Hi! I’m Laine, and I'm a computer and video game historian at New York University. You can read more about what I do in my bio.

As COVID-19 spreads across the United States, many of us have been experiencing greater of hours at home in an effort to participate in social distancing. In light of that, I thought I could help share a little distraction, entertainment, and education with folks interested in my areas of research. I have a deep backlog of talks I’ve given over the years, so I gathered some up to create a little lecture series.

All these talks are scholarly but accessible to a general audience. I even think home-schooled high schoolers with an interest in these topics would be able to enjoy these talks. The first two on my schedule are especially accessible – – they were written several years ago for a series of public history nights at a bar in Brooklyn.

With the exception of my talk on April 10, all talks will broadcast at 1 PM EST on my Twitch stream: www.twitch.tv/sierra_offline. My talk on April 10 will be hosted by the ITP program at NYU, presumably on Zoom. Follow me on Twitter for updates.

Every talk will be followed by Q/A with the chat! Please feel free to share this broadly. I’ll see you on Twitch.

March 27:            Who Invented the First Video Game? Who Cares, Nerd.
April 3:                 How the Computer Became Personal
April 10:               Prehistories of the Personal
April 17:               TAKING THE WEEK OFF
April 24:               “The Computerized Home of Tomorrow”
May 1:               Computer Bodies
May 8:                  Divide and Conquer: Game Engines and the Division of Labor
May 15:                  On Footwork: Finding the “Local” in Video Game History

March 27: Who Invented the First Video Game? Who Cares, Nerd.
A short 15 minute talk offering a quick history of multiple “firsts” in the history of games. Intended for an audience with no in-depth knowledge of game history.

April 3: How the Computer Became Personal
A short 15 minute talk about how we might rethink but a history of the “personal” in personal computing could look like. Intended for an audience with no in-depth knowledge of the history of computing.

April 10: Prehistories of the Personal
A 30 - 40 minute talk covering four historical dynamics in the computing industry that converged in the development of the first personal computers: data processing and interaction, miniaturization, individual ownership, and profit-seeking. A more explicitly scholarly talk based on the first chapter of my current book project, How the Computer Became Personal: The Apple II and the Rise of US Microcomputing. This is a guest lecturer I’d originally agreed to do for the ITP program at NYU, and will instead be presenting online.

April 24: “The Computerized Home of Tomorrow”: Xanadu and the American Fantasy of Privitized Living
A 20 minute talk about the Xanadu homes, a set of experimental “computerized” homes from the 1980s. Originally given at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference a few years ago.

May 1: Computer Bodies
A 15 – 20 minute talk about the early history of ergonomics and personal computing; an account of computing history told as a history of computer-related bodily pain. Originally written for a public series focused on the intersection of art and technology.

May 8: Divide and Conquer: Game Engines and the Division of Labor
A 40 minute talk analyzing the development history and application of one of the earliest graphical game engines, Sierra’s adventure game interpreter. This talk makes the argument that the engine had a dramatic impact on both puzzle design and the division of labor at the company, in ways that are still visible in the contemporary game industry.

May 15: On Footwork: Finding the “Local” in Video Game History
Video game history is usually told as a tale of nations. But what details do we miss in presuming that the video game industry operated consistently at a nationwide scale? This talk surveys my work doing archival research and oral history in the hyper local context of Sierra On-Line’s rural headquarters in Oakhurst California during the 1980s and 90s.

I'm thrilled to announce the publication of my latest article, "The Uncredited: Work, Women, and the Making of the US Computer Game Industry," now available in the journal Feminist Media Histories. This article is a part of a special issue on feminist video game history, guest edited by Carly Kocurek, and includes articles and interviews by Amanda Phillips, Emma Vossen, Anastasia Salter, TreaAndrea M. Russworm and Samantha Blackmon, Phillip Penix-Tadsen, and Alenda Y. Chang (whose interview with Muriel Tramis, a Martinique game designer who worked at the Sierra subsidiary Coktel Vision, may also be of interest to Sierra fans).

I consider this work an intellectual and spiritual sequel to the first article I ever published, "A Pedestal, A Table, A Love Letter: Archaeologies of Gender in Videogame History," in Game Studies, December 2013. I think this piece illustrates my growth as a historian--a deepening of my engagement with my subject matter, and the centering of labor and political economy within my historical practice. 

I will be giving a version of this talk at the Game Developer's Conference 2020, happening in March.

Please enjoy. 

At the request of Twitter chatter, I'm posting my syllabus for my undergrad NYU class Video Games: Culture and Industry, which I teach as a course on the political economy of the industry. Scroll all the way down for the reading list!