Contributors to this issue examine the role of video games in American culture, approaching games through the lenses of transpacific studies, queer historiography, cultural history, critical race and ethnic studies, and border studies. They explore interactions between the United States and Asia through the genre of visual novels; investigate representations of the AIDS crisis in video game history; consider how games like Papers, Please address concepts of borders and national belonging; and show the aesthetic and political challenges that games like Assassin's Creed III face in telling counterhistories of marginalized peoples. Taken together, these essays show how games can contribute to an expanded understanding of the United States and of the ways that cultural forms circulate nationally and transnationally.

Contributors. Patrick Jagoda, Stephen Joyce, Gary Kafer, Jennifer Malkowski, Katrina Marks, Josef Nguyen, Christopher B. Patterson, Bo Ruberg, Arthur Z. Wang

About the Author
Patrick Jagoda is Professor of English, Cinema and Media Studies, and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Chicago and author of Experimental Games: Critique, Play, and Design in the Age of Gamification.

Jennifer Malkowski is Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at Smith College and author of Dying in Full Detail: Mortality and Digital Documentary, also published by Duke University Press.


Book Information
ISBN 9781478017257
Author Patrick Jagoda
Format Paperback
Page Count 220
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press