[ecrea] New Book: On Video Games: The Visual Politics of Race, Gender and Space

New Book: On Video Games: The Visual Politics of Race, Gender and Space
Imprint: I.B.Tauris 2018
Publisher: I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd.
Series: International Library of Visual Culture
By: Soraya Murray, PhD


Available anywhere or at the publisher’s site:
http://www.ibtauris.com/Books/Society--social-sciences/Society--culture-general/Cultural-studies/Popular-culture/On-Video-Games-The-Visual-Politics-of-Race-Gender-and-Space?menuitem=

Also available on Amazon in eBook form.

Description:
Today over half of all American households own a dedicated game console 
and gaming industry profits trump those of the film industry worldwide. 
In this book, Soraya Murray moves past the technical discussions of 
games and offers a fresh and incisive look at their cultural dimensions. 
She critically explores blockbusters likeThe Last of Us, Metal Gear 
Solid, Spec Ops: The Line, Tomb Raider and Assassin's Creed to show how 
they are deeply entangled with American ideological positions and 
contemporary political, cultural and economic conflicts.

As quintessential forms of visual material in the twenty-first century, 
mainstream games both mirror and spur larger societal fears, hopes and 
dreams, and even address complex struggles for recognition. This book 
examines both their elaborately constructed characters and densely 
layered worlds, whose social and environmental landscapes reflect ideas 
about gender, race, globalisation and urban life. In this emerging field 
of study, Murray provides novel theoretical approaches to discussing 
games and playable media as culture.

Demonstrating that games are at the frontline of power relations, Murray 
reimagines how we see them - and more importantly how we understand them.

Contents
Introduction: Is the ‘Culture’ in Game Culture the ‘Culture’ of Cultural 
Studies?  Ch 1: Poetics of Form and Politics of Identity; Or, Games as 
Cultural Palimpsests
Ch 2: Aesthetics of Ambivalence and Whiteness in Crisis Ch 3: The 
Landscapes of Games as Ideology Ch 4: The World is a Ghetto: Imaging the 
Global Metropolis in Playable Representation


Author Info:
Soraya Murray is an Assistant Professor in the Film and Digital Media 
Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), where she 
is also affiliated with the Digital Arts and New Media MFA Program, and 
the Art + Design: Games + Playable Media Program. She is an 
interdisciplinary scholar of visual culture, with a particular interest 
in cultural studies, contemporary art, digital media and video games. 
Murray holds a PhD in the History of Art and Visual Studies from Cornell 
University.

ISBN: 978 1 78453 741 8
eISBN: 978 1 78672 250 8 ePDF: 978 1 78673 250 7

Hardback
Publication Date: 2018
Number of Pages: 272
Height: 216
Width: 138
Illustrations: 50 black and white integrated illustrations


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