Dietmar Meinel – författare

While video games have blossomed into the foremost expression of contemporary popular culture over the past decades, their critical study occupies a fringe position in American Studies. In its engagement with video games, this book contributes to their study but with a thematic focus on a particularly important subject matter in American Studies: spatiality. The volume explores the production, representation, and experience of places in video games from the perspective of American Studies. Contributions critically interrogate the use of spatial myths ("wilderness," "frontier," or "city upon a hill"), explore games as digital borderlands and contact zones, and offer novel approaches to geographical literacy. Eventually, Playing the Field II brings the rich theoretical repertoire of the study of space in American Studies into conversation with questions about the production, representation, and experience of space in video games.

While video games have blossomed into the foremost expression of contemporary popular culture over the past decades, their critical study occupies a fringe position in American Studies. In its engagement with video games, this book contributes to their study but with a thematic focus on a particularly important subject matter in American Studies: spatiality. The volume explores the production, representation, and experience of places in video games from the perspective of American Studies. Contributions critically interrogate the use of spatial myths ("wilderness," "frontier," or "city upon a hill"), explore games as digital borderlands and contact zones, and offer novel approaches to geographical literacy. Eventually, Playing the Field II brings the rich theoretical repertoire of the study of space in American Studies into conversation with questions about the production, representation, and experience of space in video games.

This book examines the popular and critically acclaimedfilms of Pixar Animation Studios in their cultural and historical context.Whether interventionist sheriff dolls liberating oppressed toys (Toy Story)or exceptionally talented rodents hoping to fulfill their dreams (Ratatouille),these cinematic texts draw on popular myths and symbols of American culture. AsPixar films refashion traditional American figures, motifs and narratives forcontemporary audiences, this book looks at their politics - from the frontiermyth in light of traditional gender roles (WALL-E) to the notion of voluntary associations andneoliberalism (The Incredibles). Through close readings, this volume considers theaesthetics of digital animation, including voice-acting and the simulation ofcamera work, as further mediations of the traditional themes and motifs ofAmerican culture in novel form. Dietmar Meinel explores the ways in which Pixarfilms come to reanimate and remediate prominent myths and symbols of Americanculture in all their cinematic, ideological and narrative complexity.