UNCG’S state-of-the-art esports facility is about more than gaming – it’s about education, says Dr. Gregory Grieve, a faculty member in the Religious Studies department and former UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching winner. He directs UNCG’s Network for the Cultural Study of Videogaming (NCSV), which focuses on curriculum, research, and outreach through academic programming.
With associate director and fellow faculty member Dr. John Borchert, Grieve developed the interdisciplinary gaming and esports minor that launched in Fall 2023. “It includes 18 different classes in nine different departments that really represent what’s going on with gaming, esports, and academics,” says Borchert, whose scholarship focuses on religion, media, and the concept of death.
Grieve, who has published three books and 37 articles related to gaming, began with a specialty in Himalayan Buddhism. “I was always interested in how religion changes when it goes through different types of media,” he says. “Does it change when it’s done orally, as a printed book, or in another form? I wrote a lot of the early work on what happens when religion goes online.”
Borchert notes that the possibilities for research – and education – are just beginning. Within the classroom, students can delve into curricula that connect gaming to professions from sports broadcasting to digital animation to music. “If we can adapt and adopt games as a form of teaching and learning, then I think it’s going to benefit everyone.”
Their forthcoming textbook, “Religion and Video Games: An Introduction,” will be published by Routledge in 2025.
To learn more about Dr. Grieve’s research, see UNCG Research Magazine.