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Video Games and Religious Studies

The project of legitimating new cultural commodities into the canon of interpretative objects can be lengthy process. In this interview with University of North Carolina at Greensboro Associate Professor Greg Grieve, video games are presented as a content moving from the margins to the center of the intersection of religion and popular culture.

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Featuring

Greg Grieve

David McConeghy

About this episode

The project of legitimating new cultural commodities into the canon of interpretative objects can be lengthy process. In this interview with University of North Carolina at Greensboro Associate Professor Greg Grieve, video games are presented as a content moving from the margins to the center of the intersection of religion and popular culture. Grieve explains how he integrates play and critical analysis into his course, and narrates the process by which his university’s library created a space to support his innovative classroom work.

invented religions, allow users to create and experience virtual religious spaces, and much more. Students often come to video games in need to critical tools to move beyond play to critical thinking with/about games, but Grieve’s laboratory methods create miniature experimental situations for students to assess gaming content alongside the gaming experience. Like many other technical tools, games in the classroom require not just some elements of hardware but also new techniques, methods, and theoretical models. This is challenging, yes, but in Greive’s opinion the hurdles are well-worth the results: invested students, powerful classroom experiences, and content that is as diverse and rich as any other popular culture materials.

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This interview was recorded at the 2015 AAR Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.

**We are aware that the audio quality this week is not up to our usual standards, but we hope that the content of the interview more than makes up for this. Apologies.** 

Listeners may also be interested in our previous podcasts on Invented Religions, Religion and Film, Religion and Literature, Visual Culture and the Study of Religion, Religion and Comic Books, and Religion and Cultural Production. You might also be interested in the article Locating the Locus of Study on “Religion” in Video Games, written by our own Jonathan Tuckett and David Robertson. You can download this interview, and subscribe to receive our weekly podcast, on iTunes. If you enjoyed it, please take a moment to rate us . And remember, you can use our Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, or Amazon.ca links to support us at no additional cost when buying academic texts, video games, indulgences, and more.

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Responses to this episode
February 18, 2016

Playing the Field: the Logistics of Religion and Video Game Studies

By studying only video games, we impede ourselves and the progress which can be made; there are many aspects of video games which are affecting other elements of popular culture. The field of religion and video games is still new and forming. In its struggle to find itself, it simultaneously competes with a university’s traditional understanding of both education and culture, often involving Gregory Price Grieve’s comment that video games are perceived as “low brow” culture.

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