Critical and Cultural Studies Commons^™

Society Doesn’T Owe You Anything: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas & Video Games As Speculative Fiction, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

Since Donald Trump’s election in 2016, popular and scholarly commentators have been looking for speculative and/or dystopic literary works that might provide analogues for the Trump-era. Perhaps the most famous of these was the renewed popularity of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. In this regard, though, video games remain an underexplored fictional form. With its exaggerated and parodic satire of an America ruled by the corruption and greed of extreme right-wing populism, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004) offers a speculative fiction that players can enact as well as imagine and simulate as well as prepare. Thus, reading the …

A Feel For The Game: Ai, Computer Games And Perceiving Perception, Marc A. Ouellette, Steven Conway

English Faculty Publications

I walk into the room and the smell of burning wood hits me immediately. The warmth from the fireplace grows as I step nearer to it. The fire needs to heat the little cottage through the night so I add a log to the fire. There are a few sparks and embers. I throw a bigger log onto the fire and it drops with a thud. Again, there are barely any sparks or embers. The heat and the smell stay the same. They don’t change and I do not become habituated to it. Rather, they are just a steady stream, …

The Game Studies Crisis: What Are The Rules Of Play?, Marc A. Ouellette, Steven Conway

English Faculty Publications

Though no field or discipline’s historical vector presents itself as a strictly linear building of knowledge, the historical trajectory of Game Studies is problematic: certainly not linear, yet also not even multiplicious or rhizomatic. Instead, we are cyclical. Past debates often re-emerge, zombie-like, muttering the same arguments, often encased in binaries as endemic to our field as they are to the objects we study: unbridgeable disagreements on fundamental concepts; incompatible ontologies and epistemologies; incommensurability writ large. We view this as a chronic issue which has of late culminated in a crisis, exacerbated by changing institutional prerogatives championing multidisciplinary approaches and …

Twisting Facts To Suit Theories: In Defense Of Sherlock, Alicia Defonzo

English Faculty Publications

[First paragraph]

In August 2011, the Albemarle County school board unanimously voted to remove Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet from the sixth-grade curricula. Over twenty students beseeched the board for the book to remain, and they were ignored. Teachers were afraid to voice their opinions on the matter. The novel has not been taught since in Albemarle, on any grade level, nor any other Sherlock Holmes texts.

He Scores Through A Screen: Mediating Masculinities Through Hockey Video Games, Marc A. Ouellette, Steven Conway

English Faculty Publications

Hockey video games highlight the ways in which the video game medium shapes and conditions the experience of producing and/or performing the sport “in real life.” Indeed, the accumulation of advanced statistics in and through the constant evaluation, measurement, and surveillance which are inherent to video games—and increasingly seen as foundational for sport—reveals important contradictions not only in the way the embodied sport is played and understood, but also in terms of the proofs of masculinity upon which the sport is built. It then becomes clear that the building of masculinity and the empowerment of the character become one and …

Caption This: Police In Pussyhats, White Ladies, And Carceral Psychology Under Trump, Alison R. Reed

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Composing Focus: Shaping Temporal, Social, Media, Social Media, And Attentional Environments, Jane Fife

English Faculty Publications

Writers must learn to control factors that influence the ability to focus, especially in what some call a culture of distraction. In our efforts to promote metacognition and flexible writing processes, writing teachers need to engage students in study and discussion of factors in our temporal, social, media, social media, and attentional environments that influence focus while composing. This article examines these facets of our contemporary scenes of writing by reviewing recent research in composition studies and psychology about writing and attention, discussing the results of a survey of undergraduate writers’ composing practices, and sharing insights from assignments that help …

Eat It: Sex, Food And Women's Writing [Book Review], Marc Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

Simply put, Eat It: Sex, Food and Women's Writing surpasses its rather immodest claims. This is no mean feat, for the editors allow that they have collected short stories, nonfiction shorts and poetry that, as the back claims offers, hinge "on the carnal." More than that, the gathered works purportedly address the ways in which experiencing food entails nothing short of "power, biology, social obligation, experimentation, nourishment, pain and pleasure." The authors treat the topics, ranging from the politics of potatoes to tricks for field dressing deer, with a blend of seriousness and humour befitting the material. What becomes clear …

Agewise: Fighting The New Ageism In America [Book Review], Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

Not since an eager, combat-booted pair of massive biceps attached to a deconstructionist waterbug with a PhD buttonholed me and shoved a Cultural Studies reader into my trembling matchstick arms has a single text caused me to enact as many multiple readings and to apply as many simultaneous readings as Margaret Morganroth Gullette’s Agewise: Fight the New Ageism in America. Honestly, I cannot offer a review of this text. It does not need one. I am only able to respond to it, and even then with the timidity, awe and respect imbued in the above-cited recollection. To put it simply—if …

“I Know It When I See It”: Style, Simulation And The ‘Short-Circuit Sign’, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

The contemporary production of “style” relies heavily on the implementation of the “short-circuit sign” and the relationship of both to the emptiness of fourth-order simulation and to the remediation of successive visual forms. In distinguishing the “short-circuit sign,” film scholar James Monaco highlights the important role of cultural codes in the naturalization and the reification of on-screen images so that signifier and signified become identical, or are perceived as such. It is the cultural codes, then, that distinguish this mode from the establishment of a sign’s iconicity, insofar as the “short-circuit sign” belongs, as it were, to the genre and …

Introduction: A Game's Study Manifesto, Jason C. Thompson, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

In the epigraph to this collection, we return to a foundational text of the western literary canon, Homer’s Odyssey, and see in Penelope’s “bow contest” an illustrative moment in the history of game culture. Having fought in the Trojan War and having survived his ten-year trek home, the weary Odysseus cannot simply show up—the returning hero must rout the odious suitors whom Penelope has forestalled. In order to buy more time for vengeance, Odysseus disguises himself as an old beggar; in order to buy more time for deferral, Penelope creates an unwinnable game: she will marry the suitor able …

Gay For Play: Theorizing Lgbtq Characters In Game Studies, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

Despite, and perhaps because of, popular press reactions to stereotypical depictions of beefy boys and busty babes in video games, the realm of gender, sex, and sexuality remains a lacuna in the emerging field of game studies. Of particular interest is the notion of performance and the ways this impacts both on gender and on game play. The combination might be expected to offer a very interesting way of approaching LGBTQ characters in digital games, especially given the recent inclusion of such characters in some popular and well-studied game franchises, including Grand Theft Auto (Rockstar 1997-present), Jade Empire (BioWare 2005-08) …

Editor's Introduction: "Making Sense Of The Senseless: A Case For The Insufficiency Of Theory And Hermeneutics", Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

This issue is a wonderful compilation of truly excellent essays. I can assure readers that I have read and appreciated them. Indeed, several of them came through my inbox during various stages of preparation and it is encouraging to see such a healthy roster of scholarly contributions. I wish I were able to do them justice. Please read them. Enjoy them. The work alone should give us hope. People are thinking critically and responding creatively. This in and of itself is a good thing. What follows, then, is a call for more good things. It is part response, part self-directed …

Gaming Matters: Art, Science Magic And The Computer Game Medium [Book Review], Marc Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

The singular—maybe more aptly put as the pre-eminent—image that occurs when reading Gaming Matters is that of duelling dualisms. While this is a tried-and-true method of covering a topic, from the dissoi logoi to “The Owl and the Nightingale” and beyond, it is the site and the subject of these apposites that makes for an intriguing if (intentionally) unsettling read. The very title of the book makes the exercise of reading (and likely of writing) a part of and apart from this process. Gaming Matters stands as both call and catalogue. Gaming matters, most certainly, in terms of its audience, …

Editor's Introduction: Playing For Keeps: Games And Cultural Resistance [Special Issue], Marc A. Ouellette, Jason Thompson

English Faculty Publications

This edition is as much about Game Studies as it about the games being studied. At its heart there are really two impulses behind the collection of critical thought we have been fortunate enough to gather for this issue of Reconstruction. First, there is the sense that games can’t do anything. Second, there is the sense that games don’t do anything. Their origin (and the underlying biases) makes these sentiments particularly intriguing. In the simplest terms, these premises delineate competing camps, as well. Roger Ebert notoriously asserts that video games will never be art (Ebert). Similarly, and yet quite differently, …

An Interview With Francisco Ortega, Creator Of Crossing The Bridge, Observance: The Board Game, And H1-B: The Board Game, Marc Ouellette, Jason Thompson

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Editor's Introduction: Activism And Anagnorisis, Marc Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

As I mull the current issue – a wonderful collection of open submissions and a terrific supplement on “post-9/11” developments, about both of which I feel too intellectually impoverished to write adequately – I am filled with mixed feelings, thoughts and even theoretical positions. This last is kind of inescapable given my best efforts to put theory into practice whenever and wherever possible. The two cannot and should not be inseparable, at least for anyone who claims to be even the most remotely involved in Cultural Studies. And yet, I know that this is the area where Cultural Studies fails …

Veni, Vidi, Wiki: Expertise As Knowledge And A Technocratic Generation, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

This project stems from two intersecting strands. The statement, "I can always find out," neatly summarizes the intersection. Not surprisingly, it has two distinct but simultaneous meanings. The first, in which "always" means "every time," considers the ways in which the ability to find knowledge has become synonymous with expertise and examines the elements that have fostered this situation. In this regard, factors such as the range of software and hardware-from Wikipedia and FAQs to cellphones and Ipods-which anticipate or "think" for the user but also require constant updating are both rationale and outcome for their youthful consumers. When combined …

Removing The Checks And Balances That Hamper Democracy: Play And The Counter-Hegemonic Contradictions Of Grand Theft Auto Iv, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

Grand Theft Auto IV provides an unparalleled opportunity to consider the outcomes when textual play and game play not only intersect, but operate in concert. Indeed, the two are inextricably linked to each other and to the social commentary which contributes to the game's story, humor, and thematic unity. This article considers the modes of textual play in Grand Theft Auto IV, as well as the locations and situations when players encounter them while playing the game. It also explores the subversive of potential of textual play as it relies on and departs from game play, and attempts to …

Better Living Through Reality Tv: Television And Post-Welfare Citizenship [Book Review], Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

The very first thing I can say about Better Living Through Reality TV: Television and Post-Welfare Citizenship is that I cannot wait for the authors to consider adding a Canadian version – more on that later – since they include British reality shows. Admittedly, many of these last shows have been successful enough to lead to Americanized versions. In considering reality television, the Laurie Ouellette (no known relation) and James Hay seem to sacrifice one of the oldest, and currently largely underexamined as such, varieties of the reality television, the game show. This is not to say that "new" game …

“I Hope You Never See Another Day Like This”: Pedagogy & Allegory In “Post 9/11” Video Games, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

Although critics and scholars have considered the extent to which the terror attacks of 11 Sept. 2001 influenced subsequent media productions, video games comprise a largely unexamined form. This oversight also applies to related forms of media production and among those who study video games is in part attributable to the ongoing debate regarding the relationship(s) between narrative and play. Even so, as early as 1997, JC Herz was investigating the role of video games in the military-entertainment complex. That said, the focus of this paper will not be the obvious games which draw settings and plots directly from the …

Blogging About Feminist Lnterdisciplinarity In The Study Of Communication, Language, And Gender, Cynthia Berryman-Fink, Janet Bing, Deborah Cameron, Amy Sheldon, Anita Taylor

English Faculty Publications

This article provides information about several blog posts discussed during a round-table discussion on feminist interdisciplinary studies in relation to communication, language, and gender. Topics under discussion include the nature of interdisciplinarity and its relevance to feminist studies, intercultural communication, and the study and teaching of gender in women's studies programs in higher education.

"Everybody Else Ain't Your Father": Reproducing Masculinity In Cinematic Sports, 1975-2000, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

This essay stems from two cultural strands, which intersect in one cultural form, the sports film. The first of these is the figure of the "star," as opposed to hero, who is interested only in self promotion. The second strand, masculine nurturing, provides a direct counterpoint to the first. Sociologist Robert Connell explains that "In historically recent times, sport has come to be the leading definer of masculinity in mass culture" (54). In North America, sport plays an important and increasing role in our culture. Each of the four major sports leagues added teams in the last decade of the …

You’Ve Always Got Time: (Disposable) Coffee Cup Litter As Discursive Regime(S), Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

Quick, convenient cups of coffee from the seemingly infinite number of outlets might fuel a nation(’s workers) but once the liquid has been consmed little can be done with the supposedly disposable paper, fibre or styrofoam cups. Even though the cups cannot be recycled they do not necessarily find their way into the trash – at least not immediately. The coffee’s convenience and the concomitant (alternative) disposal methods of consumers have produced a discourse in litter by virtue of the places and positionings – that is, the practices – through which what I will call “discursive littering” occurs. Once the …

Screenplay: Cinema/Videogames/Interfaces [Book Review], Marc Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

Recognizing the growing importance (at least for consumers) of video games as a popular form of narrative fiction, Geoff King and Tanya Krzywinska situate their collection, ScreenPlay: cinema/videogames/interfaces as a text which is corrective, informative and explorative. In the first case, the editors sought essays which would move the critical discourse on video games away from the more familiar but reductive debates surrounding the "effects" of video games (especially on children) and their modes of representation (especially of the female form and violence). Indeed, these have become the sine qua non of video game criticism and one feeds the other …

Film And Television After 9/11 [Book Review], Marc Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

One of the necessary compromises a book such as Film and TV After 9/11 must make is the amount and variety of examples it can provide. In order to be the first book to cover the subject, the book sacrifices the types of materials covered and the variety of themes they depict. Although the editor, Wheeler Winston Dixon, does not do so, the book’s twelve essays slot into four basic categories: analogies, productions altered to suit the "post-9/11" mindset, post-9/11 productions with metaphorical rather than literal linkages to the event and pre-9/11 productions whose viewing must now take that day …

Contesting Identities: Sports In American Film [Book Review], Marc Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

Aaron Baker's Contesting Identities: Sports in American Film is an indictment of the key American myth that anyone can succeed through self-reliance. Baker finds that sports films, in general, comprise a site in which the myth is represented and reproduced. Baker's focus, though presented from multiple analytical perspectives, is singular in its purpose. That said, Baker does concentrate on what he considers the four core American sports: football, baseball, basketball and boxing. Approximately ninety movies, from the silent era to the present day, provide the content of the analysis, but several are exemplary and are cited repeatedly in the book's …

Reel Baseball: Essays And Interviews On The National Pastime, Hollywood And American Culture, Marc Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

The editors of Reel Baseball begin by acknowledging the roots of their collection, which explores the intersection between movies and baseball. Since 1989 the National Baseball Hall of Fame has hosted the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture. Since 1997, McFarland has published all papers presented at the symposium. Reel Baseball, then, functions both as a document and as an artifact of the "integral" place of baseball movies in American culture. Indeed, the book not only includes essays presented at the symposium, it has two foreword sections: one written by Hall of Fame President Dale Petroskey and the …

"Two Guns, A Girl And A Playstation™": Gender In The Tomb Raider Series, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

This article considers the combination of game play and narrative which combine to produce cross-gender identifications in video games, a previously underexamined potential for the production of alternate genders, one which calls into question the stability of gender, particularly masculinity, as a construct.

"War If Necessary, But Not Necessarily War”: The Canadian Paradox And “Iraqi Freedom", Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

The Canadian refusal to join the U.S. led “coalition of the willing” does not mark the first time the nation has chosen not to follow its “traditional allies” into a foolish, ego-driven, imperialistic and vengeful conflict. Indeed, Canada’s record in these matters is flawless. Peter C. Newman points out that “we went along with most presidential global adventures, except the Vietnam War. The other significant time we parted company with the Yanks was over our drive to impose economic sanctions on apartheid South Africa, a policy we initiated and successfully defended despite American objections.” In fact, the objections to this …