End of year, semester and work package 0

I mostly forgot to log this weeks works, but it’s ok, I guess. Next to having the last sessions of two university courses, I was mainly focusing on one of the deliverables. For the course “Histoire et préservation du jeu vidéo : état des lieux en Suisse” I had to do an analysis of a Swiss game. The vantage point was a question: What are early examples of Swiss games that make or work as political statements? After some research and combing the internet I stumbled across Minarett Attack, an Islamophobic Flash game from 2009. The game was launched as part of the Anti-Minarett campaign of the extrem right in Switzerland.

The analysis of the game went into a post, that will be published on the Jeu UNIL/EPFL blog. You can read the draft of the text here: Minarett Attack - A video game as rhetoric device in the political communication of the extreme right. The Islamophobic Minarett Attack wasn’t my first choice. It certainly is not a video game I’m enjoying. But, after an initial analysis, I knew that contextualising and discussing the game was relevant.

Every now and then I reflect(ed) on the relevance of my PhD or doing research in video game studies. I’m in a very privileged position. I’m not getting rich, but I’m getting by without having to downgrade my lifestyle. It feels like having a paid residency for four years. Of course I feel the need and pressure to be and do something of relevance for society at large. Being able/enabled to do a critical analysis on racist or sexist¹ games seem to be a step into the right direction. Contextualising these games, critically research them feels right and important. But that’s only part of it. This kind of knowledge also has to find it’s way into practice. That’s not my strength at the moment and I need to find some collaborations in order to be more active regarding this.

Another milestone reached is the final discussion and approval of my exposé. My primary supervisor gave me a great input regarding the desired and targeted output and papers and I’m essentially ready to roll now. This marks the successful end of working package 0. In the following year, the exposé will mutate into a living document, that documents my dissertation project and will become the basis of the synopsis that accompanies my final thesis.

I’m looking forward to next year. Free of the need to attend courses, I can finally concentrate fully on the research project as well as my dissertation. I started with some rough planning on what to do when, and the year will start with a lot of diligent labour assembling my corpora. Nice ✨

Log

• Handed in my draft on Minarett Attack.

Footnotes

1. Like the analysis I was able to do with Aurelia Brandenburg for our text Of Bare Chested Men and Violence: Barbarians and War in 1980s games and press coverage ↩