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Lehrende/r: Dr. Damien Schlarb
Veranstaltungsart:
Hauptseminar
Anzeige im Stundenplan:
05.866.533
Credits:
8,0
Unterrichtssprache:
Englisch
Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl:
- | 30
Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:
- response paper (active participation requirement)
- final paper exposé (active participation requirement)
- final argumentative research paper (credit requirement)
Subject to change. see syllabus for details.
Anwesenheitspflicht:
Regular attendance is expected. If you are not in class, you are missing out on opportunities to ask questions and to hone the skills necessary for completing the credit requirements for this course.
Inhalt:
This seminar introduces students to the cultural analysis of digital games – or “video games” – as they pertain to American cultural tropes and analytical paradigms. Note: You need not be an avid or even a casual gamer to participate. The topics and methodological points we will discuss are relevant to American Media and Cultural Studies at large. Broadly speaking, we will ask how games shape and are shaped by culture. To explore this reciprocal dynamic, we will discuss how to perform critical analysis on games as a sample case of contemporary digital media. In the process, we talk about what makes games distinct among the analytical objects we may choose to analyze, and we consider which analytical categories fit the times we live in. We begin by asking a set of methodological questions: How do we talk about games? How do we analyze them? Our methodological approach will be critical-analytical: we will focus our attention on game design and aesthetics to arrive at a critical verdict about what and how games mean. As we do, we adopt an extended textual as well as relational notion of games. Games are texts insofar as they evince structures and transport ideologies; at the same time, they are products of their social and economic environments. Other considerations such as, for instance, games’ materiality and the communities that form around them may also become relevant to our discussion and your prospective research papers. We will supplement our discussions with criticism and theoretical texts from the field of Game Studies but also from other disciplines. In a second step, we try to connect our newfound knowledge about games with our existing cultural studies knowledgebase (e.g. gender, queerness, race, class, disability, etc.) by thinking about how games continue and/or challenge anglophone specifically U.S.-American cultural tropes, identities, ideologies, and media traditions. For example, we may ask how gender is negotiated in certain genres, such as role playing or online shooter games, and discuss if and how that negotiation differs from other media forms.
Empfohlene Literatur:
- Full games must be pruchased or viewd via "Let's Plays".
- Critical Literature will be provided. We will use Fernandez-Vara's book as a methodological guide for the course (see below). You may review it before the beginning of the semester.
Recommended Readings
- Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Simon, et al. Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2015.
- Fernández-Vara, Clara. Introduction to Game Analysis. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2019.
- Salen, Katie, and Eric Zimmerman. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. MIT P, 2003.
most of these books are available as e-text through the UB. Note that you have to either be on campus or using a VPN to access them.
Zusätzliche Informationen:
You do not have to be an avid gamer to follow the class and engage with the critical and theoretical materials we cover.
Digitale Lehre:
This will be an in-person class. We will meet on campus at the assigned times until further notice. No digital synchronous or asynchronous components are planned. There will be blended learning options on academic writing on the class Moodle.
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