(Section 801)
Media and Society
The Network is Everting: Games and the Digital Humanities
Jones
Spring 2012
Thursdays, 6:00-8:30
201 Cudahy Library
This graduate seminar will address the emerging interdisciplinary field of digital humanities from the perspective of games—arguably the most popular and influential forms of new media in today’s society. The guiding question is: what do today’s games and the digital humanities have to teach one other? Recent games and the digital humanities (or what the New York Times has called “Humanities 2.0”) have both emerged at a significant moment in the larger culture’s attitude towards technology, a shift captured in novelist William Gibson’s recent claim that “cyberspace is everting”—turning itself inside out and colonizing the physical world. We’ll play and interpret games, and read and interpret texts, with an eye to exploring this moment of eversion and its theoretical and cultural implications. Objects of attention will include: (1) games across a wide spectrum and multiple platforms—art games, alternate reality games, serious games, core games (for PC and console), casual games (Wii and Kinect), social games (on Facebook)—as well as game-like media such as video, locative art, and augmented reality; (2) fictional works by authors such as Ernest Cline, William Gibson, and Vernor Vinge; (3) theoretical and critical works by authors such as Zizek, Hayles, Kirschenbaum, McGann, Bogost, Salen and Zimmerman, Wark, and others. Course requirements include collaborative “play groups,” media presentations, and a final paper. No prior experience with or expertise with games is required, just an engaged, hands-on, scholarly curiosity about their significance in today’s media landscape.
Books:
-
* Bogost, Ian, How to Do Things With Video Games. U of Minnesota P., 2011.
* Cline, Ernest, Ready Player One. Crown, 2011.
* Gibson, William, Spook Country. Berkeley Trade, 2007.
* Gold, Matthew, ed., Debates in The Digital Humanities. U of Minnesota P, 2012.
* Stephenson, Neal. Reamde. William Morrow, 2011.
Requirements:
-
* participation including formal opening of discussions during semester (25%)
* weekly meeting with play group and group presentation to larger class (25%)
* final paper: add a chapter to Bogost (50%)
Schedule:
JANUARY
19 Introduction
form playgroups
introduce Bogost, How to Do Things (cf. Barthes, Mythologies)
watch PLAY
26 Cyberspace
Vinge, True Names
Gibson, “Burning Chrome”
Barlow, “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace”
Jones, PMLA (requires login)
Hayles, “The Seductions of Cyberspace,” Rethinking Technologies (reserves)
Žižek, “From Virtual Reality to the Virtualization of Reality” (reserve).
FEBRUARY
2 Network
Gibson, Agrippa (a book of the dead) (including text of the poem, “Agrippa”)
The Agrippa Files
Kirschenbaum, Mechanisms, chpt. 5
Gold: Introduction, Kirschenbaum, “What is?,” Fitzpatrick, “Done Digitally,” Spiro, “This is Why,” Svensson, “Beyond the Big Tent,” Kirschenbaum, “DH As/Is a Tactical Term” (415), Ramsay and Rockwell, “Developing Things”
9 Gameworlds
Cline, Ready Player One
Adventure
MOO (telnet www.rc.umd.edu 7000)
Minecraft
16 Players and NPCs
Façade
Jones (2008), chapter 4
Hayles, How We Became Posthuman (LUC eBook; e.g., chpts. 1, 2 and bits of 7)
23 Casual, mobile
Bogost, How to Do Things (“Throwaways,”“Exercise”)
Jones and Thiruvathukal (2012)
iOs and Android
Wii
Kinect
MARCH
1 Locative Media, mixed reality
Gibson, Spook Country
Farman (esp. intro. and chapter 1)
Gold: Wilkens
Spatial Humanities at Scholars’ Lab
Space Liberation Front (stunt and manifesto)
8 SPRING BREAK: no class
15 Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), serious games
McGonigal, “The Puppet-Master Problem” and (if it comes back online) “Why I Love Bees;” cf. Reality is Broken (intro.).
Flanagan, Critical Play, esp. intro. and chapter 6
Darfur is Dying
Bogost, How to Do Things (“Empathy,””Work”)
Gold: Drucker, McPherson
22 The gamification controversy
Schell, DICE 2010 talk
Davidson, “Why Badges?”
Gold: Bogost, “Turtlenecked”
Farmville
Cow Clicker, WIRED article
Bogost, “Shit Crayons”; “Gamification is Bullshit”
Wark, Gamer Theory 2.0, “Agony: on The Cave”
29 TBA
APRIL
5 Easter April 7: no class
12 n-dimensional gamespace I
[Skype visit by Ian Bogost]
Portal
Gold: Ramsay and Rockwell, McCarty, Losh
Hayles, “Cybernetics,” in Critical Terms for Media Studies (on reserve)
19 n-dimensional gamespace II
[Skype visit by Matt Gold]
Braid
Patrick Jagoda, “Fabulously Procedural”
Murdoch, “Braid: In Search of Meaning”
Mario is Too Mainstream
Gold: blog posts at the end of part 3
26 Game/worlds
Stephenson, Reamde
WoW
Skyrim
Bissell review
Gold: Davidson, Liu
_______________________________
PLAYGROUPS
Minecraft: Trevor, Paul, Andrew
Casual: Sean, Cameron, Saira
Braid: Erik, Maureen, Vicki
Portal: Alex, Nate, Colin
Skyrim: David, Katie, Will
_________________________
