MIT prof gets keynote nod

One of the big-gun commentators of video games, MIT's Henry Jenkins, will deliver the keynote address at the upcoming Serious Games Summit. Jenkins is the director of MIT's Comparative Media Studies Program and has long defended games as having little influence in the way of inspiring real-world violence. His presentation, titled Serious Games in the Age of Media Convergence and Collective Intelligence, will address "a world where old and new media collide, where grassroots and corporate media intersect, and where the power of the media producer and the power of the media consumer interact in unpredictable ways." Jenkins coedited one of the first scholarly books that addressed games, 1998's From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games. Most recently, he coedited with David Thorburn Rethinking Media Change: The Aesthetics of Transition. The Serious Games Summit takes place on October 30 and 31 at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Virginia.