MARY ANN BUCKLES heard from a friend in her amateur choir that her 20-year-old dissertation on a video game was now considered a classic. ''I thought, classic dissertation?'' Ms. Buckles recalled. ''They hated my dissertation.''

The friend was referring to an article in Circuits on Feb. 26 that mentioned Ms. Buckles, who is widely credited with having written the first academic study of the aesthetics of a video game. In 1985, Ms. Buckles -- or Dr. Buckles, to use a title she does not use -- earned her doctorate in German literature for a dissertation titled ''Interactive Fiction: The Computer Storygame 'Adventure.'''

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