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Utopic Dreams And Apocalyptic Fantasies
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Book Synopsis Utopic Dreams and Apocalyptic Fantasies by : Talmadge J. Wright
Download or read book Utopic Dreams and Apocalyptic Fantasies written by Talmadge J. Wright and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2010-09-25 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Utopic Dreams and Apocalyptic Fantasies invites us to examine critical questions about video game play, pleasure, and fantasy from a sociological perspective.
Book Synopsis Focus On: 100 Most Popular Fictional African-American People by : Wikipedia contributors
Download or read book Focus On: 100 Most Popular Fictional African-American People written by Wikipedia contributors and published by e-artnow sro. This book was released on with total page 1165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Virtually Sacred by : Robert M. Geraci
Download or read book Virtually Sacred written by Robert M. Geraci and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-13 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Millions of users have taken up residence in virtual worlds, and in those worlds they find opportunities to revisit and rewrite their religious lives. Robert M. Geraci argues that virtual worlds and video games have become a locus for the satisfaction of religious needs, providing many users with devoted communities, opportunities for ethical reflection, a meaningful experience of history and human activity, and a sense of transcendence. Using interviews, surveys, and his own first-hand experience within the virtual worlds, Geraci shows how World of Warcraft and Second Life provide participants with the opportunity to rethink what it means to be religious in the contemporary world. Not all participants use virtual worlds for religious purposes, but many online residents use them to rearrange or replace religious practice as designers and users collaborate in the production of a new spiritual marketplace. Using World of Warcraft and Second Life as case studies, this book shows that many residents now use virtual worlds to re-imagine their traditions and work to restore them to "authentic" sanctity, or else replace religious institutions with virtual communities that provide meaning and purpose to human life. For some online residents, virtual worlds are even keys to a post-human future where technology can help us transcend mortal life. Geraci argues that World of Warcraft and Second Life are "virtually sacred" because they do religious work. They often do such work without regard for-and frequently in conflict with-traditional religious institutions and practices; ultimately they participate in our sacred landscape as outsiders, competitors, and collaborators.
Book Synopsis What Is a Game? by : Gaines S. Hubbell
Download or read book What Is a Game? written by Gaines S. Hubbell and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2020-02-14 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is a videogame? What makes a videogame "good"? If a game is supposed to be fun, can it be fun without a good story? If another is supposed to be an accurate simulation, does it still need to be entertaining? With the ever-expanding explosion of new videogames and new developments in the gaming world, questions about videogame criticism are becoming more complex. The differing definitions that players and critics use to decide what a game is and what makes a game successful, often lead to different ideas of how games succeed or fail. This collection of new essays puts on display the variety and ambiguity of videogames. Each essay is a work of game criticism that takes a different approach to defining the game and analyzing it. Through analysis and critical methods, these essays discuss whether a game is defined by its rules, its narrative, its technology, or by the activity of playing it, and the tensions between these definitions. With essays on Overwatch, Dark Souls 3, Far Cry 4, Farmville and more, this collection attempts to show the complex changes, challenges and advances to game criticism in the era of videogames.
Book Synopsis The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies by : Mark J.P. Wolf
Download or read book The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies written by Mark J.P. Wolf and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-03 with total page 676 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The number of publications dealing with video game studies has exploded over the course of the last decade, but the field has produced few comprehensive reference works. The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies, compiled by well-known video game scholars Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, aims to address the ongoing theoretical and methodological development of game studies, providing students, scholars, and game designers with a definitive look at contemporary video game studies. Features include: comprehensive and interdisciplinary models and approaches for analyzing video games; new perspectives on video games both as art form and cultural phenomenon; explorations of the technical and creative dimensions of video games; accounts of the political, social, and cultural dynamics of video games. Each essay provides a lively and succinct summary of its target area, quickly bringing the reader up-to-date on the pertinent issues surrounding each aspect of the field, including references for further reading. Together, they provide an overview of the present state of game studies that will undoubtedly prove invaluable to student, scholar, and designer alike.
Book Synopsis Social Exclusion, Power, and Video Game Play by : David G. Embrick
Download or read book Social Exclusion, Power, and Video Game Play written by David G. Embrick and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book represents cutting-edge research that addresses major issues of social exclusion, power and liberatory fantasies in virtual play. Specifically, the scope of the book examines three areas of concern: social psychological implications of virtual gameplay; reproduction and contestation of social inequality in virtual realms.
Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of the Bible and American Popular Culture by : Dan W. Clanton, Jr.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the Bible and American Popular Culture written by Dan W. Clanton, Jr. and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 615 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The study of the reciprocal relationship between the Bible and popular culture has blossomed in the past few decades, and the time seems ripe for a broadly-conceived work that assesses the current state of the field, offers examples of work in that field, and suggests directions for further study. This Handbook includes a wide range of topics organized under several broad themes, including biblical characters and themes in popular culture; the Bible in popular cultural genres; "lived" examples; and a concluding section in which we take stock of methodologies like Reception History and the impact of the field on teaching and publishing. These topics are all addressed by focusing on specific examples from film, television, comics, music, literature, video games, science fiction, material culture, museums, and theme parks, to name a few. This book represents a major contribution to the field by some of its leading practitioners, and will be a key resource for the future development of the study of Bible and American popular culture"--
Book Synopsis The Sacred in Fantastic Fandom by : Carole M. Cusack
Download or read book The Sacred in Fantastic Fandom written by Carole M. Cusack and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2019-04-23 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To the casual observer, similarities between fan communities and religious believers are difficult to find. Religion is traditional, institutional, and serious; whereas fandom is contemporary, individualistic, and fun. Can the robes of nuns and priests be compared to cosplay outfits of Jedi Knights and anime characters? Can travelling to fan conventions be understood as pilgrimages to the shrines of saints? These new essays investigate fan activities connected to books, film, and online games, such as Harry Potter-themed weddings, using The Hobbit as a sacred text, and taking on heroic roles in World of Warcraft. Young Muslim women cosplayers are brought into conversation with Chaos magicians who use pop culture tropes and characters. A range of canonical texts, such as Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Sherlock--are examined in terms of the pleasure and enchantment of repeated viewing. Popular culture is revealed to be a fertile source of religious and spiritual creativity in the contemporary world.
Book Synopsis Un-American Dreams by : J. JESSE. RAMIREZ
Download or read book Un-American Dreams written by J. JESSE. RAMIREZ and published by . This book was released on 2024-08-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the end, the world will be un-American. This speculation forms the nucleus of Un-American Dreams, a study of US apocalyptic science fiction in the short century of American superpower, 1945-2001. The book illuminates the ways in which authors and directors have used figures of the end of the world as speculative pretexts to imagine the utopian possibilities of an un-American world.
Book Synopsis Un-American Dreams by : J. Jesse Ramírez
Download or read book Un-American Dreams written by J. Jesse Ramírez and published by . This book was released on 2022-06 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the end, the world will be un-American. This speculation forms the nucleus of Un-American Dreams, a study of US apocalyptic science fiction and the cultural politics of disimaginedcommunity in the short century of American superpower, 1945-2001.Between the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which helped to transform the UnitedStates into a superpower and initiated the Cold War, and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which spelled the Cold War's second death and inaugurated the War on Terror, apocalyptic science fiction returned again and again to the scene of America's negation. During the American Century, to imagine yourself as American and as a participant in a shared national culture meant disimagining the most powerful nation on the planet. Un-American Dreams illuminates how George R. Stewart, Philip K. Dick, George A. Romero, Octavia Butler, and Roland Emmerich represented the impossibility of reforming American society and used figures of the end of the world as speculative pretexts to imagine the utopian possibilities of an un-American world. The American Century was simultaneously a closure of the path to utopia and an escape route into apocalyptic science fiction, the underground into which figures of an alternative future could be smuggled.
Book Synopsis Japanese Culture Through Videogames by : Rachael Hutchinson
Download or read book Japanese Culture Through Videogames written by Rachael Hutchinson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-05-28 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining a wide range of Japanese videogames, including arcade fighting games, PC-based strategy games and console JRPGs, this book assesses their cultural significance and shows how gameplay and context can be analyzed together to understand videogames as a dynamic mode of artistic expression. Well-known titles such as Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Street Fighter and Katamari Damacy are evaluated in detail, showing how ideology and critique are conveyed through game narrative and character design as well as user interface, cabinet art, and peripherals. This book also considers how ‘Japan’ has been packaged for domestic and overseas consumers, and how Japanese designers have used the medium to express ideas about home and nation, nuclear energy, war and historical memory, social breakdown and bioethics. Placing each title in its historical context, Hutchinson ultimately shows that videogames are a relatively recent but significant site where cultural identity is played out in modern Japan. Comparing Japanese videogames with their American counterparts, as well as other media forms, such as film, manga and anime, Japanese Culture Through Videogames will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese culture and society, as well as Game Studies, Media Studies and Japanese Studies more generally.
Download or read book Immersive Gameplay written by Evan Torner and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of all-new essays approaches the topic of immersion as a product of social and media relations. Examining the premises and aesthetics of live-action and tabletop role-playing games, reality television, social media apps and first-person shooters, the essays take both game rules and the media discourse that games produce as serious objects of study. Scholars of social psychology, sociology, role-playing theory, game studies, and television studies all examine games and game-like environments like reality shows as interdependent sites of social friction and power negotiation. The ten essays articulate the importance of game rules in analyses of media products, and demonstrate methods that allow game rules to be seen in action during the process of play.
Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature by : John Joseph Collins
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature written by John Joseph Collins and published by Oxford Handbooks. This book was released on 2014 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Apocalypticism arose in ancient Judaism in the last centuries BCE and played a crucial role in the rise of Christianity. It is not only of historical interest: there has been a growing awareness, especially since the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, of the prevalence of apocalyptic beliefs in the contemporary world. To understand these beliefs, it is necessary to appreciate their complex roots in the ancient world, and the multi-faceted character of the phenomenon of apocalypticism. The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature is a thematic and phenomenological exploration of apocalypticism in the Judaic and Christian traditions. Most of the volume is devoted to the apocalyptic literature of antiquity. Essays explore the relationship between apocalypticism and prophecy, wisdom and mysticism; the social function of apocalypticism and its role as resistance literature; apocalyptic rhetoric from both historical and postmodern perspectives; and apocalyptic theology, focusing on phenomena of determinism and dualism and exploring apocalyptic theology's role in ancient Judaism, early Christianity, and Gnosticism. The final chapters of the volume are devoted to the appropriation of apocalypticism in the modern world, reviewing the role of apocalypticism in contemporary Judaism and Christianity, and more broadly in popular culture, addressing the increasingly studied relation between apocalypticism and violence, and discussing the relationship between apocalypticism and trauma, which speaks to the underlying causes of the popularity of apocalyptic beliefs. This volume will further the understanding of a vital religious phenomenon too often dismissed as alien and irrational by secular western society.
Book Synopsis Future West by : William Henry Katerberg
Download or read book Future West written by William Henry Katerberg and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the future of the American West? This book look at works of utopian, dystopian, and apocalyptic science fiction to show how narratives of the past and future powerfully shape our understanding of the present-day West.
Book Synopsis Selves, Societies, and Emotions by : Thomas S. Henricks
Download or read book Selves, Societies, and Emotions written by Thomas S. Henricks and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-01-08 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Building on contributions from sociology, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, literature, and neuroscience, Henricks develops a more general account of how people discover and reproduce the "meanings" of their involvements with others. Among its many themes are treatments of selves as "projections of personhood," of the ways in which self-expression has changed historically and is now experienced in our electronically mediated era, of emotions as "framing judgments," and of ritual, play, communitas, and work as four distinctive "pathways of experience."
Book Synopsis The Anthropology of the Future by : Rebecca Bryant
Download or read book The Anthropology of the Future written by Rebecca Bryant and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-28 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anticipation -- Expectation -- Speculation -- Potentiality -- Hope -- Destiny.
Book Synopsis Dreams of Paradise, Visions of Apocalypse by : J. Verheul
Download or read book Dreams of Paradise, Visions of Apocalypse written by J. Verheul and published by Virago Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book explores the fundamental and multifaceted dialectic between utopian dreams and dystopian nightmares within American culture. The utopian mindset in constructing and imagining different futures for society is reflected in a wide range of differential cultural texts and narratives such as novels, short stories, political discourses and treatises, journalism and scholarly and intellectual debates. Often these combine social criticism and satire, political rhetoric, religious belief systems, and biblical metaphors. Approaching the topic from various angles and throughout different historical periods, the essays in this volume collectively show how fascinating and rewarding the exploration of this utopian discourse of for an understanding of American culture.
