Saramanda Swigart

Saramanda Swigart is a video game enthusiast whose father was an early pioneer of interactive storytelling. He wrote game scripts for Activision and served as an editor for a games journal. Some of her earliest and happiest memories are of game-playing and discussing the creation and impact of games with her dad. Game-playing, reading, and considerations about politics and power have never been separate activities for her, and her interdisciplinary scholarship reflects this philosophy, focusing on the intimate connection between video games, global politics, and culture. Because video game studies is a relatively new field, there is still a lot to discover, and she looks forward to exploring it with you in this class! She plays a variety of genres but is drawn to games that explore ethical choice, pose provocative problems, or just provide beautiful dynamic spaces that reward discovery: She loves getting lost in an open world.