Engaging Play (DHSI 2026)

Description

This class provides students with hands on experience with games and their uses in the humanities classroom. The focus of our course is to learn how games are structured, how they function and how they can become an integral part of a humanities curriculum. Participants will learn to use Twine and incorporate game narratives into their own classes. Taught by Jeffrey Lawler and Sean Smith, co-directors of the Center for the History of Video Games, Technology and Critical Play, the course covers a variety of topics such as game theory and questions that games, including tabletops and video games, raise within humanities disciplines.

Instructor(s)

Sean Smith is a full-time lecturer of U.S. history at California State University, Long Beach. He is the Co-Director of The Center for History of Video Games & Critical Play (criticalplay.org). He writes about video games, digital history,

Jeffrey Lawler is co-director of the Center for the History of Video Games, Technology and Critical Play at California State University, Long Beach, where he is a full-time lecturer. Current research examines arcades as radicalized leisure spaces in Los Angeles County in the 1970s and 80s. Recent publications include “The Historical Environment as Aged Icon in the Gamed West,” in Comparative American Studies, and the forthcoming chapter “Imagining the Other: Historical Possibilities and Teaching American History with Twine,” to be published in EnTwine: A Critical and Creative Companion to Teaching with Twine.

Click here for an example of previous syllabus and course material (2025)