scholarly journals Divergent theoretical trajectories in Game Studies: a bibliographical review

Artnodes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosa Núñez-Pacheco ◽  
Phillip Penix-Tadsen
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Video Games ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
The Past ◽  
Unnatural Narratology ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Tools And Techniques

Video games have become important objects of study for different academic disciplines. From the birth of the medium in the mid-twentieth century to the present, video games have offered new and creative ways of approaching reality and fiction, and not only serve as entertainment, but also have significant cultural, social, and technological implications. The formal study of this medium is the purview of the field of game studies, which brings together the contributions of various disciplines. This paper presents a bibliographical review of several theoretical trajectories in game studies, reflecting on the relevance of early debates on narratology and ludology, and examining the ways these initial divisions of the field have branched beyond that debate. Over the past several years, the narratological line of critique has established links with other theories such as cognitivism, the theory of fictional worlds and the contributions of unnatural narratology to the analysis of new technologies; ludology, for its part, has grown through its adaptations to postcolonial and decolonial theories in cultural studies, as well as through its connections to critical race and gender studies. We conclude that as game studies has evolved as a discipline, its initial theoretical debates have undergone profound transformations that have brought depth to the analysis of games’ meaning and diversified to the tools and techniques we have for analysing games as digital and cultural artefacts.

scholarly journals The Idea of Russian Symbolism about the Synthesis of Cultural Forms in the Context of Postmodern Culture

ICONI ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 126-136
Author(s):  
Nadezhda A. Tsareva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Russian Symbolism ◽  
Postmodern Art ◽  
Cultural Forms ◽  
Synthetic Media ◽  
Integrity Of Life

The relevance of the topic is due to the attention to trends in the development of culture. The synthesis of cultural forms is one of the important factors in the dynamics of culture. The teaching of Russian symbolism about the synthesis of cultures was analyzed in the scientifi c literature of the entire twentieth century. The novelty of the research is to compare the idea of art synthesis in the early twentieth and twenty-fi rst centuries. Two aspects of the idea of synthesis are considered: 1) the relevance of the idea of art synthesis in the postmodern era; 2) music and the visual series as organizing centers of art synthesis in the era of information technology. The purpose of this article is to examine the teaching of Russian symbolism about the integration of various forms of art and the features of synthesis in the postmodern era. The idea of integrating cultural forms was one of the key elements in Russian symbolism at the beginning of the twentieth century and was interpreted as a real prospect for the development of culture. In a broad sense, synthesis in symbolism meant the integrity of life, the integration of all spheres of human activity, the “organic connection” of cultures of the past and present. The synthesis can be realized on the basis of the art of symbolism, which can create a new culture. The synthesis of arts was understood as the beginning of the formation of a new culture. The core of the synthesis of arts, the symbolists saw music. Postmodern art is characterized by synthetism. Computer and information technologies create new forms of synthetic media art. The video series becomes the center of integration construction of postmodern audiovisual culture forms. The symbolist idea of the synthesis of arts as the beginning of cultural change in the postmodern era remains a utopian project. But the creation of new art forms in postmodern culture i s based on integration. New technologies are becoming a factor that determines the specifi cs of the synthesis of arts and infl uences the dynamics of culture. Both in Russian symbolism and in modern art, the goal of art synthesis is to present an integral image of the world, to form a system of worldview attitudes.

Girls’ Six-Player Basketball

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime Schultz ◽  
Shelley Lucas
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Community Identity ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
The Past ◽  
High School Girls ◽  
History Of ◽  
Physical Limitations ◽  
School Girls

This chapter focuses on a defunct version of high school girls' basketball known as “six-on-six” and how it expressed community identity in Iowa. Throughout the twentieth century, more than a million Iowa high school girls played the half-court, two-dribble version of basketball known as “six-on-six.” Originally conceived to accommodate girls and women's perceived physical limitations, six-on-six basketball often lent itself to fast-paced, high-scoring, crowd-rallying competitions. This chapter first provides a historical background on six-player basketball in Iowa before discussing how girls' six-on-six basketball has been relegated to the past, yet lives on in many places and memories, thanks in part to new technologies and understandings of community. It argues that the history of Iowa's six-player basketball is alive and thriving in alternative forms, citing the emergence of new, transitory communities to sustain its remembrance. The chapter considers two sites: a 2003 reunion game that gathered former players and supporters, and a Facebook page which fosters a virtual kinship of more than 7,000 members.

Intersectional Stereotyping in Political Decision Making

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin C. Cassese
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Voter Decision Making

Intersectionality is an analytic framework used to study social and political inequality across a wide range of academic disciplines. This framework draws attention to the intersections between various social categories, including race, gender, sexuality, class, and (dis)ability. Scholarship in this area notes that groups at these intersections are often overlooked, and in overlooking them, we fail to see the ways that the power dynamics associated with these categories reinforce one another to create interlocking systems of advantage and disadvantage that extend to social, economic, and political institutions. Representational intersectionality is a specific application of intersectionality concerned with the role that widely shared depictions of groups in popular media and culture play in producing and reinforcing social hierarchy. These representations are the basis for widely held group stereotypes that influence public opinion and voter decision-making. Intersectional stereotypes are the set of stereotypes that occur at the nexus between multiple group categories. Rather than considering stereotypes associated with individual social groups in isolation (e.g., racial stereotypes vs. gender stereotypes), this perspective acknowledges that group-based characteristics must be considered conjointly as mutually constructing categories. What are typically considered “basic” categories, like race and gender, operate jointly in social perception to create distinct compound categories, with stereotype profiles that are not merely additive collections of overlapping stereotypes from each individual category, but rather a specific set of stereotypes that are unique to the compound social group. Intersectional stereotypes in political contexts including campaigns and policy debates have important implications for descriptive representation and material policy outcomes. In this respect, they engage with fundamental themes linked to political and structural inequality.

An Epistemology of the Event for the Digital Media

2020 ◽  
pp. 115-128
Author(s):  
Juan J. Vargas-Iglesias
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
The Ideal

Since the end of the twentieth century, game studies have concentrated on epistemological positions seemingly unable to make significant distinctions between traditional games and video games. This approach has hindered the development of a post-modern ontology for decades, in a medium—video games—that is decidedly postmodern. This chapter proposes going beyond the mechanistic notion of considering observable reality as a combination of a determined state of things, which is a prevalent feature in today's game studies. To achieve this, the author argues from the Deleuzian notion of the “event.” When referring to the concept of the “ideal game,” as proposed by Deleuze, is intended to enunciate an epistemology that describes the implicit potentialities of digital media in general. The application of the epistemology would comprise memetic and viral statements, generative aesthetics and the forms of video games themselves.

Convergence of Rhetoric, Labour, and Play in the Construction of Inactive Discourses on Twitch

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-148
Author(s):  
Alexandra S. Catá
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Complex Space ◽  
Power Structure ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Complex Power ◽  
And Gender ◽  
A Site

Abstract Twitch is a complex space that involves both laborious play and “playbour” through the commodification of streamers time and the gamification of streamer interaction through emotes and bits. As a result, this creates a rhetorical space where celebrity, race, and gender are tension points that reflect disproportionate power structures on Twitch. Coupled with the fact that Twitch also functions as the main broadcast platform for esports tournaments, understanding how streamers rhetorically position themselves and interact with audiences as content creators, streamers, celebrities, and, for some, esports athletes it is important as video games increasingly become a mainstream form of entertainment. In addition to examining streamers, we also need to understand how average audiences, both casual, non-competitive gamers, and mainstream audiences will consume and react to streamer discussions and discourse and how that impacts attitudes in the community, particularly in relation to toxicity towards minorities. My paper uses Tyler “Ninja” Belvin’s statement “I don’t play with female gamers” (Frank 2018) as a rhetorical case study for examining rhetorical power, celebrity, and privilege on Twitch. I ultimately argue that Twitch is a site of laborious play and “playbour” that perpetually remains socially inactive in supporting and accepting minorities on the platform. To support this argument, I use Carolyn Miller’s “Genre as Social Action” (1984) to situate the rhetorics around this situation using her features (context, recursive patterns, discourse, mediation, and exigence) to analyse two interviews with Ninja, labour and commodification structures on Twitch, and Twitch chat. Through these, I identify the rhetorical implications of Ninja’s statements, how it affects the Twitch gaming community, and reveal a complex power structure that ultimately fails to acknowledge the streamers’ rhetorical power and influence while continuing to perpetuate toxic gaming attitudes towards minorities.

Chicano/a Challenges to Nineteenth-Century History

2012 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. 566-580 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raúúl A. Ramos
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Northern Mexico ◽  
Imperial Expansion ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The U.S

This article explores the usefulness of Chicano/a history to teaching and representing the nineteenth-century history of northern Mexico, U.S. imperial expansion, and the constructed nature of borders. Typically considered a twentieth-century discipline, Chicano/a historians have a long history of engaging the subject in the nineteenth century. This focus dovetails with recent critical works on race and gender in the U.S. West as well as transnational approaches to history. This article makes the case that the perspective on the nineteenth century provided by Chicano/a historians forces readers to reframe their understanding of the sweep of U.S. history.

A Legal History of Intimate Deception

2019 ◽  
pp. 99-133
Author(s):  
Jill Elaine Hasday
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Legal Remedies ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender

This chapter places modern law in historical context. Over the course of the twentieth century, some legal remedies for intimate deception disappeared or became much less valuable. First, starting in 1935, a wave of state “anti-heart balm” laws abolished causes of action for seduction and breach of promise to marry that some women had been using to sue intimates who deceived them. Courts then interpreted anti-heart balm statutes expansively, relying on the laws to block a wide array of claims against deceptive intimates. Second, changing norms about race and gender left judges unwilling to grant redress for some types of intimate deception that they had once been willing to remediate. Third—and most significant in diminishing the volume of litigation—the advent and swift spread of no-fault divorce starting in 1970 meant that securing an annulment or fault-based divorce because of intimate deception became a much less valuable remedy.

Fertility and childbearing practices among poor Gypsy women in Hungary: the intersections of class, race and gender

1997 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 457-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judit Durst
Keyword(s):  
Birth Weight ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
The Past ◽  
Low Birth Weight Babies ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Roma Women ◽  
The Village

This article explores changes in childbearing practices among Gypsy (Roma) women in a small village in Northern Hungary. The author benefited from several years of ethnographic field research and data collected in this village, where the proportion of the out-of-wedlock births and births to teenage—mostly Gypsy—mothers have increased by a factor of three in the past 10 years as the population of the village has become more and more impoverished and the opportunities for geographic or social mobility declined sharply for the ethnic minority. The author argues that bearing children early is a sign of passage to adulthood in this group of women, a function which had been assigned to other social institutions before 1989. Early childbearing at the same time exacerbates the problem of Gypsy women: this is the first study which documents the consequences of poverty on women's and children's health by showing an increase in low birth weight babies in the community since 1989.

scholarly journals Digital Intimacies

Communication ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Rambukkana ◽  
Keer Wang
Keyword(s):  
Game Studies ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Border Control ◽  
Internet Studies ◽  
North West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Global North ◽  
Per Se ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Digital Nature

To speak of “digital intimacies” is to acknowledge two premises, both foundational to communication studies. The first is that media of communication not only significantly affect the content of communication, but also are themselves meaningful. The second is that media of communication become articulated to the processes they interact with. Applying the first premise here posits that digital intimacies have a character of their own, due to their digital nature and its corollaries: coding, technologies (both ephemeral at the software layer, and concretized or embodied), platforms, design, networks, algorithms, etc. The digital in this figuring encompasses everything from programming to software communities, from individual to world-spanning networks, from microprocessors to robots. And every aspect of this digital nature leaves traces and transformed intimacies in its wake. Applying the second premise posits that digital intimacies have become, in addition to a particular subtype of intimacy, also a particular subtype of communication, and one that needs to be studied in its own right. Conjoining the concepts, thus, means that while the digital has transformed practices of intimacy, intimacies have equally infected the digital, guiding and inflecting its growth and spread at a fundamental level. Intimacy can mean many things (and the specific Genealogy of the Concept of “digital intimacies” is broken down in the following section), but for the purposes of a general gloss, intimacy can be taken to mean closeness, proximity, interconnectedness, connection. Digital intimacies can mean phenomena as narrow as fandom subreddits and as broad as international news publics. It means both the digital mediation of intimate matters such as sexuality and kinship, as well as topics one might not consider intimacies per se, but are nonetheless about kinds of interconnectedness, such as thinking through the costs/benefits of online voting platforms for democracy, or the surveillance issues inherent to using smart passports for border control. It is simultaneously broad and narrow, expansive and focused. It has interests in the past, present, and possible futures—even in fictions, and the new configurations and contortions that intimacies can be imagined into in (among others) science and speculative fictions. The study of digital intimacies, separately and—increasingly, radically—together, both opens up an exciting vein for new scholarship and creates opportunities to revisit older work that can be reclaimed and considered as part of this frame. An emergent field, it is significant to—in addition to communication studies—many other fields including cultural studies, sexuality studies, women’s and gender studies, Internet studies, game studies, platform studies, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and political science. Note: While a small number of the works and chapters in this bibliography address digital intimacies outside the Global North/West, this (in conjunction with a paucity of sources not originally in English) should be seen as a limitation of the bibliography as currently constituted and an area for future expansion of this entry.

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