Advanced Topics in Modern and Contemporary Japanese Literature and Culture (322-0-20)
Topic
Video Games in/as Japanese Culture
Instructors
Thomas Martin Gaubatz
847/491-2766
1880 Campus Drive, Kresge Hall, Office 4-345
Office Hours: varies by quarter, please contact instructor
Meeting Info
Fisk Hall 114: Tues, Thurs 11:00AM - 12:20PM
Overview of class
AY23-24 This course places video games in the context of Japanese cultural history from the 1990s to the present. It aims to furnish the historical and conceptual contexts necessary to interpret how games reflect upon the crises faced by Japan at the turn of the new millennium. The course centers on a series of dominant narrative paradigms and subcultural tropes—apocalyptic fantasy, world-type, survival, etc.—and asks how these are rendered in game form. While our focus is ultimately on games as a form of narrative, we aim also to understand how the active and interactive nature of the game medium shapes the meanings that these texts convey.
Teaching Method
Seminar
Evaluation Method
Attendance, participation, discussion forum, weekly group presentations, final group project, final paper
Class Materials (Required)
All materials available on CANVAS
Class Attributes
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area