Directory Profile

TreaAndrea M. Russworm earned her A.B. at Brown University and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. An Associate Dean of Research and interdisciplinary media scholar, Professor Russworm’s areas of focus include video games and digital media, African American popular culture, film and media studies, psychoanalytic and postmodern theories, and post 1950’s American popular fictions. She is a Series Editor of the book series Power Play: Games, Politics, Culture (Duke University Press), and she was an Associate Editor for the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies.

Professor Russworm is currently writing a new monograph on the popular video game franchise The Sims while also co-editing a new book on speculative cultures and games. She recently edited a double special issue for the American Journal of Play (Winter/Spring 2022). She is the author or editor of three other published books: Blackness is Burning: Civil Rights, Popular Culture, and the Problem of Recognition Gaming Representation (Wayne State University Press, 2016); From Madea to Media Mogul: Theorizing Tyler Perry (University of Mississippi Press, 2016), and Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games (Indiana University Press, 2017).

A passionate teacher who has been teaching at the college level for more than twenty years, Professor Russworm teaches survey classes on interactive media, history of games classes, digital media workshops, classes on dystopian media, and classes on game franchises. Before coming to USC, Professor Russworm taught at The University of Chicago, UC Berkeley, and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. At UMass Amherst she created and directed the specialization in Games and Interactive Narrative and directed the first student-led game design studio. Experienced in team-based learning (TBL) pedagogies, Professor Russworm’s project-centered classes on games and popular culture focus on the theoretical, cultural, and social utility of games and other media.  She is also the founder of Radical Play (2016- ), a games-based public humanities initiative, lab, and community engagement program that is powered by USC Games students, industry professionals, and collaborations with local high schools.

Professor Russworm’s scholarship and interviews have been published in peer-reviewed journals including The Velvet Light Trap, Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Feminist Media Histories, Frontiers, and The American Journal of Play. Her research has been shared on CNN, The History Channel, Turner Classic Movies, in podcasts, and on streaming platforms like Twitch. She is a video game Hall of Fame voter.