In this Q&A, Professor Michael Call explains the why behind a new initiative to provide humanities perspectives to video games
Humanities professors Michael Call and Brian Croxall have introduced a new video gaming initiative to BYU’s campus. With the support of the College of Humanities, students gather each Monday at 4:00 p.m. in the Humanities Learning Commons for a short faculty lecture about the video game of the week. The game is then available to play throughout the week. Beginning with Stardew Valley and Minecraft, the highlighted games and analyses are continuing through the semester.
“What I have finally learned to embrace is how video games are just as complicated, just as immersive, and just as beautiful as poetry, paintings, the Parthenon, or people,” Croxall said in a Humanities Center post. “Why play games? Why on earth wouldn’t we?”
In the following Q&A, University Communications writer Sharman Gill asks Call about the academic roots of the current video game initiative and its role at BYU.
Q: You are a 17th century French art and literature scholar. What led you to develop a university course centered on video games?
A: Strangely enough, there is a connection between my work on 17th century France and my course on video games! One of the landmark human achievements to come out of the era was the development of quantitative probability, launched by the correspondence of Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat, two French mathematicians, in 1654. A lot of my recent work has focused on the cultural impact of that discovery, since it revolutionized so many aspects of life: the measurement of risk, insurance, annuities, interest rates, life expectancy, and yes, gaming. Studying the changing state of games and play in 17th century French society got me interested in the role that games play in our own current cultural moment.
Q: What led you and Dr. Croxall to develop the weekly lecture and gaming series? What are the underlying motivations and goals?
A: Dr. Croxall and I both feel that there’s a large disparity between the cultural importance of video games (particularly in the lives of our students) and how much video games are studied or discussed on campus. I would suggest that this gap is larger for video games than for any other creative medium. Our students are eager to talk about and think about them, but it didn’t seem to us that there was a good forum for that — and that’s why we created the lecture series. We also thought it would be a great way to introduce students to some of the approaches and concepts that are important for the humanities. Every week, you have professors who are trained in literary studies, philosophy, the visual arts, or film bringing some of those terms, techniques, and theorization to video games. It’s an exciting interdisciplinary moment for us.
Q: Why do video game studies belong in the College of Humanities?
A: The humanities are about human expression and creativity. Our college already has a lively tradition of studying the human experience as expressed in literature, visual art, and film. Video games represent a new medium, one that is starting to contribute in interesting ways to this ongoing cultural conversation. Studying a video game from a humanities perspective means asking some of the same questions of it that we would ask of a novel or a painting: what meaning does it express or what arguments does it make? How does it contribute to broader discussions about contemporary issues? As a humanities professor, I’m fascinated by the idea that I’m living at a moment when I can watch the birth and development of a new form of human expression. That’s a rare historical privilege.
Q: How do you decide which games to feature in the Humanities Learning Commons?
A: In this inaugural series, we’ve left that largely up to the discretion of our generous colleagues — professors in the College of Humanities who are bright and inquisitive people. We were eager to see what games were of interest to them and to hear them talk about them. It’s been fascinating to see the connections between their expertise and the games that they chose to discuss.
Q: What are the individual and social benefits of video gaming?
A: Some studies have argued that games can provide significant cognitive, emotional, and social benefits. If you’re going in for a surgery, for example, you might cross your fingers that your surgeon is a gamer, since there have been studies showing that doctors who play perform better than those who don’t. Players of the puzzle video game Portal 2 performed as well or better on cognitive tests than people who used apps that claimed to train your brain. One of my favorite studies, co-authored right here at BYU, showed the emotional benefit when dads play video games with their daughters. The social benefits of video games tend to be strongest when people are playing in physical proximity with others that they know. I should add as a caution that studies also show that many of these benefits taper off or disappear entirely if you’re playing more than three hours a day on average.
Q: What counsel would you give to people who may struggle with addictions or social isolation associated with gaming?
A: I’m not a licensed mental health professional and so my first suggestion for anyone whose gaming is causing them distress is to seek out good professional help. Two excellent counselors have generously volunteered to come to my class and talk about their work in this area. They have encouraged my students to be mindful and self-reflexive regarding what human needs they are attempting to fill through their gaming. Everyone needs leisure time and recreation, but it is important to see if there might be other (and potentially more effective) ways to address those needs, particularly if gaming is preventing someone from reaching their long-term goals.
Q: Would you please comment on some ways that video game studies align with BYU’s unique intellectual, spiritual, and service mission?
A: As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have a rich heritage that allows us to be thoughtful and balanced in our approach to entertainment and the arts. Our pioneer forebears embraced forms of entertainment that other Christian denominations at the time considered scandalous: fiddle music, dancing, or the theater (the original Salt Lake theater, constructed in 1862, was the finest structure of its kind from the Mississippi to San Francisco). Like other forms of entertainment and communication, video games allow us to exercise our moral agency as we search for that which is “virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy.” Just as we would neither label all literature as inherently sinful nor state that every novel is worth our time, video games call for discernment and choice.
Q: Do you have a favorite video game? Why?
A: One game that will always have a special place in my heart is Star Wars Battlefront 2 (the classic one from 2005, not the EA version from 2017). In early 2006, my third son (just five months old) was diagnosed with cancer. After learning the details about the upcoming chemo treatments, my wife and I realized that we would be splitting a lot of time over the next few months, with one of us up at Primary Children’s Hospital and the other at home taking care of our other two young boys. It was a frightening time and also an isolating one for our family — the chemo made our son immunocompromised, so we couldn’t have other people over at the house. I went out and bought an Xbox, several controllers, and Star Wars Battlefront 2, and when it was my turn to be at home, while my wife and baby were at the hospital, my two boys and I would play that game into the ground, always on the same team, escaping into a “galaxy far, far away.” I am grateful to that game for providing respite and an opportunity for family bonding, a connection that was all the sweeter a few years later when my son, now cancer-free, was able to play as the fourth member of our family team.
