When Moons Collide: The Guild and the Academic Department

Andrew Phelps

Wed., June 10, 2:00–3:00, Main Lounge (2nd floor, Central)

This conversation is predicated on the academic need, research, and mission of the formation of the Department of Interactive Games & Media at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and how the justification and eminent emergence of this department has changed the culture of the faculty connected to its birth. The focus and intellectual meat of the conversation is the degree to which the faculty and administration of this new department can (or should) operate as an instance of “gamer culture”, and to what degree it can utilize the norms, conventions, and even technical tools of guilds, game-groups, and online play. Indeed, what does it mean to populate an academic department entirely, and at the outset, with researchers who are studying the way groups play and interact within games, online communities, and interactive media? And how (or should) this new and dynamic group establish, adopt, and/or cultivate a set of game-like cultural practices both internally and in its operations and interactions with the rest of academia at various levels?