American Society and Politics in Video Games (Amerykańskie społeczeństwo i polityka w grach video)

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„American Society and Politics in Video Games” offers both an introduction to broadly understood game studies (offering the students a toolset necessary to be able to engage in a critical discussion with video games and understand their place in the contemporary culture) and discusses video games as a mirror through which American socio-political issues are reflected.

„American Society and Politics in Video Games” offers both an introduction to broadly understood game studies (offering the students a toolset necessary to be able to engage in a critical discussion with video games and understand their place in the contemporary culture) and discusses video games as a mirror through which American socio-political issues are reflected.

Some of the topics covered in class will include, but will not be limited to: gender, sexuality, and the intersectional issues in video games, including the toxic masculinity in the gamer communities and the influence of #Gamergate; representation of race (independent games by Black Americans vs. the depictions of slavery in mainstream video games; as well as the indigenous Own Voices); the myth of American heroism in Call of Duty series; the video game Western; the American Gothic and the representation of American towns in Life is Strange and Night in the Woods; cozy games in the context of Covid-19 pandemic, and American (post)modernism in meta games.

Note: assigned games do not count towards the time assigned for reading.

Selected literature (which can be subjected to change in the final syllabus).

Students will be asked to play and/or watch playthroughs of selected games. This does not count towards the reading time. Selected games will be free or of low cost.

1. Allen, S. L. (2014). Video games as feminist pedagogy. Loading..., 8(13).

2. Fiorilli, Patrick. "Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Gods: Reading Night in the Woods through Mark Fisher." Game Studies 22, no. 1 (2022).

3. Gray, K. L. (2020). Intersectional tech: Black users in digital gaming. LSU Press.

4. Juul, Jesper. (2019). Handmade Pixels: Independent Video Games and the Quest for Authenticity. MIT Press.

5. Mortensen, T. E. (2018). Anger, fear, and games: The long event of #GamerGate. Games and Culture, 13(8), 787-806.

6. Razzi, Francesca. "Re-enacting the American Frontier in Contemporary Popular Culture: The Western Fantasy of “Red Dead Redemption II”." Iperstoria 18 (2021).

7. Ruberg, B. (2015). No fun: The queer potential of video games that annoy, anger, disappoint, sadden, and hurt. QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, 2(2), 108-124.

8. Trhoň, O. (2019). Videogame Dys4ia and reflection of autobiographical narrative by transgender community.

9. Waszkiewicz, Agata, and Martyna Bakun. "Towards the aesthetics of cozy video games." Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds 12, no. 3 (2020): 225-240.

10. Wills, John. Gamer nation: Video games and American culture. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019.

1. KNOWLEDGE

• has a knowledge of contemporary video games in the United States

• is aware of the evolution of video games and their diversity

• has an extensive knowledge of contexts of American video games

2. SKILLS

• is able to use critical tools

• is able to formulate critical arguments about American video games

• is able to use a range of theoretical apparatuses in analyses of individual issues, phenomena, and texts

3. SOCIAL COMPETENCES

• is aware of the cultural significance of video games

• is open to new phenomena and ideas in American popular culture

• understands and appreciates the role of the United States in shaping global conventions of video games

The students will be asked to prepare questions to the texts/games (delivered before the class; at least one) and a final presentation.