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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:
Credit Requirements
- Short Oral Group Presentation
- Paper Proposal w. Exposé
- Final Argumentative Research Paper
Expectations—What You Should Already Know Going In
- Proficiency in English (grammar, style)
- Vocabulary for literary analysis (stylistic devices, literary genres, etc.)
- Understanding of the Anglo-Saxon essay format
- Familiarity with research options on campus (library and online resources)
Course Content—What You Will Do
• review analytical reading strategies for videogames
• review critical theories and scholarship on videogames and the genre of science fiction
• review socio-historical, philosophical, economical, and religious ideas represented in videogames
• relate these contexts to critical readings of videogames as texts
• explore their own thinking on these texts through writing
• position their own readings against those of others in verbal and written discussions
• perform independent research into primary and secondary sources
• articulate relevant research questions
• design and execute an original research-paper project that answers those questions
Intended Learning Outcomes—What You Will Learn
- name relevant genre markers of science fiction
- name relevant issues in videogame studies
- identify and name relevant cultural themes represented in videogames
- read critically videogames as cultural texts
- compare and contrasts games based on their treatment of said themes, devices, and motifs
Inhalt:
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This cultural studies course explores the way in which videogames represent technology and possible futures. We will try to figure out how video games continue and challenge the U.S.-American cultural and media tradition of science fiction (sci fi) and what has recently been called speculative fiction. We begin by surveying videogame studies as an emergent academic field. We will also review Aspen Aarseth’s definition of videogames as “cybertexts,” but we will also discuss their status as aesthetic and economic objects, social actions, performances, and sites of human-machine interactions (cybernetics). Ultimately, we will be interested in how these different characteristics help us derive meaning from games. To this end, we will analyze a selection of games, using a two-pronged analytical approach: first, we ask questions of form: How do video games portray (technologized) futures and how do they mediate ideas of futurity as immersive gameplay experiences? Second, we ask conceptual questions: What political, ethical, social, and economic messages and ideologies do sci-fi games represent? How do they utilize future and technologies to comment on contemporary life? And, building on the first set of questions, we ask how games realize these meanings formally. Within this thematic compass, possible research and discussion topics (for final papers) include technology, social cohesion and entropy (post-apocalyptic communities), the post- and non-human, cultural memory, gender, the economy, the mind, religion, and ethnicity. Exploring these issues will also lead us to think about what American Studies is, how its analytical methods can help us understand videogames, and how games as objects of study enhance and challenge the paradigms that have traditionally defined the discipline.
Cluster “Fictions of Science—Science Fiction”
This class is part of the cluster “Fictions of Science—Science Fiction” with the class “American Studies: Futures Past: Futurology Between Science and Popular Culture in Transnational Perspective (Proseminar/Seminar 210)” taught by Dr. Torsten Kathke and the class “Science and Fiction from the Enlightenment to Romanticism (Seminar 313)” taught by Dr. Nele Sawallisch. Students in one of these classes will work with students in both other classes either through online platforms or in person. The cluster’s courses deal with science and the history of science by examining texts, movies, video games and other media. Depending on the focus of the class you are in, we will look at fictional and non-fictional texts as literature, cultural objects, or historical sources. We will tackle Enlightenment notions such as rationalism and progress, as well as topics like ethics in science, skeptical views of science, issues of privacy and data collection (as in social media), or automatization and its effects. Participants in all three courses will work off a shared list of core theoretical readings. Due to the high number of public holidays in the summer term, students are expected to engage in several blended learning activities throughout the semester. A separate day-long workshop in which all classes join may be substituted for several sessions at the end of the semester.
Empfohlene Literatur:
Aarseth, Espen J. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. JHU Press, 1997.
Calleja, Gordon. In-Game. MIT University Press Group Ltd, 2011.
Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Simon, et al. Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction. 3rd ed., Routledge, 2015.
Fernández-Vara, Clara. Introduction to Game Analysis. Routledge, 2014.
Mayra, Frans. An Introduction to Game Studies: Games in Culture. SAGE Publications Ltd, 2008.
Wolf, Mark J. P., editor. The Medium of the Video Game. 1 edition, University of Texas Press, 2002.
Wolf, Mark J. P., and Bernard Perron, editors. The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies. Reissue edition, Routledge, 2016.
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