Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Toscano, Aaron, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Dept. of English

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-083: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • ENGL 2116 sec. 083 Major Assignments (Summer 2020)
      • Final Portfolio Requirements
      • Oral Presentations
    • June 11th: Continue with I, Robot
    • June 15th: Ethics and Perspective Discussion
      • Ethical Dilemmas for Homework
      • Ethical Dilemmas to Ponder
      • Mapping Our Personal Ethics
    • June 16th: More on Ethics
    • June 1st: Effective Documents for Users
    • June 2nd: Final Project and Research Discussion
      • Epistemology and Other Fun Research Ideas
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters Better
      • Research
    • June 3rd: Technology in a Social Context
    • June 8th: Information Design and Visuals
    • June 9th: Proposals, Marketing, and Rhetoric
    • May 18th: Introduction to the course
    • May 19th: Critical Technological Awareness
    • May 20th: Audience, Purpose, and General Introduction
    • May 21st: Résumé Stuff
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters More Effective
      • Peter Profit’s Cover Letter
    • May 25th: More Resume Stuff
    • May 26th: Plain Language and Prose Revision
      • Euphemisms
      • Prose Practice for Next Class
      • Prose Revision Assignment
      • Revising Prose: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Good
      • Sentence Clarity
    • May 27th: More on Plain Language
    • May 28th: Review Prose Revision
  • ENGL 4182/5182: Information Design & Digital Publishing
    • August 21st: Introduction to the Course
      • Rhetorical Principles of Information Design
    • August 28th: Introduction to Information Design
      • Prejudice and Rhetoric
      • Robin Williams’s Principles of Design
    • Classmates Webpages (Fall 2017)
    • December 4th: Presentations
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4182/5182 (Fall 2017)
    • November 13th: More on Color
      • Designing with Color
      • Important Images
    • November 20th: Extra-Textual Elements
    • November 27th: Presentation/Portfolio Workshop
    • November 6th: In Living Color
    • October 16th: Type Fever
      • Typography
    • October 23rd: More on Type
    • October 2nd: MIDTERM FUN!!!
    • October 30th: Working with Graphics
      • Beerknurd Calendar 2018
    • September 11th: Talking about Design without Using “Thingy”
      • Theory, theory, practice
    • September 18th: The Whole Document
    • September 25th: Page Design
  • ENGL 4183/5183: Editing with Digital Technologies
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • February 3rd: I’m in Love with the Shape of You(r Sentences)
    • January 20th: Introduction to the Course
    • January 27th: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Spring 2021)
  • ENGL 4275: Rhetoric of Technology
    • April 13th: Authorities in Science and Technology
    • April 15th: Articles on Violence in Video Games
    • April 20th: Presentations
    • April 6th: Technology in the home
    • April 8th: Writing Discussion
    • Assignments for ENGL 4275
    • February 10th: Religion of Technology Part 3 of 3
    • February 12th: Is Love a Technology?
    • February 17th: Technology and Gender
    • February 19th: Technology and Expediency
    • February 24th: Semester Review
    • February 3rd: Religion of Technology Part 1 of 3
    • February 5th: Religion of Technology Part 2 of 3
    • January 13th: Technology and Meaning, a Humanist perspective
    • January 15th: Technology and Democracy
    • January 22nd: The Politics of Technology
    • January 27th: Discussion on Writing as Thinking
    • January 29th: Technology and Postmodernism
    • January 8th: Introduction to the Course
    • March 11th: Writing and Other Fun
    • March 16th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 1 of 2
    • March 18th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 2 of 2
    • March 23rd: Inception (2010)
    • March 25th: Writing and Reflecting Discussion
    • March 30th & April 1st: Count Zero
    • March 9th: William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984)
  • ENGL 4750-090 & ENGL 5050-092 Video Games & Culture
    • Assignments for Video Games & Culture
    • August 25th: Introduction to the Course
    • November 10th: Aggression & Addiction
    • November 3rd: Moral Panics and Health Risks
    • October 13th: Narrative, ludology, f(r)iction
    • October 20th: Serious Games
    • October 27: Risky Business?
    • October 6th: Hyperreality
    • September 1st: History of Video Games
    • September 22nd: Video Game Aesthetics
    • September 29th: (sub)Cultures and Video Games
    • September 8th: Defining Video Games and Critical Theory Introduction
      • Marxism for Video Game Analysis
      • Postmodernism for Video Game Analysis
  • ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 13th: Umberto Eco & Jean Baudrillard
    • April 20th: Moving Forward on Theory
    • April 27th: Last Day of Class
    • April 6th: Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition
      • What is Postmodernism?
    • February 10th: St. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
      • Oratory and Argument Analysis
    • February 17th: Knoblauch on Magical and Ontological Rhetoric
    • February 24th: Rene Descartes’ Discourse on Method
    • February 3rd: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Books 2 and 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • January 13th: Introduction to Class
    • January 27th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Book 1
    • March 16th: Friedrich Nietzsche
    • March 23rd: Mythologies and Meaning of Meaning (part 2)
    • March 30th: Derrida’s (refusal to have) Positions
    • March 9th: Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • LBST 2212-124, 125, 126, & 127
    • August 21st: Introduction to Class
    • August 23rd: Humanistic Approach to Science Fiction
    • August 26th: Robots and Zombies
    • August 28th: Futurism, an Introduction
    • August 30th: R. A. Lafferty “Slow Tuesday Night” (1965)
    • December 2nd: Technological Augmentation
    • December 4th: Posthumanism
    • November 11th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2)
    • November 13th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2 con’t)
    • November 18th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 1)
      • More Questions than Answers
    • November 1st: Games Reality Plays (part II)
    • November 20th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 2)
    • November 6th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 1)
    • October 14th: More Autonomous Fun
    • October 16th: Autonomous Conclusion
    • October 21st: Sci Fi in the Domestic Sphere
    • October 23rd: Social Aphasia
    • October 25th: Dust in the Wind
    • October 28th: Gender Liminality and Roles
    • October 2nd: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • October 30th: Games Reality Plays (part I)
    • October 9th: Approaching Autonomous
      • Analyzing Prose in Autonomous
    • September 11th: The Time Machine
    • September 16th: The Alien Other
    • September 18th: Post-apocalyptic Worlds
    • September 20th: Dystopian Visions
    • September 23rd: World’s Beyond
    • September 25th: Gender Studies and Science Fiction
    • September 30th: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • September 4th: Science Fiction and Social Breakdown
      • More on Ellison
      • More on Forster
    • September 9th: The Time Machine
  • LBST 2213/HTAS 2100: Science, Technology, and Society
    • December 10th: Violence in Video Games
    • December 15th: Video Games and Violence, a more nuanced view
    • December 1st: COVID-19 facial covering rhetoric
    • December 3rd: COVID-19 Transmission and Pandemics
    • December 8th: 500-word Essay
    • November 10th: Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 27-end
    • November 12th: Frankenstein (1818) Preface-Ch. 8
    • November 17th: Frankenstein (1818) Ch. 9-Ch. 16
    • November 19th: Frankenstein (1818) Ch. 17-Ch. 24
    • November 3rd: Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 1-17
    • November 5th: Planet of the Apes (1964) Ch. 18-26
    • October 13th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 5 and 6
    • October 15th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • October 1st: The Golem at Large Introduction & Ch. 1
    • October 22nd: The Time Machine
    • October 29th: H.G. Wells and Adaptations
    • October 6th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology) Ch. 2
    • October 8th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 3 & 4
    • September 10th: Science and Technology, a Humanistic Approach
    • September 15th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 2
    • September 17th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4
    • September 22nd: Collins & Pinch Ch. 5 & 6
    • September 24th: Collins & Pinch Ch. 7 & Conclusion
    • September 29th: Test 1
    • September 8th: Introduction to Class
  • New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology (Spring 2021)
    • February 16: Misunderstanding the Internet
    • February 23rd: Our Public Sphere and the Media
    • February 2nd: Introduction to Cultural Studies
    • January 26th: Introduction to New Media
  • Science Fiction in American Culture (Summer I–2020)
    • Assignments for Science Fiction in American Culture
    • Cultural Studies and Science Fiction Films
    • June 10th: Interstellar and Exploration themes
    • June 11th: Bicentennial Man
    • June 15th: I’m Only Human…Or am I?
    • June 16th: Wall-E and Environment
    • June 17th: Wall-E (2008) and Technology
    • June 18th: Interactivity in Video Games
    • June 1st: Firefly (2002) and Myth
    • June 2nd: “Johnny Mnemonic”
    • June 3rd: “New Rose Hotel”
    • June 4th: “Burning Chrome”
    • June 8th: Conformity and Monotony
    • June 9th: Cultural Constructions of Beauty
    • May 18th: Introduction to Class
    • May 19th: American Culture, an Introduction
    • May 20th: The Matrix
    • May 21st: Gender and Science Fiction
    • May 25th: Goals for I, Robot
    • May 26th: Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot
    • May 27th: Hackers and Slackers
    • May 30th: Inception
  • Teaching Portfolio
  • Topics for Analysis
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • Marxist Theory (cultural analysis)
    • Oral Presentations
    • Our Public Sphere
    • Postmodernism Introduction
    • Protesting Confederate Place
    • Punctuation Refresher
    • QT, the Existential Robot
    • Religion of Technology Discussion
    • Rhetoric, an Introduction
      • Analyzing the Culture of Technical Writer Ads
      • Rhetoric of Technology
      • Visual Culture
      • Visual Perception
      • Visual Perception, Culture, and Rhetoric
      • Visual Rhetoric
      • Visuals for Technical Communication
      • World War I Propaganda
    • The Great I, Robot Discussion
      • I, Robot Short Essay Topics
    • The Rhetoric of Video Games: A Cultural Perspective
      • Civilization, an Analysis
    • The Sopranos
    • Why Science Fiction?
    • Zombies and Consumption Satire

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 280F
Phone: 704.687.0613
Email: atoscano@uncc.edu
ENGL 4750-090 & ENGL 5050-092 Video Games & Culture » October 13th: Narrative, ludology, f(r)iction

October 13th: Narrative, ludology, f(r)iction

Narrative, ludology, f(r)iction

Yes, the way I’m writing “f(r)iction” is an academic trope that is kind of pretentious; at least, it calls specifically to a tradition of academic writing, which excludes popular discourse. Then again, so do semicolons (Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.). I decided to write “f(r)iction” because I had a discussion about hipsters today. That reminds me: Why did the hipster cross the road?

Oh yeah, way to go Bob Dylan!!! It is next to impossible to be an English Major and not love Bob Dylan.

Tonight’s Reading

I know we’ll have to cover ludology vs narrative, but I want you to think broader. Can we bracket that conversation and move onto the authors’ call to consider “[t]he fictional worlds approach…to studying video games as part of wider ecologies of fiction” (p. 234)? Maybe we should start off by asking if anyone disagrees with the central question of the chapter: “Are video games stories” (p. 199)? They authors answered that on p. 234–last paragraph.

  • p. 201: “You cannot play Blade Runner without paying attention to the story, as at any turn you wouldn’t know what to do next.
  • In which types of games is this argument entirely true? somewhat true? not true at all?
  • For what other video games (ones you’ve played) is this true? What about games in general?
  • p. 202: “Themes and plots–however vague–enable players to figure out game interfaces and the rules of the game.”
  • “‘Narrative’ can be defined as a succession of events.”
    • Not in the book, diegesis from Aristotle
      “1. The (fictional) world in which the situations and events narrated occur”
      “2. TELLING, recounting, as opposed to SHOWING, enacting”
      Prince, Gerald. A Dictionary of Narratology. Rev. Ed. U of Nebreska P, 2003: 1964.
  • p. 203: “No matter how many times a book is read, by no matter how many different people, the text is always the same; but in a video game, no two game sessions will be exactly the same.”
    • “…it is still possible to have different playing sessions in which minor things are done slightly differently.”
    • This gameplay sequence from GTA: San Andreas might complicate all ideas about “narration, text, and gameplay.” CJ only controls the gun while Smoke drives the car and barks orders to shoot. {WARNING: Very explicit language and a sexually suggestive finale.}
    • The GTA wiki has more details about this sequence.
  • p. 204: “Many designers abhor the scripting of programmed sequences of events in games, which would actually form a narrative in the literary sense.”
  • Why would they “abhor” this?
  • p. 206: “Gamespaces are not realistic, but reductive: they reproduce some features of the real world, but create their own rules in order to facilitate gameplay.”
  • p. 212: Figure 7.5 model of interactive fiction that’s “typical of adventure and action-adventure games.”
  • “[U]ltimately the player is solving a story instead of actively creating it.”
  • Is there a genre of fiction where readers “solve” the story? A story they didn’t create…

Reception Theory

  • p. 216: “‘[R]eception theory’…focuses on the experience of readers as they interact with texts, and tries to articulate the nature of the reading activity.”
  • Are walkthroughs narratives?
  • p. 220: “[A] remarkable feature of narative in video games: it is perpetually unfolding, constantly folding back on itself, full of false starts and restarts, as the player contributes to the story’s creation with each action.”

Ludology vs Narratology

  • p. 222: “[F]irst steps in new disciplines are usually inspired by older ones.”
    • Slight aside: This is true, but, as one starts to think through the new medium, we often discover that the previous medium or text or idea needs to be redefined. In fact, “new media” pioneer Lev Manovich (2001) noticed that film is actually the first “new media.” To compensate for this, scholars are more careful to point to “digital media” when discussing digital technologies. Guess what? Film is now digital.
  • p. 222: “[S]ome early approaches to the study of games centered on their representational quality, and thus authors have been able to apply literary and dramatic models to the description and cultural understanding of video games.”
  • p. 223: Gonzalo Frasca claims “‘games cannot be understood through theories derived from narrative.'”
    • “Juul argues…it is impossible to translate video games into stories and vice versa.”
    • Is it impossible? What about watching video game paly on YouTube or live?
  • p. 223: The authors suggest that the reason so much effort has gone into separating narrative lenses from video game analysis is that ludologists believe “that the formal properties of video games are more important, more intrinsic, than the stories in the games.”
  • p. 227: “Henry Jenkins argues…game narratives are not equivalent to a simplistic, linear idea of a story of the type found in films or novels.”
  • Ever read a novel or watched a film and then on a much later reading or viewing, you experienced it differently? All that is solid melts into air (Marx, 1848).
  • What can we say about the interactive qualities of video games?

Fiction

  • p. 232: “[I]t seems clear that fiction in video games does not work according to the same parameters as in representational media.”
  • p. 232: Marie-Laure Ryan–“most if not all games create a ‘game-world’…I would like to draw a distinction between ‘world’ as a set of rules and tokens, and ‘world’ as imaginary space, furnished with individuated objects.”
  • p. 233: Video game conventions of reward system and extra lives…what else?
  • p. 233: Back to Juul–video game worlds are ontologically unstable, rules are very ontologically stable.

Cultural Studies

We can get into pages 1-55 tonight or wait on that and pages 56-111 for next week. We’ll see what time we have left. Read Ch. 8 in Understanding video games. Remember, you have a workshop for your Video Game Essay in two weeks–10/27.

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