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

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Conference Presentations
    • PCA/ACA Conference Presentation 2022
    • PCAS/ACAS Presentation 2021
    • SEACS 2021 Presentation
    • South Atlantic MLA Conference 2022
  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-014: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • February 1st: Reflection on Workplace Messages
    • February 6th: Plain Language
    • January 11th: More Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Audience & Purpose
    • January 23rd: Résumés and Cover Letters
      • Duty Format for Résumés
      • Peter Profit’s Cover Letter
    • January 25th: More on Résumés and Cover Letters
    • January 30th: Achieving a Readable Style
      • Euphemisms
      • Prose Practice for Next Class
      • Prose Revision Assignment
      • Revising Prose: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Good
      • Sentence Clarity
    • January 9th: Introduction to the Class
    • Major Assignments
  • 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
    • August 24th: Introduction to the Class
    • August 31st: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Fall 2022)
      • Rhetoric of Fear
    • November 16th: Voice and Other Nebulous Writing Terms
      • Finding Dominant Rhetorical Appeals
    • November 2nd: Rhetorical Effects of Punctuation
    • November 30th: Words and Word Classes
    • November 9th: Cohesive Rhythm
    • October 12th: Choosing Adjectivals
    • October 19th: Choosing Nominals
    • October 26th: Stylistic Variations
    • October 5th: Midterm Exam
    • September 14th: Verb is the Word!
    • September 21st: Coordination and Subordination
    • September 28th: Form and Function
    • September 7th: Sentence Patterns
  • 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 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 12th: Knoblauch. Ch. 4 and Ch. 5
    • April 19th: Jacques Derrida’s Positions
    • April 26th:  Feminisms and Rhetorics
    • April 5th: Knoblauch. Ch. 3 and More Constitutive Rhetoric
    • February 15th: Isocrates (Part 2)
    • February 1st: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Books 2 & 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • February 22nd: St. Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
    • February 8th: Isocrates (Part 1)-2nd Half of Class
    • January 11th: Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Plato’s Phaedrus
    • January 25th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Book 1
    • March 15th: Descartes, Rene, Discourse on Method
    • March 1st: Knoblauch. Ch. 1 and 2
    • March 22nd: Mary Wollstonecraft
    • March 29th: Second Wave Feminist Rhetoric
    • May 3rd: Knoblauch. Ch. 6, 7, and “Afterword”
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • ENGL/COMM/WRDS: The Rhetoric of Fear
    • February 7th: Fallacies Part 3 and American Politics Part 2
    • January 10th: Introduction to the Class
    • January 17th: Scapegoats & Conspiracies
    • January 24th: The Rhetoric of Fear and Fallacies Part 1
    • January 31st: Fallacies Part 2 and American Politics Part 1
    • Major 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 2213-110: Science, Technology, and Society
    • August 22nd: Science and Technology from a Humanistic Perspective
    • August 24th: Science and Technology, a Humanistic Approach
    • August 29th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 2
    • August 31st: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4
    • December 5th: Video Games and Violence, a more nuanced view
    • November 14th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 27-end
    • November 16th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Preface-Ch. 8
    • November 21st: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Ch. 9-Ch. 16
    • November 28th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ch. 17-Ch. 24
    • November 30th: Violence in Video Games
    • November 7th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes Ch. 1-17
    • November 9th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes, Ch. 18-26
    • October 12th: Lies Economics Tells
    • October 17th: Brief Histories of Medicine, Salerno, and Galen
    • October 19th: Politicizing Science and Medicine
    • October 24th: COVID-19 Facial Covering Rhetoric
    • October 26th: Wells, H. G. Time Machine. Ch. 1-5
    • October 31st: Wells, H. G. The Time Machine Ch. 6-The End
    • October 3rd: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 12th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 19th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Prefaces and Ch. 1
    • September 26th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 2
    • September 28th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 5 and 6
    • September 7th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 5 and 6
  • New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology (Spring 2021)
    • April 13th: Virtually ‘Real’ Environments
    • April 20th: Rhetoric/Composition Defines New Media
    • April 27th: Sub/Cultural Politics, Hegemony, and Agency
    • April 6th: Capitalist Realism
    • 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
    • Major Assignments for New Media (Spring 2021)
    • March 16th: Identity Politics
    • March 23rd: Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality
    • March 2nd: Foundational Thinkers in Cultural Studies
    • March 30th: Hyperreality
    • March 9th: Globalization & Postmodernism
    • May 4th: Wrapping Up The Semester
      • Jodi Dean “The The Illusion of Democracy” & “Communicative Capitalism”
      • Social Construction of Sexuality
  • 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
    • A Practical Editing Situation
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Fordism/Taylorism
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • How to Lie with Statistics
    • Isaac Asimov’s “A Cult of Ignorance”
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • Marxist Theory (cultural analysis)
    • Oral Presentations
    • Oratory and Argument Analysis
    • 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
  • Video Games & American Culture
    • April 14th: Phallocentrism
    • April 21st: Video Games and Neoliberalism
    • April 7th: Video Games and Conquest
    • Assignments for Video Games & American Culture
    • February 10th: Aesthetics and Culture
    • February 17th: Narrative and Catharsis
    • February 24th: Serious Games
    • February 3rd: More History of Video Games
    • January 13th: Introduction to the course
    • January 20th: Introduction to Video Game Studies
    • January 27th: Games & Culture
      • Marxism for Video Game Analysis
      • Postmodernism for Video Game Analysis
    • March 24th: Realism, Interpretation(s), and Meaning Making
    • March 31st: Feminist Perspectives and Politics
    • March 3rd: Risky Business?

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 255F
Email: atoscano@uncc.edu
Video Games & American Culture » February 17th: Narrative and Catharsis

February 17th: Narrative and Catharsis

Don’t forget your What is American Culture? Essays are due on Canvas tomorrow (2/18) by 5:00pm.

Deeper Understanding of Media

As an introduction, let’s discuss media, the plural of medium. What’s a medium? The textbook points out that some theorists (literary scholars…English professors) import critical lenses* from traditional literary interpretation to use for video games. They don’t claim that’s terrible, but they point out that it isn’t enough. Agreed. However, we have different conclusions. Consider the following media:

  • Scrolls
  • Paper
  • Film
  • TV
  • Monitor
  • Screen

*They don’t use the phrase critical lens, and that’s a problem because doing so would help them understand the bigger picture of theory from our cultural studies and critical theory lenses.

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 (but I’d rather be pretentious than transphobic like Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s advice against using semicolons). I decided to write “f(r)iction” because of our discussion about hipsters last week. That reminds me: Why did the hipster cross the road?

In the future, let’s keep the word catharsis in the back of our minds. The textbook mentions it in Ch. 3, but they quickly dismiss it: “the general idea of “catharsis” (Greek for cleansing) through games is not backed up by much empirical data” (p. 40). Well, if empiricism (observation) is the only valid methodology, I could see their point. But we have other ways to analyze texts, so catharsis is important for thinking about video games. We’ll bring catharsis back up when we discuss Ch. 9 “Video Games and Risks.”

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. 235)? Maybe we should start off by asking if anyone disagrees with the central question of the chapter: “Are video games stories” (p. 201)? They authors answered that on p. 236–last paragraph.

  • p. 203: “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. 204: “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. 205: “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.”
    • {WARNING: Very explicit language and a sexually suggestive finale.}
      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.
    • The GTA wiki has more details about this sequence.
  • p. 206: “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. 208: “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. 214: 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…
  • p. 217: Review Figure 7.6

Reception Theory

  • p. 218: “‘[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. 222: “[A] remarkable feature of narrative 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. 224: “[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. 224: “[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. 225: 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. 225: 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. 229: “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.

Video Fun

Time permitting, we will look at a couple videos of relevant media:

  • pp. 220-222: Beginning of Resident Evil Code: Veronica X (Capcom 2000)
    • Let’s watch from 3:08-6:15 or so
  • Zombies!!! A compilation of shopping sprees…
    • Relevant to the textbook’s discussion of Resident Evil (sort of)
  • Call of Juarez: Gunslinger (Ubisoft 2013)
  • GTA:SA “Wrong Side of the Tracks” Attempt 1
    • GTA:SA “Wrong Side of the Tracks” Attempt 2
    • I just learned that after 18 years…

Next Class

Don’t forget your What is American Culture? Essays are due on Canvas tomorrow (2/18) by 5:00pm.

Keep up with the reading. We’ll cover Ch. 8 in Understanding Video Games next week. Remember, the reading will be on the Midterm Exam (3/17), so, if you aren’t reading, you will not do well. We will also start discussing the Video Game Essay (Due 3/31) next week to generate ideas. The workshop for that is in 1 month–3/17.

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