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A lot of work has been done talking about what masculinity is and what it does within video games, but less has been given to considering how and why this happens, and the processes involved. This book considers the array of daily relationships involved in producing masculinity and how those actions and relationships translate to video games. Moreover, it examines the ways the actual play of the games maps onto the stories to create contradictory moments that show that, while toxic masculinity certainly exists, it is far from inevitable. Topics covered include the nature of masculine apprenticeship and nurturing, labor, fatherhood, the scapegoating of women, and reckoning with mortality, among many others.
A guide to repurposing used books and pages into unique, accessible art projects—the perfect gift for artists, crafters and book lovers. In these pages, Jason Thompson has curated an extensive and artistic range of both achievable upcycled crafts made from books and book pages and an amazing gallery that contains thought-provoking and beautiful works that transform books into art. The content encompasses a wide range of techniques and step-by-step projects that deconstruct and rebuild books and their parts into unique, recycled objects. The book combines in equal measure bookbinding, woodworking, paper crafting, origami, and textile and decorative arts techniques, along with a healthy dose of experimentation and fun. The beautiful high-end presentation and stunning photography make this book a delightful, must-have volume for any book-loving artist or art-loving book collector.
The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record began publication in 1873. Debates for sessions prior to 1873 are recorded in The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (1789-1824), the Register of Debates in Congress (1824-1837), and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873)
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of the bestselling and most influential video games of the past decade. From the return of world-threatening dragons to an ongoing civil war, the province of Skyrim is rich with adventure, lore, magic, history, and stunning vistas. Beyond its visual spectacle alone, Skyrim is an exemplary gameworld that reproduces out-of-game realities, controversies, and histories for its players. Being Dragonborn, then, comes to signify a host of ethical and ideological choices for the player, both inside and outside the gameworld. These essays show how playing Skyrim, in many ways, is akin to "playing" 21st century America with its various crises, conflicts, divisions, and inequalities. Topics covered include racial inequality and white supremacy, gender construction and misogyny, the politics of modding, rhetorics of gameplay, and narrative features.
More than live : game "a-liveness" and immediacy -- Game presence and mediatization -- Pausing and resuming -- Saving and restoring -- An instinct towards repetition : "replay value," mastery, and re-creation -- Recursive temporalities -- Case studies
Taking as its point of departure the fundamental observation that games are both technical and symbolic, this collection investigates the multiple intersections between the study of computer games and the discipline of technical and professional writing. Divided into five parts, Computer Games and Technical Communication engages with questions related to workplace communities and gamic simulations; industry documentation; manuals, gameplay, and ethics; training, testing, and number crunching; and the work of games and gamifying work. In that computer games rely on a complex combination of written, verbal, visual, algorithmic, audio, and kinesthetic means to convey information, technical and professional writing scholars are uniquely poised to investigate the intersection between the technical and symbolic aspects of the computer game complex. The contributors to this volume bring to bear the analytic tools of the field to interpret the roles of communication, production, and consumption in this increasingly ubiquitous technical and symbolic medium.
Video games open portals into fantastical worlds where imaginative play prevails. The virtual medium seemingly provides us with ample opportunities to behave and act out with relative safety and impunity. Or does it? Sound Play explores the aesthetic, ethical, and sociopolitical stakes of our engagements with gaming's audio phenomena-from sonic violence to synthesized operas, from democratic music-making to vocal sexual harassment. Author William Cheng shows how the simulated environments of games empower designers, composers, players, and scholars to test and tinker with music, noise, speech, and silence in ways that might not be prudent or possible in the real world. In negotiating utopian and alarmist stereotypes of video games, Sound Play synthesizes insights from across musicology, sociology, anthropology, communications, literary theory, and philosophy. With case studies that span Final Fantasy VI, Silent Hill, Fallout 3, The Lord of the Rings Online, and Team Fortress 2, this book insists that what we do in there - in the safe, sound spaces of games - can ultimately teach us a great deal about who we are and what we value (musically, culturally, humanly) out here.