James Paul Gee

Biography

James Paul Gee is the Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy at Arizona State University, and formerly held the position of the Tashia Morgridge Professor of Reading at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He received his PhD in linguistics in 1975 from Stanford University and has published widely in linguistics and education. His book Sociolinguistics and Literacies (1990) was one of the founding documents in the formation of the “New Literacies Studies”, an interdisciplinary field devoted to studying language, learning, and literacy in an integrated way in the full range of their cognitive, social, and cultural contexts. His book An Introduction to Discourse Analysis (1999) brings together his work on a methodology for studying communication in its cultural settings, an approach that has been widely influential over the last two decades. His most recent books both deal with videogames and learning. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (2003) offers 36 reasons why good videogames produce better learning conditions than many of today’s schools. Situated Language and Learning (2004) places videogames within an overall theory of learning and literacy and shows how they can help us to better understand deep human learning and lead us in thinking about the reform of schools. His latest book, Why Video Games Are Good For Your Soul, shows how good videogames marry pleasure and learning and have the capacity to empower people.

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