Diversity Day: New Bibliography

One of the suggestions I got from my first draft was to do more with the connection of Shakespeare legitimizing theater with the the battle to legitimize video games, so in my second round of searching I looked for more sources on that subject. Here's what I found:

"Shakespeare's Life." The Tempest. Folger Shakespeare Library. 2009. (source found within a scholarly edition, 1-5 years). This essay helped by giving a good quote from Robert Greene attacking Shakespeare for daring to write blank-verse theater, say he was "in his own conceit he only Shake-scene in the country."

"Shakespeare's Theater." The Tempest. Folger Shakespeare Library. 2009. (source found within a scholarly edition, 1-5 years) This one talks more specifically about theater at the time, even saying "many civic officials were hostile to the performance of drama and repeatedly petitioned the royal council to abolish it." This reminds me very much of the frequent demands by conservatives today to ban violent video games.

Gurr, Andrew. Playgoing in Shakespeare's London. 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press. 2004. (source found from bibliography of another source, 5-10 years, scholarly monograph.) I found this book through "further reading" list in the back of my Folger edition of The Tempest and it is a treasure trove of information about how people received Shakespeare's theater in his own day and how perception changed over time.

Brown, Ivor. Shakespeare in His Time. Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd. Edinburgh. 1960. (10-50 years, scholarly monograph.) This book talks a lot about the conditions under which Shakespeare's play were performed in his time, including details about rehearsal, direction, and acting of the day. It has some great stuff about how the acting was probably really bad and not very artful at all. This helps my argument because acting is often bad in video games today, but just like Shakespearean actors have improved, video game actors can/will.

G.B. Harrison, England in Shakespeare's Day. The Folcroft Press, Inc. Folcroft, PA. 1969. (source found by browsing physical library shelves, 10-50 years.) This is the real motherload because it includes primary sources from Shakespeare's time, including "A Moralist's Objection to Plays" from Stephen Gosson and "A Scholar's Objection to Plays" by Sir Philip Sidney himself, as well as "A Defense of Plays" by Thomas Nashe. It even includes a poem by John Marston, "The Playgoer," specifically about going to see Shakespeare's plays.

Kotaku's Review of Bioshock: Infinite. (source comes by way of social network of stakeholders, within days or weeks) This review says the newest Bioshock  will "feel like an operatically violent radio play." A nice connection between games and other art.

Burden, Michael and Sean Gouglas, "The Algorithmic Experience: Portal as Art" Game Studies. 12.2(2012). Web. (article from peer-reviewed journal, source found through a blog post on a blog found on a list of academic blogs on the blog of a guy I found on Twitter because someone else I followed retweeted him and I started following him too *not on Dr. Burton's list, but in the same spirit, definitely*) The intro to this article is my new favorite argument for video games as art, and one I definitely want to use. It discusses algorithms and how they run so many things in our lives, from typical bureaucracy to complicated stock trades, and that video games are also algorithmic representations of physical reality. "Videogames uniquely combine the qualities of game play, world simulation and narrative (Lindley, 2003). As such, videogames provide a fruitful medium for the exploration of what it means to be a human in a world increasingly dominated by algorithms."

Ebert, Roger. "Video Games can never be art." 16 April 2010. Web. (source found by way of social network) I already used this in my rough draft, but it wasn't included in my original annotated bibliography so I might as well put it here. Roger Ebert, the guy that brought you half of the "Two Thumbs Up!" on the back of all your favorite movies from your childhood (assuming you had good taste in movies as a child, I guess), decided to talk about video games. Negatively. Sparked a lot of talk.

Ebert, Roger. "Okay, kids, play on my lawn." 1 July 2010. Web. (found by way of social network) Here, Roger eases back a bit in response to the internet's explosion against his comments, but still holds that games are not art.

Clint Hocking, "On Authorship in Games" www.clicknothing.com. 10 August 2007. Web. (source on an academic blog) I didn't know this before, but Clint did a direct rebuttal to Ebert's argument that video games are not art. In direct rebuttal to Ebert saying no game can hold its own against any great work art, he claims that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas does more to affect the players worldview and make him/her think about racial tensions than the critically acclaimed movie Crash. In his words: "Taken as wholes, GTA: San Andreas is a more compelling, meaningful and important work of art than Crash." Also makes important points about things like the relationship of designer to player, and the difference between interacting with a story and manipulating the story, as well as the player not ruining the art of the game by playing it in ways not intended by the creators--just like fast-forwarding the "boring parts" of Citizen Kane doesn't ruin the "art" of the movie.

So there you go, some great stuff on Shakespeare's own fight, and some great already-historic weapons wielded by the new generals of our current battle. I just hope I can make something great out of all this.