Graduation Date

Spring 2019

Document Type

Thesis

Program

Master of Arts degree with a major in English, emphasis in Literary & Cultural Studies

Committee Chair Name

Dr. David Stacey

Committee Chair Affiliation

HSU Faculty or Staff

Second Committee Member Name

Dr. Mary Ann Creadon

Second Committee Member Affiliation

HSU Faculty or Staff

Keywords

Game studies, Queer game studies, Queer theory, Hypertext, Hypermedia, Video games

Subject Categories

English

Abstract

In this project, I analyze two video games, Gone Home (Fullbright Company 2013) and What Remains of Edith Finch (Giant Sparrow 2017), through a queer theoretical framework, focusing on three specific features of the games: 1) their status as open world games, 2) the agency given to players in interactions with objects, and 3) how ambiguous player-character identity is used to create a sense of estrangement in the player. I use these features to argue for a specifically queer theoretical approach to hypermedia, which is attentive to the process of how players create an identity for themselves within the game world. I also introduce the concept of the reader-player, a term that I believe (more accurately than reader or player alone) represents the cognitive/embodied approach that reader-players bring to hypermedia texts.

Citation Style

MLA

Share

 
COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.