About Carly A. Kocurek

I 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.