Prof. Colin Milburn (University of California, Davis)

"Video Games and Digital Narratives" (May/June 2019)

The video game has now emerged as a dominant media form of contemporary American culture. This seminar examined the video game as a storytelling medium, addressing the features that distinguish video games from other narrative texts. Students explored the relationship of video games to literature in today's global media ecology, the transformation of the "text" from a discrete object to a transmedia narrative system. They also investigated the ways that video games position themselves as interactive fictions whose characters, plotlines and gameplay mechanics draw upon, and contribute to, broader literary traditions.