PhD Course - Games and Subjectivity

Organiser:
Espen Aarseth, Associate Professor MSK, ITU

Lecturers:
Espen Aarseth
Hans-Joachim Backe
Joyce Goggin (tentative)
Jonas Linderoth (tentative)

Date(s) of the course:
November 2, 2013

Time:
9.00 – 17.00

Room preferences:
The course is being held in conjunction with the Games and Literary Theory Conference 2013, and will take place at the University of Malta, as part of our on-going PhD cooperation.

Course description:
In any field of academic discourse within which the question emerges, subjectivity is a concept that delineates contested ground. It is a term that lies at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, cultural studies and the social sciences, and each discipline has offered its own – frequently conflicting – understandings of what it means to be a subject.
On the one hand, we have the irreducible Kantian self that is the ground of all experience, but that cannot itself be the object of experience – a notion of subjectivity that eventually developed into the first-person existential standpoint of classic phenomenology (Husserl; Heidegger 2008[1927]). On the other hand, we have the notion of the subject as the addressee of the ideological codes and social apparata that turn her into the site of a discourse of power (Althusser 1971; Foucault 2000). Still elsewhere we have the idea of the narrative of the subject, emerging as a unified a posteriori construct from the undifferentiated stream of experience (Giddens 1991; Ricoeur 1992). Beyond this, we can also mention the new directions into which posthumanism has pointed the discussion (Haraway 1991).
At the heart of all these theoretical endeavours are vital questions regarding self-awareness, identity, agency and the subjective construction of our experience of the world. This PhD seminar will be concerned with tracing the implications that such questions bring to bear upon the study of games. Therefore, the considerations that will prove central to the discussion include games’ formal construction of subjective experiential positions, questions of player agency and restrictions, the role of the avatar in determining subjectivity, the positioning of games within (or in opposition to) dominant social and ideological discourses of subjectivity and identity, and the impact of games on players’ subjectivity and identity.
Thus, this seminar will provide PhD students from such diverse fields as philosophy, psychology, cultural studies and the social sciences with a unique opportunity to discuss and engage with a key concept through the lens of game studies.

Program:
9-11: Lecturers’ position papers
11-13: Student presentations
13-14: lunch
14-16: Student presentations
16-17: individual feedback

Prerequisites:
The seminar is open to any current PhD students with an interest in the question of subjectivity in games. A reading list shall be assigned to participants in the conference. Knowledge of the texts shall be assumed.

Reading list:

• Hacking, I. (2004). “Between Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman: Between discourse in the abstract and face-to-face interaction”. Economy and Society, 33, 277–302.
• Krzywinska, T. 2007. “Being a Determined Agent in (the) World of Warcraft: Text/Play/Identity”. In Atkins, B. & Kryzwinska, T. (ed.), Videogame, Player, Text. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 101–119.
• Linderoth, J., & Bennerstedt, U. (2007). “Living in World of Warcraft: the thoughts and experiences of ten young people”. Statens Medieråd. Retrieved from http://www.statensmedierad.se/Publikationer/Produkter/Presentation-of-World-of-Warcraft-Study/
• Ricoeur, Paul. 1992. “The Question of Selfhood”. In Blamey, K. (trans.), Oneself As Another. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 1–26.
• Waggoner, Zach. 2009. My Avatar, My Self. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, pp. 21–47.
• Zahavi, Dan. 2008. “Consciousness and Self”. In Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First-Person Perspective. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 99–146.

Exam:
Students will submit a position paper which will be evaluated by the teachers. Deadline: October 20th.

Credits:
3 ECTS

Amount of hours the student is expected to use on the course:
Participation: 7 hrs.
Preparation (including paper): 60 hrs.

Participants:
4 students have signed up and there is open for 4-6 other PhD students who apply to take part, and it is expected that a number of attendees to the Games and Literary Theory conference will be interested in taking part.