Dr William H Huber

Qualifications

Research interests and expertise

Game and media aesthetics and poetics, aesthetic theory, media philosophy, software studies, historical games and historiography, production studies, intellectual histories of play and games, games and area studies, art/game intersections, virtual worlds and MMOs, literary and historical adaptation to games, and geopolitics in games.

Dr Huber has been teaching game studies and related topics since 2005, at the University of Southern California, UC San Diego, California State University at Fullerton, the Southern California Institute of Architecture, the American University of Dubai, Abertay University and now at Falmouth University. He has supervised several PhD and masters students to completion of their research degrees, and is open to new postgraduate research students for work on a range of subjects.
 

Research outputs

• Douglass, Jeremy, William Humberto Huber, and Lev Manovich. “Understanding Scanlation: How to Read One Million Fan-Translated Manga Pages.” Image and Narrative 12, no. 1 (2011): 190–227.
• Hoeger, Laura, and William Humberto Huber. “Ghastly Multiplication: Fatal Frame II and the Videogame Uncanny.” In Situated Play, 152–56. Tokyo: DiIGRA, 2007. http://www.digra.org/dl/db/07313.12302.pdf.
• Huber, William. “Game Education in a Time of Trials: What’s Past, What’s Next.” Presented at the IndieCade GameU conference, Los Angeles, October 11, 2014.
• Huber, William Humberto. “Catch and Release: Ludological Dynamics in Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly.” Loading... Journal of the Canadian Gaming Studies Organization 4, no. 6 (2010). http://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/article/viewArticle/91.
• ———. “Collective Software Authorship in the Videogame Industry.” Presentation presented at the Japanese Arts and Globalizations Works in Progress, Lake Arrowhead, CA, October 24, 2008.
• ———. “Complicit Play in Virtual Worlds.” Presentation and panel presented at the Serious Play: MMO gaming, real money, and social worlds., La Jolla, CA, February 8, 2007.
• ———“D-Day.” Presented at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies 2013 Conference, Chicago, March 2013.
• ———. “Epic Spatialities: The Production of Space in Final Fantasy Games.” In Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives, 373–84. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009.
• ———. “Esports in Education Conference.” Esport and education: the student view presented at the Esports in Education Conference, Online, March 24, 2020.
• ———. “Fictive Affinities in Final Fantasy XI: Complicit and Critical Play in Fantastic Nations.” In Changing Views: Worlds in Play. Vancouver, British Columbia: Simon Fraser University, 2005.
• ———. “From Generation Nintendo to Generation Minecraft: The Changing Face of Game Education.” Public lecture presented at the Edinburgh Digital Entertainment Festival, Edinburgh, August 9, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs6wsRSVNd8.
• ———. “Game Futures, Game Education.” Presented at the Welsh Games Development Show, Cardiff UK, June 18, 2016.
• ———. “Games as Epistemic Systems: Playing at the Future.” Symposium talk presented at the Speculative Futures of Education Symposium, Univerity of California, Riverside, December 4, 2019.
• ———. “Interface, Play and Performance in the Virtual Spaces of Final Fantasy XI.” Presentation presented at the Transliteracies: New Reading Interfaces Working Group, Santa Barbara, CA, May 12, 2007.
• ———. “Ka as Shomin-Geki: Problematizing Videogame Studies.” In Level up. Digital Games Research Conference, 4–6. Utrecht, 2003. http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/05150.02055.pdf.
• ———. “Notes on Aesthetics in Japanese Videogames.” In Videogames and Art, edited by Andy Clarke and Grethe Mitchell, 211. Bristol UK: Intellect Books, 2008.
• ———. “Questions of Truth and Contingency in Historical Games.” Keynote address presented at the DiGRA 2024, Guadalajara, July 3, 2024.
• ———. “Relational Style: The Aesthetics of Multiplayer Game Design.” Presented at the Digra 2013, Atlanta, August 26, 2013. http://dm.lmc.gatech.edu/digra2013/session/aesthetics-part-i/.
• ———. “Revisiting Game Semiotics.” Presented at the DiGRA 2013, Atlanta, August 2013.
• ———. “Soft Authorship.” Presentation presented at the Software 2008: Software Studies Workshop, La Jolla, CA, May 21, 2008.
• ———. “The Pseudo-Allegory of Final Fantasy XIV.” In Japanese Role-Playing Games: Genre, Representation, and Liminality in the JRPG, edited by Rachael Hutchinson and Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2022.
• ———. “The Semiotic Conditions of Videogame Authorship.” Dissertation, University of California, San Diego, 2013.
• ———. “Visible and Transient Things.” Keynote address presented at the Interdisciplinary Approaches to Digital Play Symposium, King’s College London, June 21, 2019.
• Huber, William Humberto, Ian Bogost, Margaret Robertson, David Thomas, and Jose P. Zagal. “You Played That? Game Criticism Meets Game Studies.” In Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory: Proceedings of DiGRA 2009. London: Brunel University, 2009.
• Huber, William Humberto, and Riccardo Fassone. “Game Studies in the Cinquecento. Prolegomena to a Historical Analysis of the Rhetorics of Play.” Ludica. Annali Di Storia e Civiltà Del Gioco, no. 21–22 (2016).
• Huber, William Humberto, and Maggie Greene. “Square-Enix’s Orient: East Asian Chronotopes in Final Fantasy XIV.” Conference presentation presented at the 2022 International Conference of DiGRA, Krakow, July 10, 2022.
• Huber, William Humberto, and Stephen Mandiberg. “Kingdom Hearts, Territoriality and Flow.” In Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory. London: Brunel University, 2009. http://digra.org:8080/Plone/dl/db/09287.47134.pdf.
• White, Gregor, Joseph DeLappe, and William Humberto Huber. “Video Games and Art.” In Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press, November 11, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1093/oao/9781884446054.013.90000139469.

Areas of teaching

• The use of improvisation and role-playing games for narrative design
• Workshops on historical/political games
• Art and cultural history for game creators

Courses taught

• Game Development BA(Hons)
• Game Animation BA(Hons)
• Esports & Livestreaming BA(Hons)
• Game Design MA

Social, community and cultural engagement

Exhibitions:

• Curator, Small Worlds & CD-ROMs: Eddo Stern/Theresa Duncan. Dundee Contemporary Arts. Dundee, UK 2016
• Prints and video installations, “Mapping Time” exhibit. Calit2 gallery, UC San Diego. 2010
• "Video Game Traversal: Kingdom Hearts II" in "SHAPING TIME" exhibition. Graphic Design Museum, Breda Netherlands 2010
• "Game traversals" in Text Fields exhibition, as part of Future of Digital Studies 2010. University of Florida, Gainesville 2010
• "Shape of Science" in Here, not There, at Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla 2010

Engagement with professional associations and societies

• Member, Association for Asian Studies
• Member and former president, Digital Games Research Association