Past Event! Note: this event has already taken place.
Video Games and Popular Culture: Lecture and Workshop
September 22, 2016 — September 23, 2016
| Location: | Workshop- 4114 of the River Building Lecture- A720 Loeb Building |
| Cost: | Free |
On September 22 and 23, the Communication Studies program, Carleton University, will welcome Dr. Michael Z. Newman, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Journalism, Advertising and Media Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for a lecture and workshop as part of our annual Speaker’s Series. Dr. Newman’s profile and selected publications can be found here
Workshop: On September 22nd, Dr. Newman will lead a workshop for graduate students entitled, “Historiography of New Media as Popular Culture”. In this workshop Dr. Newman will meet with graduate students to discuss research methods in media history. The workshop will focus on rediscovering media from the time when they were new, considering them as once-unfamiliar texts or artifacts and as forms of everyday popular culture aimed at consumers. It will engage with questions of what constitutes an archive, and what counts as a source. Participants are encouraged to bring their own project ideas for discussion.
The workshop will take place from 1230-1400 in room 4114 of the River Building. (If you are interested in attending the workshop, please contact Prof. Ira Wagman (ira.wagman@carleton.ca)
Lecture: On September 23rd, Dr. Newman will give a lecture entitled “The Atari Age: The Emergence of Video Games in America.” Here is a brief abstract: During their decade of emergence — from 1972, when Pong was introduced, to the height of Pac-Man Fever in 1982 — the new medium of video games was understood in contradictory ways. Would video games embody middle-class legitimacy or reflect the lingering disrepute of pinball arcades? Were they a new, participatory use for television or an intensification of television’s power? Would they foster family togetherness or allow boys to escape from domesticity? Would they make the new home computer a tool for education or a potentially wasteful toy? In this talk Dr. Newman will chart the emergence of video games in America from ball-and-paddle games to hits like Space Invaders and Pac-Man, describing their relationship to other amusements and technologies and showing how they came to be identified with the middle class, youth, and masculinity.
The lecture will take place from 1500-1630 in Room A720 of the Loeb Building.