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T.L.Taylor
Associate Professor
IT University of Copenhagen
Center for Computer Games Research
Rued Langgaards Vej 7, 2300 Copenhagen, Denmark
+45 7218 5035 (tele) / +45 7218 5001 (fax)
tltaylor@itu.dk
Education
Ph.D., Sociology, Brandeis University, 2000. Dissertation: Living Digitally: Embodiment in Virtual Environments.
M.A., Sociology, Brandeis University, 1997.
B.A., Sociology, University of California at Berkeley, 1990. Graduated with university and departmental honors.
Published Work
Playing for Keeps: The Rise of Professional Computer Gaming. Manuscript under preparation, The MIT Press.
Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method. Co-authored with T. Boellstorff, B. Nardi, and C. Pearce. Manuscript under preparation, Princeton University Press.
Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture. The MIT Press, March 2006.
Articles
“Ethnography as Play”, under preparation.
“The Assemblage of Play”, Games and Culture, vol. 4, no. 4, 331-339, 2009. (Correction to text: This piece was funded by the MacArthur Foundation.)
“Beyond Management: Considering Participatory Design and Governance in Player Culture”, First Monday, October 2006.
“Does WoW Change Everything?: How a PvP Server, Multinational Playerbase, and Surveillance Mod Scene Caused Me Pause,” Games & Culture, v. 1 n. 4, October 2006.
“Boundary Spaces: Majestic and the Uncertain Status of Knowledge, Community, and Self in a Digital Age” with Beth Kolko, Information, Communication & Society, vol.6, no.4, pp.497-522, 2003.
“The Sopranos Meets EverQuest: Socialization Processes in Massively Multiuser Games” with Mikael Jakobsson, FineArt Forum, Vol. 17, Issue 8, August 2003.
“Multiple Pleasures: Women and Online Gaming,” Convergence, Vol. 9, No.1, 21-46, Spring 2003.
“Intentional Bodies: Virtual Environments and the Designers Who Shape Them,” International Journal of Engineering Education, Vol.19, No.1, 25-34, 2003.
“Life in Virtual Worlds: Plural Existence, Multi-modalities, and Other Online Research Challenges,” American Behavioral Scientist, Vol.43, No.3, 435-449, 1999.
Book Chapters
“Internet & Games” in M. Consalvo, C. Ess, R. Burnett (eds.) The Blackwell Handbook of Internet Studies, Blackwell Publishing, forthcoming.
“Becoming a Player: Networks, Structures, and Imagined Futures” in Y. Kafai, C. Heeter, J. Denner, and J. Sun (eds.) Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat: New Perspectives on Gender, Games, and Computing, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2008.
“Does WoW Change Everything?: How a PvP Server, Multinational Playerbase, and Surveillance Mod Scene Caused Me Pause” in J. Walker and H. Corneliussen (eds.) Digital Culture, Play, and Identity: A World of Warcraft Reader, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2008. **Note: Abbreviated version of my Games & Culture article listed above.
“Pushing the Borders: Player Participation and Game Culture” in J. Karaganis (ed.), Network_Netplay: Structures of Participation in Digital Culture, New York: Social Science Research Council, 2007.
“Power Gamers Just Want To Have Fun?: Instrumental Play In A MMOG,” (revised Danish translation) in I. Engholm & L. Klastrup (eds.), Digital Communication & Design, Denmark: Gyldendal, 2004. **Note: Originally published in M. Copier and J. Raessens (eds.), Level Up Games Conference Proceedings. Utrecht: Universiteit Utrecht , 2003.
“The Social Design of Virtual Worlds: Constructing the User and Community Through Code” in M. Consalvo et. al. (eds.), Internet Research Annual Volume 1: Selected Papers from the Association of Internet Researchers Conferences 2000-2002. New York: Peter Lang, 2004.
“Living Digitally: Embodiment in Virtual Worlds” in R. Schroeder (ed.), The Social Life of Avatars: Presence and Interaction in Shared Virtual Environments. London: Springer-Verlag, 2002.
Conference Papers & Proceedings
“This is How We Play It: What a Mega-LAN Can Teach Us About Games,” co-authored with Emma Witkowski, Foundations of Digital Games, Monterey, CA, June 2010.
“Unruly Play, History Lessons, and a Call for Non-Dichotomous Models,” State of Play II, October 2004.
“‘Whose Game Is This Anyway?’”: Negotiating Corporate Ownership in a Virtual World” in F. Mäyrä (ed.), Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings. Tampere: Tampere University Press, 2002. **Note: The request to contact before citation can be disregarded.
Book Reviews
“Playful Research and the Serious Study of Multiplayer Games.” A review of Torill Mortensen’s Pleasures of the Player: Flow and Control in Online Games. Norsk Medietidsskrift, ≈rg 12, Nr 4, 2005.
Review of Sheri Graner Ray’s Gender Inclusive Game Design: Expanding the Market (Hingham: Charles River Media, 2004). Game Research, October 2004.
Review of Dennis Waskul’s Self-Games and Body-Play: Personhood in Online Chat and Cybersex (New York: Peter Lang, 2003). Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 33, No.6, 680-681. 2003.
Review of Tim Jordan’s Cyberpower: The Culture and Politics of Cyberspace and the Internet (London: Routledge, 1999). Contemporary Sociology, Vol.31, No.3, 290-291. 2002.
Reports & Misc.
Regular invited contributor to TerraNova blog, 2003-2005.
Everyday Experiences of Avatar Environments with Nina Wakeford. Commissioned by the University of Southern California’s Integrated Media Systems Center, 2002.
Virtual Environments for Education: Platform Review. Report for the National Science Foundation education and virtual environments grant project at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis, Department of Sociology, 1996.
Teaching Appointments
November 2004 – present. Associate Professor at the Center for Computer Games Research, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
September 2006 – July 2009. Head of the Multimedia Technology and Games MsC study program at the IT University of Copenhagen.
August 2003 – October 2004. Assistant Professor in Digital Aesthetic and Communication, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
2000 – July 2003. Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication, North Carolina State University.
1996 – 1999. Teaching Fellow for the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies, Harvard University.
1995 – 1997. Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts at Boston.
1995. Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Merrimack College.
Research Appointments and Funded Projects
January 2009-June 2009. Visiting scholar, Stanford University, Stanford Humanities Lab.
2004 – 2005. “Values in Game Design”, a component of the ODDPAW (Open-source Design and Development of Persistent gAme Worlds) project with the Center for Computer Games Research, funded through the Danish Forskningsstyrelsen.
2001 – 2002. Researcher (with Nina Wakeford at the University of Surrey’s INCITE Lab) for the “Everyday Experiences of Avatar Environments” project sponsored by USC’s Integrated Media Systems Center.
1999 – 2000. Research affiliate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
1993 – 1999. Research assistant for Professor Sherry Turkle, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Science, Technology and Society.
1996. Consultant on a National Science Foundation education and virtual environments grant project at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis, Department of Sociology.
Invited Keynotes, Presentations, etc.
“Ethnography as Play,” University of Edinburgh, School of Education, May 2010.
“Playing for Keeps: The Rise of Professional Computer Gaming,” Clash of Realities, Cologne, Germany, April 2010.
“Playing for Keeps,” Danish Game Council, March 2010.
“Bricolage, Play, and the Games Researcher,” Roskilde University, September 2009.
“Social Code: Practices, Technology, and Play”, UC Santa Cruz, June 2009.
Living Worlds 2008, Georgia Tech, December 2008.
Network Culture Project workshop, Univeristy of Southern California, July 2008.
Productive Play workshop, University of California at Irvine, May 2008.
Vetenskapsfestivalen (International Science Festival), Goteborg, April 2008.
“Online Embodiment”, Metaverse U Conference, Stanford, Feb 2008.
“Women, Play, and Games”, LetzPlay, Copenhagen, November 2007.
“Playing for Keeps: The Rise of Pro-Gaming”, DiGRA, Tokyo, September 2007.
“Modded Play: Constructing Collaboration in World of Warcraft” (Keynote) Game in’ Action, Göteborg University, Sweden, June 2007.
Invited commentator, Gamers in Society Seminar, Tampere, Finland, April 2007.
Judge for Nordic Game Jam, Copenhagen, February 2007.
“Play Online,” Prosa, Copenhagen, November 2006.
“The Emergence of Game Culture,” Changing Places of Digi-log Future, Seoul, Korea, November 2006.
“The Playful Researcher,” Virtual Ethnography in Contemporary Social Science Workshop, Amsterdamn, September 2006.
“Reconsidering Emergence,” Interaction in Digital Environments Workshop, Humlab, University of Umeå, Sweden, August 2006.
“A Future for Gender and Computer Game Studies?” (Keynote) Women in Games Conference, University of Teesside, July 2006.
“Play”, Reboot, Copenhagen, June 2006.
“Online Game Culture,” Microsoft Research, Redmond, Washington, May 2006.
Girls ‘n’ Games panel, sponsored by UCLA and final part of Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat workshop, University of California Los Angeles, May 2006.
Judge for USC’s “Reinventing Public Diplomacy Through Games” competition, E3, Los Angeles, May 2006.
“Online Game Culture,” Ericsson, Stockholm, April 2005.
“Beyond Management: Participatory Models for Emergent Player Culture,” Game Lecture Series, ITU, November 2005.
“Beyond the Box,” Computer Game Theory and Practice course, Information and Media Studies, University of Aarhus, October 2005.
“Critical MMOG Studies,” Computer Game Analysis course, Department of Film and Media Studies, Copenhagen University, September 2005.
“Beyond Management: Considering Participatory Design and Governance in Player Culture,” GLS: Games + Learning + Society, University of Wisconsin Madison, June 2005.
“Contemporary Play: How MMOGs Can Inform Game Studies” (Keynote), DiGRA, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver Canada, June 2005.
“Regulated Worlds: On Becoming a Player,” Playful Subjects Symposium, University of the West of England, May 2005.
“Beyond Management: Considering Participatory Design and Governance in Player Culture,” Command Lines: The Emergence of Governance in Global Cyberspace, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, April 2005.
Culture of Play panelist, State of Play II, NYC, October 2004.
Participant for Harvey Mudd NSF-sponsored workshop on gender & computer games, Claremont CA, October 2004.
“It’s What’s Inside That Counts” panelist, Women’s Game Conference, Austin TX, September 2004.
“Methodological Considerations of Structure and Power in Virtual & Game Worlds”, Challenges for Research About Online Communities PhD Workshop, Roskilde University, May 2004.
“Critical MMOG Studies”, University of Oslo, Department of Media and Communication, April 2004.
“Gender and Technology: The Case of EverQuest“, Chalmers University of Technology, Department of Technology and Society, Göteborg, Sweden, March 2004.
“Technology and Social Responsibility”, Institute of Contemporary Art, London, November 2003.
“Women and Gaming”, Department of Film and Media Studies, Copenhagen University, October 2003.
“Taking Games Seriously: An Introduction to Games Research” (with Mikael Jakobsson), Hogaborgsskolan, Simrishamn, Sweden, August 2003.
“Contested Culture: The Challenges of Corporate Ownership in Virtual Worlds,” University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, May 2003.
“Owning Bodies, Owning Culture: Multiuser Games and the Challenge of Commercialization,” Umeå University, Department of Informatics, Umea, Sweden.
“Owning Bodies, Owning Culture: Multiuser Games and the Challenge of Commercialization,” Chalmers University of Technology, Department of Technology and Society, Göteborg, Sweden, June 2002.
“Doing Research Online: Digital Ethnography & Methodological Challenges,” University of Surrey, Department of Sociology and INCITE Lab, January 2002.
Participant for the Research Planning Meeting on Culture, Diversity, and the Internet sponsored by the Social Science Research Council and the Centro Regional de Investigaciones Multidisciplinarias (CRIM), January 2002.
Spoke on the subject of women and gaming for the Women’s and Gender Studies program at North Carolina State University, October 2001.
Spoke on the subject of software and design for the Center for Information Society Studies at North Carolina State University, February 2001.
“Bodies of Code: Software and Values in Virtual Worlds” as part of the “Confronting Convergence: Critical Interventions in New Media” series sponsored by
the Annenberg Center at USC, December 1999.
“Software and Online Embodiment,” University of Illinois Urbana Champaign; co-sponsored by the Beckman Institute and GSLIS, February 1999.
Forum on cyberspace, gender and the body at Boston College, Spring 1994.
Conference Presentations
“E-Sports and Cyberathleticism Workshop: European Edition”, co-organized with Emma Witkowski, May 2010.
Panelist for “Internet Studies: State of the Art”, Association of Internet Researchers conference, October 2009.
“Negotiating Play: The Process of Rule Construction in Professional Computer Gaming,” Digital Games Research Association conference, September 2009.
“E-Sports and Cyberathleticism Workshop”, co-organized with Stanford’s Henry Lowood, Matteo Bittanti, Henrik Bennetsen, and Susan Rojo, May 2009.
“Ethnography as Play”, In The Game pre-conference workshop @ AoIR (co-organizer for workshop with Anne Beaulieu and Marinka Copier), AoIR Copenhagen, October 2008.
Roundtable presentation on pro-gaming, AoIR Copenhagen, October 2008.
“Devices of Our Own Making: Control, Structure, and Law from the Bottom Up”, AoIR, Vancouver, September 2007.
“Bricolage, Play, and the Games Researcher”, 4S, Montreal, September 2007. (“Network Ethnology” session co-organized with Anne Beaulieu.)
Organizer for, and presenter at, panel “Discipline and Punish: The Game”, 4S Conference, Vancouver, November 2006.
Moderator for “Theory and Practice: A Panel on Nordic Gaming Initiatives for Women”, a panel at the Women in Games Conference, July 2006.
Sociology of Digital Games Tutorial at Game Developers Conference, San Francisco, March 2006.
“Thinking Past Pink: Critical Considerations of Women and Gaming”, panel organizer and moderator, Women in Games Conference, University of Abertay, Dundee, Scotland, August 2005.
“The Creation and Institutionalization of Pro-gaming”, Association of Internet Researchers Conference, Sussex, September 2004.
“The Emergence of Professional Gaming”, K3/KUA/ITU Game Studies symposium, Malmo, April 2004.
“Powergamers Don’t Hunt Alone: A Sociological Analysis of Play in Massive Multiplayers” at Level Up, Digital Games Research Association Conference, Utrecht, The Netherlands, November 2003.
“The Sopranos Meets EverQuest: Socialization Processes in Massively Multiuser Games” with Mikael Jakobsson at the AoIR Conference: Internet Research 4.0, Toronto, October 2003.
“The Sopranos Meets EverQuest: Socialization Processes in Massively Multiuser Games” with Mikael Jakobsson at Digital Arts and Culture ::2003::Streaming Wor(l)ds, Melbourne, Australia, May 2003.
“Boundary Spaces: The Majestic Game and the Culture of Simulation” with Beth Kolko at the Society for the Social Studies of Science conference in Milwaukee, November 2002.
“Multiple Pleasures: Women and Online Gaming” at the Association of Internet Researchers conference (Internet Research 3.0: Net / Work / Theory) in Maastricht, Netherlands, October 2002.
“Whose Game Is This Anyway? Negotiating Corporate Ownership in a Virtual World” at the Computer Games and Digital Cultures conference in Tampere, Finland, June 2002.
“Private lives, Corporate holdings: Commercialization and online multiuser environments” at the annual Society for the Social Studies of Science conference, Cambridge, October 2001.
“Popularizing Virtual Reality: The Development of Massively Multiplayer Games” at the annual Association of Internet Researchers conference (INTERconnections), University of Minnesota, October 2001.
“Druids Come in All Shapes: Women and Massive Multiplayer Games” at the Games Culture conference at the University of West England, Bristol, June 2001.
“Performing the Body: Sexuality and Virtual Worlds” at the Sexualities, Medias, and Technologies: Theorizing Old and New Practices conference at the University of Surrey, Guildford, June 2001.
“The Social Dimensions of Virtual Worlds Software” at the Social Dimensions of Engineering Design Workshop at Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, California, May 2001.
“Intentional Bodies: Virtual Environments and the Designers Who Shape Them” at the first annual Association of Internet Researchers conference, September 2000.
“The Wizard Behind the Curtain: Software Designers and Virtual Worlds” at the annual Society for the Social Studies of Science conference, October 1999.
“Digital Materiality: Embodiment in Virtual Spaces” at the annual American Sociological Association conference, August 1999.
Organized and presented at the “Sociology and Anthropology of Virtual Worlds” session for the Avatars ’98 Conference sponsored by the Contact Consortium, November 1998.
“‘Binding the Pair:’ Embodiment in Virtual Spaces” at the annual Society for the Social Studies of Science conference, October 1998.
“Not Just An Avatar: Embodiment Online” at the Avatars ’97 Conference sponsored by the Contact Consortium, October 1997.
“Creating Bodies: How We Inhabit Online Virtual Space” at the annual American Sociological Association conference. Included an accompanying poster session, August 1996.
Led an informal roundtable discussion entitled, “Re/Creating Bodies and Identities in Cyberspace” at the annual American Sociological Association conference. Included an accompanying poster session, August 1994.
Organized a themed session and presented a paper entitled “Virtual Bodies: Explorations in the Current State of the Body in Virtual Reality and Cyberspace”
for the annual Eastern Sociological Society conference, March 1994.
“The Fluid Landscape: Identity and Social Life in Cyberspace” at the annual New England American Studies Association conference, April 1993.
“The Fluid Landscape: Identity and Social Life in Cyberspace” at the annual Eastern Sociology Society conference, March 1993.
Professional Affiliations & External Service
Steering Committee member, Society for the Advancement of the Science of Digital Games.
Editorial Board member of the Games and Culture journal.
Reviewer for Game Studies, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Convergence, IEEE Technology & Society, TV & New Media, Asian Communication Research, Sociological Research Online, Contemporary Sociology, AoIR, DiGRA, Cornell University Press, MIT Press.
Grant reviewer for U.S. National Science Foundation, U.K. Arts and Humanities Research Board, Singapore Ministry of Education.
Member of Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S), Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA), International Game Developers Association (IGDA).
University service
Research Board, IT University of Copenhagen
Head of Program, Media, Technology and Games MsC program, IT University of Copenhagen
University Study Board, IT University of Copenhagen
Media, Technology and Games MsC program committee, IT University of Copenhagen
PhD committee, IT University of Copenhagen
Undergraduate honors thesis group supervisor, North Carolina State University
Head of Department search committee, North Carolina State University
Library committee, North Carolina State University
Graduate Students
Douglas Wilson, PhD (co-supervision with Miguel Sicart) in progress
Emma Witkowski, PhD in progress
Søren Mørk Petersen, PhD 2008, “Common Banality: The Affective Character of Photo Sharing, Everyday Life and Produsage Cultures”
Mads Bødker, PhD 2007 (co-supervision with Anker Helms Jørgensen), “Trust Within Technology: Risk, Existential Trust, and Reflective Designs in Human Computer Interaction”
Jonas Heide Smith, PhD 2006 (co-supervision with Anker Helms Jørgensen), “Plans and Purposes: How Videogames Shape Player Behavior”
Nicolai Bo Porsborg Madsen, MsC Spring 2007 – “Modifying the Game Experience”
Martin Gundtoft, Frederikke Hoff, Viola Samuelsen, MsC Spring 2007 – “Human-Centered Game Design”
Peter Niebling, Mikkel Eriksen, Peter Kuczynski, MsC Spring 2007 – “Empowering the Player”
Henrik Bennetsen, MsC Fall 2006 – “Creativity in a Second Life”
Nick Price, MSc June 2006 – “Power and Influence in the Interactive Entertainment Industry”
Yoo Falk Jensen, MSc November 2005 – “The Massive Korean Online Success: A Study of the Computer Game ‘Lineage’”
Elizabeth Juul Würtz, MSc July 2005 (co-supervised with Susana Tosca) – “Global Lifeworlds and Internet Interaction”
Laust Juul Christensen & Jakob Schrøder Andersen, MSc July 2005 (co-supervised with Jun Petersen Yoneyama) – “Communication and Sociality in MMORPGs”
Md Albarune Chowdhury, MSc June 2005 – “Gender and Computer Games”
Tina Lybaek, MSc April 2005 (co-supervised with Susana Tosca) – “Women’s Right to a Gamer Identity”
Thomas Hansen, Anne Yvind, and Frederik Tang, MSc March 2005 – “Designingfor Sociability”
Tore Vesterby, MSc January 2005 – “Speak Softly and Carry a Big Gun”
Emma Witkowski & Sutikamon Højrup, MSc November 2004 – “Accessing Space. Barriers of Entrance: Females & the Counter-Strike Universe”
Per Haugaard Jacobsen, MSc September 2004, “Design Intentions & User Experience in Virtual Worlds”
