Games & Literary Theory

This seminar will explore the affinities and divergences between games and literary theory, offering an introduction to recent work in game studies. We’ll consider how game scholars have adapted concepts, methods, and practices from literary criticism to analyze games and interactive narratives. We’ll also consider how games can provoke new critical methods for thinking about literature, fiction, and narrative, close reading a few games collectively. Each week, we’ll approach games from a different perspective, exploring issues related to formalism, ludology and narratology, aesthetics and fictionality, gender and sexuality, discourse analysis, affect theory and atmosphere, queerness and queer theory, ecology and ecocriticism, cultural studies and metagaming, phenomenology and perception, agency and control, and psychoanalysis and visual pleasure. The course will provide an introduction to different terms and theories that can be used to analyze literary and ludic forms of expression, paving the way for critical, comparative, and cross-disciplinary thinking. No gaming experience is required—just a desire to learn more about how games and gaming are reconfiguring diverse theories for what Eric Zimmerman calls the “ludic century.” 

Required Books
•    Alexander R. Galloway, Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture 
•    Alenda Y. Chang, Playing Nature: Ecology in Video Games 
•    Brendan Keogh, A Play of Bodies: How We Perceive Videogames
•    Queer Game Studies, Bonnie Ruberg (ed.)