Soraya Murray is an Associate Professor in the Film and Digital Media Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), USA, where she is also affiliated with the Digital Arts and New Media MFA Program, and the Art + Design: Games + Playable Media Program. She is an interdisciplinary scholar of visual culture, with a particular interest in cultural studies, contemporary art, film and video games. Murray holds a PhD in the History of Art and Visual Studies from Cornell University.

If one wants to understand (and teach) American culture today, video games are one essential site to look to, and Murray’s book tells us why and how.

• Introduction: Is the ‘Culture’ in Game Culture the‘Culture’ of Cultural Studies? 1Video Games and the Matter of Culture 2Games in the Academy 7Which Games? 14On the Importance of Cultural Studies forGame Studies 17Cultural Studies Meets Game Studies 22Form and/as Identity Politics in Games 27Being Critical 30GamerGate, Games Criticism and Gender Problems 35Looking Ahead 421 Poetics of Form and Politics of Identity; Or, Gamesas Cultural Palimpsests 47Introduction 48A Digital Politics of Identity 55Th e Poetics of Form in Liberation 61Aveline as Queered, Creole, Intersectional 68Playability and Phantasms 76‘History is Our Playground’ 81Conclusion: Embracing the Mess 862 Aesthetics of Ambivalence and Whiteness in Crisis 89Introduction 89Cultural Context: Whiteness in Crisis, RacialViolence and Games 96Th e Last of Us 99Critical Whiteness Studies and Whiteness After 9/11 104viThe Last of Us and Imperiled Whiteness 109Spec Ops: Th e Line and the White Hero Interrupted 121Tomb Raider , Whiteness and the Female Heroinein Peril 131Conclusion: A Trauma Narrative of Whiteness 1373 The Landscapes of Games as Ideology 141Introduction 141Metal Gear Solid V: Th e Phantom Pain 146Game Spaces and World- Building: Formalism 152Studying Game Space in a Cultural Context 160Th eorizing Game Space as Ideological Landscape 167Th ere is No Such Place: Afghanistan in Th e PhantomPain 176Conclusion: A Particular View of a Particular World 1804 The World is a Ghetto: Imaging the GlobalMetropolis in Playable Representation 183Introduction: Speculative Futures, Genre and theGlobal Metropolis 183Max Payne 3 : Noir Figure, Exotic Ground 188Remember Me and Urban Amnesia 197Play in the Fourth World City 203Bullet Time, Memory Remixing and Harvey’sSpace- Time Compression 212Two Playable Cities: Th e Favela and the CyberpunkMetropolis 216Conclusion: Playing Possible Futures 225

Soraya Murray is an Associate Professor in the Film and Digital Media Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), USA, where she is also affiliated with the Digital Arts and New Media MFA Program, and the Art + Design: Games + Playable Media Program. She is an interdisciplinary scholar of visual culture, with a particular interest in cultural studies, contemporary art, film and video games. Murray holds a PhD in the History of Art and Visual Studies from Cornell University.

If one wants to understand (and teach) American culture today, video games are one essential site to look to, and Murray’s book tells us why and how.

• Introduction: Is the ‘Culture’ in Game Culture the‘Culture’ of Cultural Studies? 1Video Games and the Matter of Culture 2Games in the Academy 7Which Games? 14On the Importance of Cultural Studies forGame Studies 17Cultural Studies Meets Game Studies 22Form and/as Identity Politics in Games 27Being Critical 30GamerGate, Games Criticism and Gender Problems 35Looking Ahead 421 Poetics of Form and Politics of Identity; Or, Gamesas Cultural Palimpsests 47Introduction 48A Digital Politics of Identity 55Th e Poetics of Form in Liberation 61Aveline as Queered, Creole, Intersectional 68Playability and Phantasms 76‘History is Our Playground’ 81Conclusion: Embracing the Mess 862 Aesthetics of Ambivalence and Whiteness in Crisis 89Introduction 89Cultural Context: Whiteness in Crisis, RacialViolence and Games 96Th e Last of Us 99Critical Whiteness Studies and Whiteness After 9/11 104viThe Last of Us and Imperiled Whiteness 109Spec Ops: Th e Line and the White Hero Interrupted 121Tomb Raider , Whiteness and the Female Heroinein Peril 131Conclusion: A Trauma Narrative of Whiteness 1373 The Landscapes of Games as Ideology 141Introduction 141Metal Gear Solid V: Th e Phantom Pain 146Game Spaces and World- Building: Formalism 152Studying Game Space in a Cultural Context 160Th eorizing Game Space as Ideological Landscape 167Th ere is No Such Place: Afghanistan in Th e PhantomPain 176Conclusion: A Particular View of a Particular World 1804 The World is a Ghetto: Imaging the GlobalMetropolis in Playable Representation 183Introduction: Speculative Futures, Genre and theGlobal Metropolis 183Max Payne 3 : Noir Figure, Exotic Ground 188Remember Me and Urban Amnesia 197Play in the Fourth World City 203Bullet Time, Memory Remixing and Harvey’sSpace- Time Compression 212Two Playable Cities: Th e Favela and the CyberpunkMetropolis 216Conclusion: Playing Possible Futures 225

Soraya Murray is an Associate Professor in the Film and Digital Media Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), USA, where she is also affiliated with the Digital Arts and New Media MFA Program, and the Art + Design: Games + Playable Media Program. She is an interdisciplinary scholar of visual culture, with a particular interest in cultural studies, contemporary art, film and video games. Murray holds a PhD in the History of Art and Visual Studies from Cornell University.

If one wants to understand (and teach) American culture today, video games are one essential site to look to, and Murray’s book tells us why and how.

• Introduction: Is the ‘Culture’ in Game Culture the‘Culture’ of Cultural Studies? 1Video Games and the Matter of Culture 2Games in the Academy 7Which Games? 14On the Importance of Cultural Studies forGame Studies 17Cultural Studies Meets Game Studies 22Form and/as Identity Politics in Games 27Being Critical 30GamerGate, Games Criticism and Gender Problems 35Looking Ahead 421 Poetics of Form and Politics of Identity; Or, Gamesas Cultural Palimpsests 47Introduction 48A Digital Politics of Identity 55Th e Poetics of Form in Liberation 61Aveline as Queered, Creole, Intersectional 68Playability and Phantasms 76‘History is Our Playground’ 81Conclusion: Embracing the Mess 862 Aesthetics of Ambivalence and Whiteness in Crisis 89Introduction 89Cultural Context: Whiteness in Crisis, RacialViolence and Games 96Th e Last of Us 99Critical Whiteness Studies and Whiteness After 9/11 104viThe Last of Us and Imperiled Whiteness 109Spec Ops: Th e Line and the White Hero Interrupted 121Tomb Raider , Whiteness and the Female Heroinein Peril 131Conclusion: A Trauma Narrative of Whiteness 1373 The Landscapes of Games as Ideology 141Introduction 141Metal Gear Solid V: Th e Phantom Pain 146Game Spaces and World- Building: Formalism 152Studying Game Space in a Cultural Context 160Th eorizing Game Space as Ideological Landscape 167Th ere is No Such Place: Afghanistan in Th e PhantomPain 176Conclusion: A Particular View of a Particular World 1804 The World is a Ghetto: Imaging the GlobalMetropolis in Playable Representation 183Introduction: Speculative Futures, Genre and theGlobal Metropolis 183Max Payne 3 : Noir Figure, Exotic Ground 188Remember Me and Urban Amnesia 197Play in the Fourth World City 203Bullet Time, Memory Remixing and Harvey’sSpace- Time Compression 212Two Playable Cities: Th e Favela and the CyberpunkMetropolis 216Conclusion: Playing Possible Futures 225