by Chloë Moore ’24
On Wednesday, March 20th, Old Main 4 filled with the chatter of our regular crowd of English-y friends as well as some fresh faces from the Computer Science department, as we gathered to hear from Professor Jim Dawes about the wonderful world of video games. Prof. Dawes is currently co-teaching Video Games: Coding and Narrative, which is cross-listed between the English and CS departments. The free-flowing Literary Salon expanded the conversation around video games, inviting both seasoned players and total newbs (noobs?!) to take part.
We began with hearing about the games everyone was familiar with, which ranged from the Mario suite to first-person shooters, narrative-based indie games to Animal Crossing, horror games to Club Penguin, Minecraft to RPG. With that as a starting point, it was clear that underneath the umbrella of games there was a genre for almost everyone.
Prof. Dawes led a lively discussion about the merit of video games, their common features, and their relationship to work and business. At their best, video games are exemplary of human connection, community, and collaboration. They can be vehicles for beautiful art, engaging narratives, and diverse learning opportunities. It was lovely to have a space for popular media to be taken seriously and to have interests that are traditionally considered “non academic” given real consideration. Thank you to Professor Dawes for leading the discussion, and to so many wonderful students for turning out and participating!