Alumnus to Discuss Competitive Gaming April 4 at Newhouse

Wednesday, April 2, 2014, By Wendy S. Loughlin

The Communications Department Research Colloquium in the Newhouse School will host Todd Harper G’06 on 10:30 a.m. Friday, April 4, in Room 141 Newhouse 3. Harper, a researcher at the MIT Game Lab, will present “Play as Practice and Performance in Competitive Gaming.”

Harper’s current research focuses on competitive communities, such as e-sports and their cultural norms, and queer and gender representation and issues in gaming culture.

He was the product owner of “A Closed World,” a student-made game for research exploring the challenges of including queer-relevant content in digital game design, which was an Indiecade finalist in 2012. He is also the author of “The Culture of Digital Fighting Games: Performance and Practice” (Routledge, 2013), a book exploring the norms and culture of competitive fighting games.

He is a graduate of Newhouse’s media studies program, and earned a Ph.D. at Ohio University.

For more information about his talk, contact Carol Liebler at 315-443-2448 or cmlieble@syr.edu.