Current Issues in Game Studies - JKM105

• Title: Current Issues in Game Studies
• Guaranteed by: Department of Media Studies (23-KMS)
• Faculty: Faculty of Social Sciences
• Actual: from 2021
• Semester: winter
• E-Credits: 7
• Examination process: winter s.:combined
• Hours per week, examination: winter s.:2/0, Ex [HT]
• Capacity: unknown / unknown (15)
• Min. number of students: unlimited
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: not taught
• Language: English, Czech
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan; enabled for web enrollment; priority enrollment if the course is part of the study plan
• Guarantor: doc. Mgr. et Mgr. Jaroslav Švelch, Ph.D.
• Class: Courses for incoming students

Annotation

This graduate-level course follows current discussions within the scholarship of digital and non-digital games, or game studies. It focuses on the formal properties of games as a medium, on gaming cultures and communities, and on controversial issues surrounding digital games. The course does not require prior knowledge of game studies, but does require reading assigned literature. The final assignment is an essay on a topic in game studies.

Last update: Švelch Jaroslav, doc. Mgr. et Mgr., Ph.D. (14.09.2019)

Course completion requirements

Assigments include two blog posts and a final essay of about 8-10 pages (2000-2500 words).

Last update: Švelch Jaroslav, doc. Mgr. et Mgr., Ph.D. (14.09.2019)

Literature

BACKE, H. - J. “A Redneck Head on a Nazi Body. Subversive Ludo-Narrative Strategies in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.” Arts 7 (4): 76, 2018 https://doi.org/10.3390/arts7040076

BOGOST, I. Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007.

EGENFELDT-NIELSEN, S. - HEIDE SMITH, J. - PAJARES TOSCA, S. Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction. 2nd edition. New York: Routledge, 2013

JUUL, J. Half-Real: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005

KROBOVÁ, T. - MORAVEC, O. - ŠVELCH, J. “Dressing Commander Shepard in Pink: Queer Playing in a Heteronormative Game Culture.” Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace 9 (3), 2015 https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2015-3-3.

MAJKOWSKI, T. Z. “Geralt of Poland: The Witcher 3 Between Epistemic Disobedience and Imperial Nostalgia.” Open Library of Humanities 4 (1): 6, 2018 https://doi.org/10.16995/olh.216.

MARTIN, P. “The Intellectual Structure of Game Research.” Game Studies 18 (1)., 2018 http://gamestudies.org/1801/articles/paul_martin.

NOONEY, L. “A Pedestal, A Table, A Love Letter: Archaeologies of Gender in Videogame History.” Game Studies 13 (2), 2013. http://gamestudies.org/1302/articles/nooney.

ŠVELCH, J. “Say It with a Computer Game: Hobby Computer Culture and the Non-Entertainment Uses of Homebrew Games in the 1980s Czechoslovakia.” Game Studies 13 (2), 2013. http://gamestudies.org/1302/articles/svelch.

WOLDT, L. - APPERLEY, T H. - CLEMENS, J. - FORDYCE, R. - MUKGERJEE, S. “(Re-)Orienting the Video Game Avatar.” Games and Culture, July, 2019. 155541201985889. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412019858890.

Last update: Štoll Martin, prof. MgA., Ph.D. (14.01.2020)

Requirements to the exam

Assigments include two blog posts and a final essay of about 8-10 pages (2000-2500 words).

Last update: Bednařík Petr, PhDr., Ph.D. (19.01.2020)

Syllabus

The detailed syllabus for Winter 2020 is available HERE.

 

Topics:

1.      Introduction

2.      Game studies as an academic discipline

3.      Historiography of digital games and its critique

4.      Game structures and ontologies

5.      How to read games?

6.      Games, regions, and postcolonialism

7.      Activist and persuasive games

8.      Player avatars

9.     Player communities

10.   Gender issues in and around digital games

11.   Game industry as a cultural industry

12.   Game labor

Last update: Švelch Jaroslav, doc. Mgr. et Mgr., Ph.D. (25.09.2020)