HIST 390: The Digital Past

HIST 390-001: The Digital Past: The History of Video Games, Video Games in History
(Fall 2022)

01:30 PM to 02:45 PM TR

Buchanan Hall D023

Section Information for Fall 2022

From early scenario-based games like Oregon Trail to the text-based adventure games of the 1980s, the Civilization game series which was released starting in the 1990s, to current sophisticated games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, video games have always engaged with the past. Similarly, video games themselves have an important and complex history which incorporates the development of the internet, increasingly powerful personal computers and game systems, to recent developments in Artificial Intelligence. This course, which satisfies the University’s IT requirement, examines the history of video games and how video games engage with and represent the past. The course will engage with history using digital methods while also teaching the fundamentals of information technology and digital information including storage, retrieval, and ethics. Students can expect to become informed digital citizens by doing research, navigating archives, and constructing arguments using a digital toolkit. Students will also experiment with and play online video games and envision how history can be interpreted and experienced in this medium.

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Course Information from the University Catalog

Credits: 3

Teaches the fundamentals of information technology within the context of a history course. Students learn fundamentals and skills as well as how our society became so enamored of and dependent on these knowledge and information tools. Understanding a new technology requires understanding how new technologies transform the societies that embrace them. Emphasizes the use of free and open-source software whenever possible. Limited to three attempts.
Mason Core: Info Tech & Computing
Schedule Type: Lecture
Grading:
This course is graded on the Undergraduate Regular scale.

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