Video Games and Spatiality in American Studies

Published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2022

Video Games and Spatiality in American Studies

Edited by: Dietmar Meinel

Volume 5 in the series Video Games and the Humanities

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110675184

Overview
Contents

About this book

While video games have blossomed into the foremost expression of contemporary popular culture over the past decades, their critical study occupies a fringe position in American Studies. In its engagement with video games, this book contributes to their study but with a thematic focus on a particularly important subject matter in American Studies: spatiality. The volume explores the production, representation, and experience of places in video games from the perspective of American Studies. Contributions critically interrogate the use of spatial myths ("wilderness," "frontier," or "city upon a hill"), explore games as digital borderlands and contact zones, and offer novel approaches to geographical literacy. Eventually, Playing the Field II brings the rich theoretical repertoire of the study of space in American Studies into conversation with questions about the production, representation, and experience of space in video games.

Author information

Dietmar Meinel, University of Duisburg-Essen.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Table of Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Video Games and Spatiality in American Studies: An Introduction Dietmar Meinel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I
Notes on the State of Montana: The U.S. American Spatial Imagination and the Retrotopia of Far Cry 5 Sören Schoppmeier Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
Ethical Boredom in the Wilderness: Treating Red Dead Redemption 2 as an Ambience Action Game Felix Zimmermann Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
On Postapocalyptic Frontiers in Horizon Zero Dawn Nathalie Aghoro Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	71
Owning Global Spaces and the Frontier in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End David Callahan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
From Male to Colonial Gaze: The Intersection of Patriarchy and Colonial Discourse in the Rebooted Tomb Raider Video Game Series Andrei Nae Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
The Inevitable Fate of the “Dragonborn:” Selling Player Agency in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Hanne Nijtmans Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	117
Part II
Filling Out the Map: The Anxiety of Situatedness and the Topological Poesis of Cartographic Maps in Video Games Damien B. Schlarb Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
Detroit: Become Human ‒ Orientational Mapping in the City and (Hi)Story Juliane Borosch Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	153
‘Playing for Space:’ Negotiating and Narrativizing Space in One Hour One Life Stefan Schubert Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
There is no Place like Gone Home: Exploring Gothic Settings in Video Games Greta Kaisen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181
Exploring the Digital Land of the Dead: Hybrid Pan-Latinidad in Grim Fandango Florian Deckers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
Part III
Breaking Worlds Three Ways Michael Nitsche Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
Surviving the City: Zombies, Run! and the Horrors of Urban Exercise Maria Sulimma Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
“#Gameüse:” Planting the Digital Garden Elisabeth Haefs Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
Performative Playground: Narrative Spaces in Theater Games Kirsten Möller and Anna Kpok Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253
Museum Space Invaders: Video Gaming at the Smithsonian American Art Museum Lauren Kolodkin and Ryan Linthicum Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263
Coda: Disoriented in the Field of Play Soraya Murray Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	275
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	285
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
Pages
- Front matter: 9
- Main content: 292
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 21
Keywords: Spatiality; Room; Video games

eBook

Published: February 21, 2022
ISBN: 9783110675184

Hardcover

Published: March 7, 2022
ISBN: 9783110675108