A Brief History of Games and Video Games (and Why They Matter)
A continental breakfast will be available at 9:15; attendees must be seated by 9:30.
Talk Overview:
Where did games and video games come from and why are they important? Why do we play them and why is play important to us? This talk will explore the histories of both analog (e.g. board and card) and digital/video games and explore the roles that they continue to perform in our everyday lives.
Biography:
Chris Hanson is an Associate Professor of Film and Screen Studies in the English Department at Syracuse University. He was selected as a Spring 2026 Syracuse University Humanities Center Faculty Fellow and previously was an Autonomous Systems Policy Institute (ASPI) Faculty Fellow in the Arts and Humanities at Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in 2024-2025. He is the author of Game Time: Understanding Temporality in Video Games (Indiana University Press, 2018) and his current book projects focus on early digital game history and game designer Roberta Williams. His work has appeared in the Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, How to Play Video Games, The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Film Quarterly, Exploring Imaginary Worlds, and The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds. He previously worked in the video game and software industries and received his MA and PhD in Critical Studies at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.
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