On the Shoulders of Giants: How to Study Video Games From Literary Perspective 3700-AL-SGVG-qTM
The aim of the course On the Shoulders of Giants: How to Study Video Games From
Literary Perspective is to familiarize students with theories and concepts at the intersection of digital studies and literary studies.
Although gamestudies is a mature scientific discipline with its own theories and research tools, due to the interactive and audiovisual character of the medium it deals with, it often draws from other disciplines, with particular emphasis on
film studies and literary studies. Recognizing the importance of research on the ludic nature of games, many researchers also understand digital games in terms of digital narratives.
During the classes, we will consider how to talk about narrative in games and how to research it, how it differs from narrative in other audiovisual media and literature, what game adaptations of literature say about the relationship between ludic and narrative modes, as well as look at texts from the fringes of gaming and literature such as visual novels, but also games telling epic stories (gamenovels) and books containing game elements (gamebooks), game paratexts and other forms of literature’s presence in digital games.
The classes and the texts analysed in class will be in English. For the majority of classes, students will need to read the assigned text and/or familiarize themselves with a game. The games selected for the classes are free to play or available for a small fee, but in the latter case it will be also possible for the student to watch the game's gameplay, e.g., on YouTube or Twitch platforms.
Type of course
Prerequisites (description)
Course coordinators
Assessment criteria
The basis for passing the course is: active participation in the class (both in the form of active participation in the discussion and sending questions/reflections on the texts before the class) and preparing 2-3 short analyzes of selected texts in the context of the discussed literature.
Bibliography
Uwaga: wybór tekstów może ulec zmianie, dokładna lista zostanie przedstawiona na pierwszych zajęciach.
Araújosantos, N. (2017). Literature and Videogames: Adaptation and Reciprocity. Revista Letras Raras, 6, 222.
Arsenault, D. (2023). Narratology. In The Routledge companion to video game studies (pp. 588–596). Routledge.
Butterworth-Parr, F. (2023). Machphrasis: Towards a Poetics of Video Games in Contemporary Literary Culture. Games and Culture, 155541202311640.
Ensslin, A. (2023). Literary gaming. Mit Press.
Mukherjee, S. (2016). Videogames as “minor literature”: Reading videogame stories through Paratexts. Gramma: Journal of Theory and Criticism, 23, 60–75.
Österberg, A. (2008). The Rise and Fall of the Gamebook. Outspaced. Fightingfantasy. Net/.../Anders_-_The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_G.
Papa, T. J. (2013). Poetic Videogames: A Haiku Perspective. Lulu.com.
Schrank, B. (2014). Avant-garde videogames: Playing with technoculture. MIT Press.
Wake, P. (2016). Life and death in the second person: Identification, empathy, and antipathy in the adventure gamebook. Narrative, 24(2), 190–210.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: