James Gee

Arizona State University

Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies

James Paul Gee, formerly the Tashia Morgridge Professor of Reading at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is now the Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State University. 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 Literacy 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. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (2003) offers 36 reasons why good video games produce better learning conditions than many of today's schools. Situated Language and Learning (2004) places video games 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 recent books, Why Video Games are Good for Your Soul (2005), and Good video games and good learning: Collected essays on video games, learning, and literacy (2007) collect together essays on situated learning, digital literacies, pleasure, and games.