jaroslav švelch

researcher

Jaroslav Švelch is a game scholar who focuses on the history, theory, and empirical studies of computer games. He graduated from Charles University’s Faculty of Arts in linguistics/phonetics and translation as well as from the Faculty of Social Sciences in media studies. He obtained his doctoral degree at FSS CU and has been a lecturer there since 2009. He works as an educator at FAMU’s Department of Game Design, teaching Digital Game Histories and Game Theory 1 and 2. He guested at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) and at the Tampere University in Finland. Wrote Gaming the Iron Curtain (MIT Press, 2018), a book that maps the history of computer games in Czechoslovakia. In addition, he published texts focusing on game monsters, humour in computer games, and activist games. Worked as a guest researcher at the Gambit Game Lab at the MIT (2007–2008) and as a post-doc at the University of Bergen, Norway in 2017–2019. During the 2021–2023 period, he was the main researcher for Charles University’s project Developing Theories and Methods for Game Industry Research, Applied to the Czech Case. He is currently a team member of a NAKI III project implemented by the Department of Game Design of FAMU. He is also a member of FAMU’s Comfort Media research team.