Carly A. Kocurek, PhD - Games, Scholarship, Media

Casual Thinking. Serious Gaming.



About Carly A. Kocurek

Carly Kocurek head shotI am an American cultural historian and media studies scholar with an interest in digital humanities. My research focuses on the history and cultural practices of video gaming. I am particularly interested in how video gaming intersects with gender.
My current project is a cultural history of the Games for Girls Movement, drawn from oral history interviews, company and game developer records, consumer and trade magazines, and other sources. I have also written about misogyny and sexism in contemporary gaming practices, the history of U.S. video game policy, and the emergence of violence as a key thematic concern in video gaming.

Currently, I serve as Associate Professor of Digital Humanities and Media Studies in the Humanities Department at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. I am also a regional director for the Learning Games Initiative.

And, in case you’re interested in my intellectual biography, I completed an M.A. and Ph.D. in American Studies and a doctoral portfolio in Cultural Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where I worked under Elizabeth S.D. Engelhardt, who is now at UNC. As an undergraduated, I double-majored in English and History at Rice University.