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Lehrende/r: Dr. Damien Schlarb
Veranstaltungsart:
Seminar
Anzeige im Stundenplan:
05.866.410
Semesterwochenstunden:
2
Unterrichtssprache:
Englisch
Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl:
- | 30
Anmeldegruppe: AS 410
Prioritätsschema: Senatsrichtlinie
Zulassung gemäß Richtlinie über den Zugang zu teilnahmebeschränkten Lehrveranstaltungen vom 07. März 2007.
Nähere Informationen hierzu entnehmen Sie bitte www.info.jogustine.uni-mainz.de/senatsrichtlinie
Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:
You need...
- Internet access (weekly)
- Online access to JGU’s university library servers
- Proficiency in academic writing in English
- Proficiency in academic research methods
- Familiarity with methodologies and research questions of the humanities
- Familiarity with the Anglo-Saxon essay model
- Familiarity with the basic themes and concepts in American Culture Studies (courses I & II)
Credit Requirements
- weekly reading responses
- response paper/project
- final paper proposal
- term paper
Inhalt:
In 2018, roughly 80% of Americans self-identified as gamers (Nielsen Survey). Video games have been acknowledged as a global medium, able to articulate nuanced assertions about culture. In doing so, games arguably respond to U.S.-American cultural sensibilities. How do we talk about games in an academic setting? How can we tease out the cultural assertions that games make? This seminar introduces students to video games as analytical objects. We will discuss how to talk about games in a culture studies setting, review existing taxonomies and genre categories, and discuss how games continue and challenge the U.S.-American cultural and media traditions. Ultimately, we will be interested in how and why games generate meaning, which will require us to consider them as “texts.” The course will be split in two parts, guided by two sets of questions. First, we ask questions of form: How do video games portray cultural issues? How do they mediate those issues as immersive gameplay experiences? Asking these questions will sensitize us to the contradictory nature of games, as aesthetic and economic objects, social actions, performances, and sites of human-machine interactions (cybernetics). Second, we pose conceptual questions: What political, ethical, social, and economic messages and ideologies do games represent? How do they comment on contemporary American life and the role of the U.S. in the world? Exploring these issues will lead us to think about what American Studies is, how its analytical methods can help us understand videogames, and how games enhance and challenge the paradigms that have traditionally defined this discipline. Possible research topics for final papers include technology, social cohesion and entropy (e.g. post-apocalyptic communities), the post- and non-human, cultural memory, gender, the economy, the mind, religion, and ethnicity.
Empfohlene Literatur:
- Beil, Benjamin, Thomas Hensel, and Andreas Rauscher, eds. Game Studies. Film, Fernsehen, Neue Medien. Springer, 2018.
- Bogost, Ian. How to Do Things with Videogames. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.
- - - -. How to Talk about Videogames. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2015.
- * Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Simon, Jonas Heide Smith, and Susana Pajares Tosca. Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction. 3rd ed. Routledge, 2015.
- ** Fernández-Vara, Clara. Introduction to Game Analysis. New York: Routledge, 2014.
- Wolf, Mark J. P., ed. Encyclopedia of Video Games: The Culture, Technology, and Art of Gaming. Vol. 1. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2012.
- Wolf, Mark J. P., and Bernard Perron, eds. The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies. New York: Routledge, 2016.
- ** - - -. The Video Game Theory Reader I & II. 2nd ed. Routledge, 2008.
Zusätzliche Informationen:
A Note on COVID-19 Measures
The social-distancing measures currently in effect to combat the COVID-19 pandemic require that we conduct at least part of this course online. We will use the university’s remote online learning and video platforms (see details below). To participate in this course, you will need to have regular internet access as well as access to the university library’s online resources. Please take a moment to do two things:
1. Visit https://www.ub.uni-mainz.de/mit-e-medien-zuhause-arbeiten and familiarize yourself with the conditions of working from home
https://www.zdv.uni-mainz.de/remotedesktop-arbeiten-am-entfernten-arbeitsplatz/to access all online campus services remotely
While we will all explore new digital teaching formats together this semester, the Prüfungsordnungen remain in effect. We will maintain the same academic standards as before. Even with the library temporarily closed, quality resources on our class topic remain available to you online. You will be able to complete all assignments by using the university’s online tools and our course website (see research bibliography). To maximize your chances of success,
1. Read the course syllabus attentively
2. Contact me whenever questions arise
3. Familiarize yourself with JGU’s online research tools, esp. if you have not used them before
4. Plan your projects (and other courses) and begin writing early
The assignments for this course are designed to help you tackle all four of these points. That being said, it falls to you to be proactive. We will adapt our syllabus as the situation unfolds. Please check your student email account regularly for updates.
Digitale Lehre:
Visit our course website on ILIAS:
https://ilias.uni-mainz.de/goto.php?target=crs_712917&client_id=JOGU
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