Monmouth University is pleased to announce that Dr. Harry Brown will give the lecture “Killer Apps: Videogames and the War on Terror” on Thursday, February 9 at 4:30 p.m. in Wilson Hall Auditorium. The presentation is free and open to the public.
Harry J. Brown is an associate professor of English at DePauw University, where he teaches American literature and culture. His recent book, Videogames and Education (2008), models critical thinking about videogames as a new art form and a new kind of public speech, and proposes ways that educators can use videogames as a new kind tool for thinking critically about the larger world.
Dr. Brown explains that videogames have become a window through which we see modern war. Since the Gulf War, new military technology, specifically smart bombs and gun cameras, have influenced game design and the representation of war in digital media. Conscientiously designed and critiqued, they can teach us to see the world differently and to understand global conflict from new perspectives. If they can train us to become detached from others and to kill, then they can also train us to empathize with others and to connect with them. As teachers, we should not miss the potential for videogames to shape young peoples’ thinking about gravely important issues like democracy, violence, and war. As critical thinkers, however, we should resist uncritical, emotional responses that propaganda compels, subjecting these games to the rhetorical analysis of what they say and what they do not.
The presentation is sponsored by the Wayne D. McMurray School of Humanities and Social Sciences Distinguished Speakers Series.
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Media contact: Petra Ludwig at 732-263-5507