMING THE IRON CURTAIN out Dec 18 on MIT Press

So exciting! I very much look forward to reading, Jaroslav. Congratulations!

Barbara Walker

Associate Professor

Department of History/308

University of Nevada, Reno

Reno NV 89557

Office phone: 775-784-4303

Website: https://www.unr.edu/history/history-people/barbara-walker

From: Members <members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org> on behalf of Ben Peters <bjpeters at gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, December 5, 2018 at 10:36 AM
To: "jaroslav at svelch.com" <jaroslav at svelch.com>
Cc: "members at lists.sigcis.org" <members at lists.sigcis.org>
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Book announcement: GAMING THE IRON CURTAIN out Dec 18 on MIT Press

Delighted to hear, Jaroslav! I warmly recommend it and mean every bit of this blurb:

“At once necessary and original, disciplined and deliberately disorienting, informative and crackling with gamer intelligence, Gaming the Iron Curtain expertly guides the reader through the peripheral thickets of gaming subcultures in Czechoslovak hobby computing in the 1980s. Švelch sketches the political complexities of Czechoslovak computing cultures and uncovers how unknown Central European homebrewers dreamt up new meanings of 'Hello, world!' in the Soviet bloc. A welcomed and pioneering work.”

Benjamin Peters, Associate Professor, University of Tulsa; author of How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet

On Wed, Dec 5, 2018 at 1:16 PM Jaroslav Švelch <jaroslav at svelch.com<mailto:jaroslav at svelch.com>> wrote:

Dear colleagues,

I have mostly been just a lurker on this list, mainly because I have never been to a SHOT conference and don’t know most members in person. This might change next year, as I’m planning to come to Milan.

However, I would like to announce the release of my book Gaming the Iron Curtain: How Teenagers and Amateurs in Communist Czechoslovakia Claimed the Medium of Computer Games.

The book tells a social history of computer games in 1980s Czechoslovakia in seven chapters, starting with technology policies and hardware manufacturing, and ending with activist games about the 1988-89 demonstrations that led up to the Velvet Revolution. Along the way, I peek into paramilitary youth clubs, arcades on wheels, and bedrooms and kitchens of computer enthusiasts. I also dicuss informal software distribution, gaming fanzines, DIY joysticks, illegal arcade machine manufacturing, ports and conversions, and some very local computer game genres. I’m hoping the book will be of interest not only to game scholars, but also to historians of computing and technology in general. Also, it has cool photos!

The book is coming out December 18 with MIT Press in the Game Histories series: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/gaming-iron-curtain<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmitpress.mit.edu%2Fbooks%2Fgaming-iron-curtain&data=01%7C01%7Cbbwalker%40unr.edu%7Cb79cae5316434663d42708d65ae08a4d%7C523b4bfc0ebd4c03b2b96f6a17fd31d8%7C1&sdata=C2IrV9Bn0dr8PauSUvCOAqiOwy3UZY0mPqBWsggZl4Y%3D&reserved=0>

If you’d like to ask for a review copy, please contact David Ryman at MIT Press: dryman at mit.edu<mailto:dryman at mit.edu>

Best,

Jaroslav

An official summary follows:

================================================

GAMING THE IRON CURTAIN

How Teenagers and Amateurs in Communist Czechoslovakia

Claimed the Medium of Computer Games

Jaroslav Švelch

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/gaming-iron-curtain<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmitpress.mit.edu%2Fbooks%2Fgaming-iron-curtain&data=01%7C01%7Cbbwalker%40unr.edu%7Cb79cae5316434663d42708d65ae08a4d%7C523b4bfc0ebd4c03b2b96f6a17fd31d8%7C1&sdata=C2IrV9Bn0dr8PauSUvCOAqiOwy3UZY0mPqBWsggZl4Y%3D&reserved=0>

================================================

Summary

------------------

Aside from the exceptional history of Tetris, very little is known about gaming culture behind the Iron Curtain. But despite the scarcity of home computers and the absence of hardware and software markets, Czechoslovakia hosted a remarkably active DIY microcomputer scene in the 1980s, producing more than two hundred games that were by turns creative, inventive, and politically subversive. In Gaming the Iron Curtain, Jaroslav Švelch offers the first social history of gaming and game design in 1980s Czechoslovakia, and the first book-length treatment of computer gaming in any country of the Soviet bloc.

Švelch describes how amateur programmers in 1980s Czechoslovakia discovered games as a medium, using them not only for entertainment but also as a means of self-expression. Sheltered in state-supported computer clubs, local programmers fashioned games into a medium of expression that, unlike television or the press, was neither regulated nor censored. In the final years of Communist rule, Czechoslovak programmers were among the first in the world to make activist games about current political events, anticipating trends observed decades later in independent or experimental titles. Drawing from extensive interviews as well as political, economic, and social history, Gaming the Iron Curtain tells a compelling tale of gaming the system, introducing us to individuals who used their ingenuity to be active, be creative, and be heard.

------------------

Jaroslav Švelch, Ph.D.
New media and digital games scholar (http://svelch.com<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsvelch.com&data=01%7C01%7Cbbwalker%40unr.edu%7Cb79cae5316434663d42708d65ae08a4d%7C523b4bfc0ebd4c03b2b96f6a17fd31d8%7C1&sdata=MHUGRAafSpv19Hii1iuvkdbANGMphGfjDJSahVXCtiE%3D&reserved=0>)
Postdoctoral fellow, University of Bergen
Games and Transgressive Aesthetics project: http://gta.b.uib.no/<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fgta.b.uib.no%2F&data=01%7C01%7Cbbwalker%40unr.edu%7Cb79cae5316434663d42708d65ae08a4d%7C523b4bfc0ebd4c03b2b96f6a17fd31d8%7C1&sdata=LYw8bYRrlxNK6js03l3aVD0fSCmep6diUs%2FZ%2F7O5iM8%3D&reserved=0>
Assistant professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague (on leave)
________________________________________________________
My book GAMING THE IRON CURTAIN: How Teenagers and Amateurs in Communist Czechoslovakia Claimed the Medium of Computer Games
Coming out December 2018 with MIT Press, https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/gaming-iron-curtain<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmitpress.mit.edu%2Fbooks%2Fgaming-iron-curtain&data=01%7C01%7Cbbwalker%40unr.edu%7Cb79cae5316434663d42708d65ae08a4d%7C523b4bfc0ebd4c03b2b96f6a17fd31d8%7C1&sdata=C2IrV9Bn0dr8PauSUvCOAqiOwy3UZY0mPqBWsggZl4Y%3D&reserved=0>

Phone: +420 773 988 425

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--

Benjamin Peters

Associate Professor, Media Studies, the University of Tulsa

Affiliated Fellow, the Information Society Project, Yale Law School

Recent books on the (2018 Computer History Museum & 2017 Vucinich Prizes) Soviet Internet<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FHow-Not-Network-Nation-Information%2Fdp%2F0262034182%2F&data=01%7C01%7Cbbwalker%40unr.edu%7Cb79cae5316434663d42708d65ae08a4d%7C523b4bfc0ebd4c03b2b96f6a17fd31d8%7C1&sdata=D9ljjChLNq0aIdnJkxdAu1TdMvzmUUGOwxo7bJdCNBs%3D&reserved=0> and Digital Keywords<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Famzn.to%2F1ToHD4v&data=01%7C01%7Cbbwalker%40unr.edu%7Cb79cae5316434663d42708d65ae08a4d%7C523b4bfc0ebd4c03b2b96f6a17fd31d8%7C1&sdata=u94q8AfQ8Dg3DUIIBw8Y8t2dR%2F9B8Tc8uqaBj2ofM1Q%3D&reserved=0>

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