This talk explores the way Rockstar Games has been mediating American history for the last two decades. It also surveys the way the company deployed a range of paratextual promotional materials to sell games like Red Dead Redemption and L.A. Noire – and specifically, to sell their “authenticity”. The talk notes the importance of incorporating games into our conceptualisation of “digital history,” as well as the need to consider born-digital paratexts materials in our analyses of historical video games.
Esther Wright is Lecturer in Digital History at Cardiff University (Wales, UK), where she researches and teaches historical video games. She is the author of Rockstar Games and American History: Promotional Materials and the Construction of Authenticity (De Gruyter, 2022), and co-editor (with John Wills) of Red Dead Redemption: History, Myth and Violence in the Video Games West (University of Oklahoma Press, 2023). She is also co-convenor of the Historical Games Network, a space for conversation and collaboration between academics, game makers, and cultural heritage professionals.
Tuesday, 19 September 2023
14.00 – 15.30
Black Box
Maison des Sciences Humaines
Belval Campus
and online: https://unilu.webex.com/unilu/j.php?MTID=madc9cc89d58c4828d0cb32c54d7274f8
The lecture will be followed by a reception.
