Playing with the Guys

Marc A. Ouellette is an award-winning educator who teaches cultural and gender studies at Old Dominion University, where he is the Learning Games Initiative Research Fellow. Series editor Matthew Wilhelm Kapell teaches American studies, anthropology, and writing at Pace University in New York.

“This is a tour de force fusion of gender studies, game studies, and critical theory. As with the very best, it transcends the dry label of ‘academic book’ and instead operates more as a detective novel. It asks the reader to follow a trail of evidence, puzzles, clues, and consider more than a few red herrings the author-as-detective picks apart in meticulous, incisive style. The reader is led, piece-by-piece, to frequently surprising, always insightful deductions. The rigour Professor Ouellette demonstrates in dissecting and analysing masculinity is in and of itself praiseworthy, but what really leaps towards the reader is the original and provocative thought accompanying such precision. Ouellette performs a dance between various disciplines, thinkers and concepts, offering ways of thinking through and with masculinity that feel wholly fresh and novel...a thrilling, timely read.”—Steven Conway, Swinburne University of Technology

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter 1. Essentially Playing: Considering Gender, Sex and Sexuality in Video Games and Game ScholarshipChapter 2. Builders of Boys, Makers of Men: Examining the Ludic Processes of the Masculine ApprenticeshipChapter 3. “Putting some work in”: Masculinity, Labor and ­Hypo-ludicityChapter 4. “I am sworn to carry your burdens”: Eliminating and Scapegoating Women in Video GamesChapter 5. “Welcome to the family, son”: Maligned and Misunderstood Fathers in “Dadified” Video GamesChapter 6. “It’s the terror of knowing”: Resurrection, Melancholia and the Elegiac GameAfterwordChapter NotesReferencesIndex