Book Launch: Getting a Life + Playing with Feelings

House of TARG, 1077 Bank Street, Ottawa, ON
View Larger Map ›

Join Benjamin Woo and Aubrey Anable for arcade games and pierogies at House of TARG to celebrate the publication of Getting a Life: The Social Worlds of Geek Culture (Woo) and Playing with Feelings: Video Games and Affect (Anable).

This event is generously supported by the School for Studies in Art and Culture, the Institute of Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture, the School of Journalism and Communication, and the Office of the Dean of the Faculty of Public Affairs.

Getting a Life recentres our understanding of geek culture on the everyday lives of its participants, drawing on fieldwork in comic book shops, game stores, and conventions, including in-depth interviews with ordinary members of the overlapping communities of fans and enthusiasts. Benjamin Woo shows how geek culture is a set of interconnected social practices that are associated with popular media.

In Playing with Feelings, scholar Aubrey Anable applies affect theory to game studies, arguing that video games let us “rehearse” feelings, states, and emotions that give new tones and textures to our everyday lives and interactions with digital devices. Rather than thinking about video games as an escape from reality, Anable demonstrates how video games—their narratives, aesthetics, and histories—have been intimately tied to our emotional landscape since the emergence of digital computers.

Benjamin Woo is assistant professor of communication and media studies at Carleton University.

Aubrey Anable is assistant professor of film studies at Carleton University.

[Click image to enlarge]