This talk considers the role of the university library in teaching with videogames, focusing on access and logistics through case studies of class assignments. We will examine a range of topics for research and how even short blocks of time in the library can be used effectively for student success in game studies. Examples of faculty and student research include identity studies, colonialism, narrative structures in Japanese media, and player-character identification.
We will also consider such practical topics as the initial purchase and housing of game texts and consoles, cataloging and publicizing the games, lending of game paraphernalia (headphones, remotes etc), organizing space and managing noise, as well as orientation sessions, differences in faculty and student use, and challenges with online game materials. Interactive Q&A very welcome!
Rachael Hutchinson is an Elias Ahuja Professor of Japanese and Game Studies at the University of Delaware, where she teaches courses on Japanese language, culture, and translation. Her research focuses on identity and representation in Japanese fiction, film, manga and videogames. Books include Nagai Kafū’s Occidentalism: Defining the Japanese Self (2011), Japanese Culture Through Videogames (2019) and the edited works Negotiating Censorship in Modern Japan (2013), Representing the Other in Modern Japanese Literature: A Critical Approach (with Mark Williams, 2007), The Rioutledge Handbook of Modern Japanese Literature (with Leith Morton, 2016) and Japanese Role-Playing Games: Genre, Representation and Liminality in the JRPG (with Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon, 2022). Most recently she edited The Handbook of Japanese Games and Gameplay, forthcoming from Amsterdam University Press.
This talk is co-sponsored by the IHGC's Games Lab and UVA's East Asia Center.