Catálogo de publicaciones - revistas

<jats:p> The absence of children’s texts and ludic texts from traditional literary canons, curricula, journals, and conferences might appear obvious, practical, and natural—a straightforward reflection of theoretical and methodological divergence, and of the way texts are grouped outside of academic study. However, these seemingly self-evident explanations do not hold up under scrutiny. In this article, I posit that the omission of children’s texts and ludic texts from well-developed scholarly contexts is partly rooted in the ideological collocation of “children,” “play,” and “low culture.” I compare the strategies used by children’s literature studies and games studies to manage their marginalization and conclude that irrespective of the quality, the variety, the relevance, and the impact of research conducted within these two disciplines, neither will find a permanent home in the serious, sophisticated, “adults-only” space of the literature faculty. I ask whether this is necessarily a problem, and suggest that - when consciously embraced - the lightness of illegitimacy may be a potent as the heft of tradition. Finally, I advocate for an intersectional alliance between children's literature studies and games studies and explore some of the ways in which this kind of academic solidarity might counter the marginalizing effects of infantilization. </jats:p>

<jats:p> Video games are works of written code that portray worlds and characters in action and facilitate an aesthetic and interpretive experience. Beyond this similarity to literary works, some video games deploy various design strategies that blend gameplay and literary elements to explicitly foreground a hybrid literary/ludic experience. We identify three such strategies: engaging with literary structures, forms, and techniques; deploying text in an aesthetic rather than a functional way; and intertextuality. This article aims to analyze how these design strategies are deployed in What Remains of Edith Finch to support a hybrid readerly/playerly experience. We argue that this type of design is particularly suited for walking simulators (or walking sims) because they support interpretive play through slowness, ambiguity, narrative, and aesthetic aspirations. Understanding walking sims as literary games can shift the emphasis from their lack of “traditional” gameplay complexity and focus instead on the opportunities that they afford for hybrid storytelling and for weaving literature and gameplay in innovative and playful ways. </jats:p>

<jats:p> This article presents a methodology called “chronotypology” which aims to facilitate literary studies approaches to video games by conceptualizing game temporality. The method develops a comparative approach to how video games structure temporal experience, yielding an efficient set of terms—“diachrony,” “synchrony,” and “unstable signifier”—through which to analyze gaming’s “heterochronia” or temporal complexity. This method also yields an approach to the contentious topic of video game narrative which may particularly recommend it to literary scholars with an interest in the form. Along with some examples from conventional games, a close reading of the “reality-inspired” game Bury Me, My Love will serve to demonstrate the use of a chronotypological approach. </jats:p>

<jats:p> In the centuries of its continuous circulation, Dante’s Comedy has been one the most productive examples of the transmedia potential of literary works. The timeless relevance of its fundamental moral questions, the cosmic dimension of its imaginative power, and the intensity of its realism, all hold unparalleled promise for any kind of adaptation, translation, or transmediation. The Comedy, and especially its first infernal cantica, gets periodically reinvented and transferred into creative outlets that are increasingly technology driven. This article will explore existing gaming adaptations of Dante’s Comedy, to focus on the one hand on textual aspects that are mostly exploited to achieve commercial success and on the other on the potential offered by the text and often marginalized by developers. The article will discuss ways in which new creative approaches would allow for a gaming experience with the authenticity, intensity, and relevance of the “original.” </jats:p>

<jats:p> Caillois’s classic text Man, Play and Games leaves open a basic question: Why focus on four specific kinds of play? Subsequent authors have offered their own rationalizations and expanded upon his game categories but have not explained Caillois’s approach. This essay performs a close reading of Man, Play and Games in order to evince his methodology. I argue that Caillois holds to the idea that play reproduces uncertainty in a safe and confined way but that a paradox troubles this vision and pushes him into a baroque formalism. Instead of a simple relation between model and copy, Caillois develops another, stranger concept of mimesis that continues and extends his Surrealist writing about insects and the unconscious. My reading builds on previous analyses of Caillois within game studies, sociology, and media theory to revise the methodological presuppositions built into the categorization of games. </jats:p>

<jats:p> A life story’s ability to evoke the emotion experienced by a protagonist is crucial to its success. Authors of interactive life stories sometimes strategically alter the interactive feedback loop to help convey this subjective experience. Using Mitchell’s conception of defamiliarizing poetic gameplay, this study identifies poetic gameplay devices, which creatively alter the feedback loop for emotional narrative impact. The article suggests extending the term “poetic gameplay” beyond interactive devices whose primary goal is critical appreciation of aesthetic form, to techniques directed at deepening a player’s narrative involvement, via alterations to interactivity designed to evoke emotions that mirror a protagonist’s experience. Close readings of 19 interactive life stories identified 13 devices, which fall into two categories: alterations to manipulation rules (involving local agency) and alterations to goal rules (involving higher level agency). The findings reveal some of the expressive possibilities of interactivity in digital narrative. </jats:p>

<jats:p> This article presents a critical examination of European policy in relation to gamification. We begin by describing how gamification “traveled” as an idea, evolving from controversial yet persuasive buzzword to legitimate policy priority. We then focus on how gamification was represented in Horizon 2020: the flagship European Research &amp; Development program from 2014 to 2020, worth nearly €80 billion of funding. The article argues that the ethically problematic aspects of gamification were removed through a process of policy capture that involved its assimilation in an established European network of research and small and medium enterprise (SME) actors. This process of “ethical neutering” is also observable in the actual funding calls, where the problematic assumptions of gamification around agency and manipulation are made invisible through a superficial commitment to vague and ill-defined criteria of responsible research and innovation. </jats:p>

<jats:p> The 2011 U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association adjudicated the State of California’s right to regulate the sale of “violent” video games and, in the process, effectively considered how video games should be apprehended as a cultural form under the law. The court’s decision cited the missteps of judicial film censorship in protecting video games as a form of expression under the First Amendment, placing video games into a cultural time line of expressive forms. Some media scholars contest the court’s approach for overvaluing the cultural aspects of video games and neglecting their distinct digital materiality. However, a close reading of the case and the circumstances that led the justices’ opinions helps articulate a crucial critique of overly materialist approaches to video games associated with media archaeology. The case details reflect the inextricability of materiality and experience in considering video games as a form of expression. </jats:p>

<jats:p> Kratos, protagonist of God of War (2005–current), is an archetypal representation of toxic masculinity. For much of the series, his rage drives much of the narrative and game dynamics, as Kratos destroys the entire Greek pantheon. The latest iteration of the series moves Kratos into Norse mythology and introduces a son. This father–son relationship allows the developers to ruminate upon the toxic masculinity that has defined much of the series’ past. Kratos’ trajectory moves from the flatness of one defining characteristic, rage, to an introspective consideration of this emotion and its consequences. A parabolic supporting cast set the stage, each illustrating an aspect of toxicity; as explored, the mother–son relationship between Freya and her son, Baldur, is given a poignant twist. Overall, this article investigates how God of War articulates characteristics of toxic masculinity, explores its repercussions, and offers lessons for its rehabilitation. </jats:p>

<jats:p> This article explores the cultural appropriation of the term avatar by Western tech culture and what this implies for scholarship of digital games, virtual worlds, social media, and digital cultures. The term has roots in the religious tradition of the Indian subcontinent and was subsequently imported into video game terminology during a period of widespread appropriation of Eastern culture by Californian tech industries. We argue that the use of the term was not a case of happenstance but a signaling of the potential for computing to offer a mystical or enchanted perspective within an otherwise secular world. This suggests that the concept is useful in game cultures precisely because it plays with the “otherness” of the term's original meaning. We argue that this indicates a fundamental hybridity to gaming cultures that highlight the need to add postcolonial perspectives to how issues of diversity and power in gaming cultures are understood. </jats:p>