Sean Smith is a Full-Time Lecturer and Co-Director of the Center for the History of Video Games, Technology, and Critical Play at California State University, Long Beach. His most recent work sits at the intersection of digital games, gender, and race in Los Angeles and includes the publication of “Pinball Wizards and Losers: Race, Criminality, and Pinball in Los Angeles 1978-1983.” Interdisciplinary Digital Engagement in Arts & Humanities, summer 2024. He has over a decade of experience in the creation of digital pedagogy and has published broadly about digital methods in history education, including “Imagining the Other: Historical Possibilities and Teaching American History with Twine.” in Murphy and Fan, eds. EnTwine: Critical and Creative Teaching with Twine, Amherst Press, 2026. His other publications include “Reprogramming the History of Video Game Studies: A Cultural History Approach to Videogames as Primary Sources” in International Public History, summer 2012, and “Gaming the Past: Video Games and Historical Literacy in the College Classroom,” a chapter in Interactive Pasts. He is regular instructor at the Digital Humanities Summer Institute, at the Universities of Victoria and Montreal. Sean has done extensive work in the digital humanities, including the NEH-supported Elizabeth Murray Project, VOAHA: The Virtual Oral/Aural History Archive, CSUJAD: The California State University Japanese American Digitization Project, The Harry Bridges Project, The Life of Thomas Paine, and most recently, he is actively directing the creation of the digital archive at the Center for the History of Video Games, Technology, and Critical Play.
