{"id":1332,"date":"2020-07-07T15:06:18","date_gmt":"2020-07-07T14:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/?p=1332"},"modified":"2020-07-07T15:15:07","modified_gmt":"2020-07-07T14:15:07","slug":"meet-the-historians-dr-john-wills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/2020\/07\/07\/meet-the-historians-dr-john-wills\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Historians: Dr John Wills"},"content":{"rendered":"

In today’s instalment of Meet the Historians, Dr John Wills<\/a>, Reader in American History and Culture, discusses his fascination with all things American and his latest research projects.<\/em><\/p>\n

What\u2019s your role in the School of History?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m a Reader in American History and Culture. I just finished my role as Research Seminar coordinator, where I basically invite experts to speak about their topics to our staff and students; next I\u2019m returning to the role of Director of American Studies<\/a>, a programme dedicated to the study of American history, politics and culture.<\/p>\n

What led you to become a historian of the USA?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always be drawn to California, the alternative lifestyles, the beaches, the LA thing. It feels like a second home there.<\/p>\n

What are you currently researching?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I just wrote a book on video games and American culture, called Gamer Nation<\/em><\/a>, out now. I\u2019m currently editing a book on Red Dead Redemption<\/em> with a colleague and friend, Esther Wright, and starting a new book project on Doom Town, a weird experiment at Nevada Test Site in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the best book in your field you\u2019ve read recently?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most recently, Michael Newman\u2019s Atari Age: The Emergence of Video Games in America <\/em>(2018)<\/a>, a great piece of work on early video gaming. Max Page\u2019s The City\u2019s End: Two Centuries of Fantasies, and Premonitions of New York\u2019s Destruction<\/em> (2007)<\/a> is brilliant, and I wish I\u2019d written it.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the most common misconception about your field?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In terms of my involvement in Games Studies\/video games and history, quite simply, that video games are \u2018just for kids\u2019 and \u2018don\u2019t matter\u2019.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your favourite module to teach?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I teach three undergraduate modules, one on California, one on Games\/Recreation in the USA<\/a>, and the third on US environmental disasters, called, in an upbeat manner, Inviting Doomsday (!). I enjoy teaching all three, but I especially like the Doomsday module and seeing how students take environmental issues very seriously today.<\/p>\n

If you could have dinner with one person from the past, who would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, as a Buddhist, I\u2019m bound to say Shakyamuni Buddha, although language could be quite a challenge! My ideal dinner party of \u2018the living\u2019 would definitely include Barack Obama, William Shatner, and Nicolas Cage.<\/p>\n

Follow John on Twitter here: @drjonw<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In today’s instalment of Meet the Historians, Dr John Wills, Reader in American History and Culture, discusses his fascination with all things American and his … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65703,"featured_media":1334,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16742,70],"tags":[72438,173238,70],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65703"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1332"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1338,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332\/revisions\/1338"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}