Courses/Teaching

This course taught at Princeton University is an anthropological and experience-based exploration of video games and race. In it we review scholarship from Digital Anthropology, Game Studies, and African American Studies to scrutinize the design of games and engage in gameplay, with a particular focus on Black experiences within U.S. and Japanese media. Throughout the course, we examine how video games utilize race, advancing an intersectional approach that accounts for class, gender, and sexuality. To achieve this, attendees of this course also take a mandatory trip to Tokyo, Japan, to better understand how Black culture appears and influences video games globally.

(Image taken from IGN)

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, human experience has become heavily defined by our digital/virtual interactions. From Zoom calls and classes online to meeting up with friends in magical lands in video games, we have come to rely on digital technologies in ways rarely seen in the past. But how does one go about understanding our new digital condition? And how might one develop research around the many virtual worlds that have come to exist? This course is an anthropological exploration of the history of human interaction with the internet, social media, virtual worlds, and other forms of digital existence. (Image from Final Fantasy XIV)