Nostalgia Interviews With Chris Deacy

My guest this week is John Wills, Professor of American Media and Culture, who has been at the University of Kent since 2005. We discover that John owns various consoles and machines from the 1970s onwards and we find out where his academic interests, e.g. in video games, have come from. John talks about how the things he is interested in emanate from his teenage years, as with cataloguing films, and we discuss defining oneself and having an attachment to something, and the way it can lead to academic pursuits. John also worked in a video store when young, he initially started a degree in Architecture, and we discuss how we make sense of our pasts and work things out, finding patterns along the way. John talks about why being a teenager was not always helpful and what he has learned from those days, including depression, and we discuss whether any of this can be talked about with others, e.g. revisiting elements from childhood. He grew up in Leamington Spa in Warwickshire, and his family then moved near B