British Anti-Slavery, Trade, and Nascent Colonialism on the Sierra Leone Peninsula, c. 1860 – 1960

This dissertation reveals local responses to, and influences on the nascent British colonialism, imperial policies, and trade networks at Regent, a liberated African village on the Sierra Leone peninsula during the colonial period (circa 1860 to 1960) through the study of written and archaeological data. It explores how Africans liberated from slave ships and barracoons, following the British abolition of the slave trade and therefore of varying cultural and ethnic backgrounds, established new settlements and actively changed or maintained their household spatial practices, socio-economic strategies, as well as material use and discard patterns in this foreign diasporic setting. Fieldwork for this study consisted of two years of archival research in Freetown and archaeological investigations, which included settlement-wide surveys and the horizontal excavations of two house loci at Regent Village known to contain stratified domestic deposits dating to the colonial period. I use these written records and archaeological assemblages to show how these diverse Africans adapted to this foreign diasporic environment focusing on varied house structures and the mundane things they made, bought, used, and discarded. The contextual and comparative analyses of architectural remains and artifact distributions, as well as the presence and absence of certain kinds of artifact classes, facilitate the reconstruction of material culture patterning and household economic differences. Results of the analyses indicate emerging elites in the two excavated house loci, while the settlement-wide survey data reveal that some liberated Africans and their descendants lived in foreign-style houses that were neither European nor local, used many imported materials and retailed them, obtained Western education and went to church, but never became “British.” I employ a theoretical framework that connects colonial entanglements, cross-cultural exchange, and identity formation

Engineering digital technologies: A model for integrating digital textile printing in costume design and production education

The evolutionary use of digital technologies in fashion, textile, and costume design has led to significant changes in the appearances, processes, and pedagogies of the three related, yet distinct, disciplines. As multiple technologies permeate the fashion and textile industries and find their place in the costume industry, the need to educate students in the current and future methods and techniques will always be a necessity (Britt & Shaw, 2015). This study outlines the advantages of using digital textile printing (DTP) in costume/theatrical fashion design practice and promotes the integration of digital textile design (DTD) and DTP methods in costume design and production education. The study was conducted in three phases; in Phase I the use of DTP for costumes and theatrical fashion was investigated, in Phase II costume educators were interviewed to understand the perception and use of DTP in costume programs in post-secondary institutions, and in Phase III costume examples were created and evaluated by the researcher/designer. During this study, a taxonomy of DTP attributes was developed and models were proposed to integrate DTD and DTP in costume design and production processes. The taxonomy that illustrated the aesthetic and functional attributes of DTP was developed during Phase I and Phase II of this study. Special consideration was given to differentiate those attributes possible only with the advent of DTP technologies. The taxonomy led the design direction and execution of the costume examples as experience prototypes (EPs) in Phase III, to ensure that both the costume artifact and the costume process could be documented, evaluated, and communicated. Boehm’s (1988) Spiral Model was applied to three EP series resulting in a build of sixteen costume artifacts across nine experience prototypes. The iterative nature of the Spiral Model allowed the researcher/designer to spiral back and forth within the EPs’ design process and across the series to constantly reflect on finding alternative solutions for DTD and DTP. DTP has many capabilities that make it ideal for the costume industry. The ability to print on-demand and in smaller quantities (Carden, 2016), to recreate vintage patterns in endless colorways, to engineer prints within garment pattern pieces, and to give the illusion of embellishments and distressing (Bowles & Isaac, 2012). However not all costume shops or theatres have access to the hardware and equipment required for DTP (Darragh, 2011), thus jeopardizing the acceptance of DTP. In order for a technology, such as DTP, to be more widely accepted, it must be perceived as having greater relative advantage (Rogers, 2003) and easy to use (Dillion & Morris, 1996). As a result of this dissertation, two models were proposed to utilize DTD and DTP at various levels of technological integration within costume design and costume production processes. The EPs from Phase III, as well as a series of written and video tutorials about each EP process, served as examples for educators. The alternative methods to accessing the technology, the presentation of explicit and tacit digital knowledge, and the demonstration of the aesthetic DTP attributes expressed in this study, offer justification for the relative advantage and ease of use of DTP. It is hoped that this research contributes to the larger disciplines of fashion and textile as well as costume, and suggests stronger connections between the disciplines could afford venues for accessing digital technologies and for advancing digital skills

Model-Based Engineering of Collaborative Embedded Systems

This Open Access book presents the results of the "Collaborative Embedded Systems" (CrESt) project, aimed at adapting and complementing the methodology underlying modeling techniques developed to cope with the challenges of the dynamic structures of collaborative embedded systems (CESs) based on the SPES development methodology. In order to manage the high complexity of the individual systems and the dynamically formed interaction structures at runtime, advanced and powerful development methods are required that extend the current state of the art in the development of embedded systems and cyber-physical systems. The methodological contributions of the project support the effective and efficient development of CESs in dynamic and uncertain contexts, with special emphasis on the reliability and variability of individual systems and the creation of networks of such systems at runtime. The project was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), and the case studies are therefore selected from areas that are highly relevant for Germany’s economy (automotive, industrial production, power generation, and robotics). It also supports the digitalization of complex and transformable industrial plants in the context of the German government's "Industry 4.0" initiative, and the project results provide a solid foundation for implementing the German government's high-tech strategy "Innovations for Germany" in the coming years

Uncovering transgression in the textiles collection of the National Army Museum Te Mata Toa : a research report presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Museum Studies, at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand

This research centres on the textiles collection of the National Army Museum Te Mata Toa (NAM) which encompasses military clothing and associated items, holding examples from the New Zealand Wars of the 19th century to the present. The collection overall is visually conventional and male-centric with a noticeably lower proportion of women-related textiles, these mainly comprising World War II nursing and other service uniforms, such as those of the Women’s Land Service. The Museum’s displays reflect this understated female narrative. The intention of my research was to question whether a patriarchal view has caused women- related garments in NAM’s textiles holding to be overlooked, resulting in less focus on collecting and researching these textiles. Despite their layered social history contributions being directly related to New Zealand’s military life, had a lack of professional training and best practice knowledge adversely affected the textiles collection? To consider the question I have applied Laura Mulvey’s “male gaze” theory of filmic spectatorship (ways of viewing) to the museum textiles context. The theory argues that whereas men are positioned as protagonists and spectators, actively controlling narratives and events, women are peripheral, dependent, the spectated upon. However, women are also transgressive, capable of disturbing a male world view (Mulvey, 1975, p.18). Applying this theme to textiles appeared logical as I noticed non-conventional or aberrant female-related objects emerging during curatorial work. Three dissonant objects, purposefully selected, are the focus of a qualitative research framework using case studies within a specifically NAM context. Examples from the uniforms, souvenirs and comforts categories follow the prescribed steps of Jules David Prown’s material culture method (1982) for framing the case studies, and semi-structured interviews were also conducted. The findings reveal that collecting habits have caused a lesser female narrative in the textiles collection, despite the case study objects’ ability to evoke strong feelings and memories. Through the practices undertaken in relationship to objects themselves, the research also makes a case for systematic application of material culture studies frameworks to collection management and collection research

The Abode of Water: Shipwreck Evidence and the Maritime Circulation of Medicine Between Iran and China in the 9th Through 14th Centuries

This dissertation traces the role of Persian travelers and physicians in the maritime exchange of medical goods and knowledge between Iran and China between the ninth through the fourteenth centuries, and the afterlife of that exchange in modern museums. The Maritime Silk Road was a cosmopolitan network of premodern trade arteries linking the Far East and Southeast Asia to the Middle East by sea. The long-standing cultural and economic exchange across these thoroughfares dramatically expanded the pharmaceutical ingredients and medicinal recipes available to physicians practicing across the littorals of the Indian Ocean and South China Sea and facilitated the intellectual engagement of scholars with medical theories from afar. Drawing from an archive of shipwreck artifacts that includes medical goods, herbs, trade wares, and the personal effects of seafarers interpreted alongside written accounts of sea travel, medical and philosophical texts, tomb inscriptions, and architecture in port cities, this dissertation explores how the maritime journey of Persian travelers to China influenced the epistemology and practice of Persian medicine. The first chapter addresses the current state of Southeast Asian shipwreck archaeology and traces the trajectories of medical, scientific, and related shipwreck and navigational artifacts within Western museum collections. Chapter two introduces the historical context in which Persian merchants moved in Middle Period China and initiates a discussion of hybridity and resilience. The burning and reconstruction of the Hangzhou Phoenix mosque provides the narrative frame in which repeated outbreaks of violence in Tang and Song port cities are discussed as an analog to theories of the body and disease. Migration, hybridization, and medical collecting are examined as social and medical practices of resilience. The chapter uses archaeological evidence from port cities and the Belitung shipwreck with a narrative account of the massacre of foreign merchants in Guangzhou to situate the early maritime migration of Persian merchants to China within the changing tides of the Tang and Song periods. The third chapter analyzes the maritime trade routes as sites of spiritual and physical risk, humoral vulnerability, and initiation by examining Zoroastrian, Buddhist, and Islamic cosmologies of water and migration evident in religious rituals, medical instructions for seafarers, and the personal effects and crew supplies recovered from the Belitung, Intan, Java Sea, and Pulau Buaya wrecks. These materials are interpreted in light of reflections on the maritime life by travelers who survived the journey to China, leaving behind a ninth-century artistic depiction of a shipwreck, a narrative account, and inscriptions on the tombstones of merchants. Chapter four analyzes the medicines and medical material culture recovered from the Beliting, Java Sea, Intan, Pulau Buaya, and Quanzhou wreck sites within the framework of Persian humoral medicine. The final chapter examines the Tansūqnāma, a fourteenth-century Persian translation of Chinese medical texts, in light of the longue durée of medical exchange between China and Iran and changes to social hierarchies throughout the Mongol Empire that drastically changed the position of Persian merchants in China.PHDAnthropology and HistoryUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/163150/1/arespess_1.pd

User Stories of Erkki Kurenniemi’s Electronic Musical Instruments, 1961–1978

The focus in this study is on electroacoustic music and the design of electronic musical instruments in Finland during 1961–1978, approached from both a historical and an analytical perspective. There are three main threads: music history (the historical and cultural context in the Nordic countries in the 1960s and 1970s), music technology (the design and use of electronic musical instruments), and electroacoustic music (aesthetics and musical analysis). The study belongs to the domain of music technology research and the scientific stance is interdisciplinary. On the one hand, I employ music analysis and the concepts of the modern historiographical paradigm, ethnography and aesthetics theory in my analysis and description of the cultural and historical context of electroacoustic music. On the other hand, I adopt concepts from Science and Technology Studies (STS) in describing the technological developments and social networks. At the core of the study are the musical instruments and music of the Finnish instrument designer and composer Erkki Kurenniemi (1941–2017). At the time when technology dedicated to electronic music production was practically nonexistent and studios accommodating the genre were rare, and expensive to set up, Kurenniemi’s designs enabled and facilitated the work of several composers. In addition to his Finnish collaborators, he worked with many Nordic composers and artists. His visionary ideas and technical expertise were influenced by the works of many of his contemporaries – and vice versa. Kurenniemi’s work serves here as a lens through which I observe the broader picture of the cultural and historical circumstances of electroacoustic music – even beyond the Finnish scene. Instead of concentrating on the canonical works and central actors in the field, I focus on the small Helsinki-based community, which had active links to Sweden and Norway as well as frequent connections with Central European studios. The study sheds light on these less commonly studied social connections. Beyond the temporal and the geographical, the works of Kurenniemi and his Nordic collaborators provide overarching perspectives on the interaction between music and technology. For example, static and detailed descriptions of musical instruments do not suffice to depict the impact of technological development on musical aesthetics. To study this aspect further, I examine Kurenniemi’s instruments in the hands of their users. In analyzing the use of his instruments, I show how technological artifacts develop in complex interaction between the original designer, the users, and the artifact itself rather than in an isolated laboratory with a lonely designer. Kurenniemi’s own musical output, on the other hand, provides an example of a music-production process in which the works are created in close – and often real-time – interaction with the production technology. In extreme cases, the role of the technology is strongly emphasized and could even be the most influential factor in the music-making. This type of technology-driven music production and composition process challenges the traditional concept of a musical work, questions the typical intentions of a composer, and anticipates many production methods that have emerged, especially in experimental productions and popular music.Väitöstutkimuksessani tarkastelen elektroakustisen musiikin historiaa sekä sähkösoitinsuunnittelua Suomessa vuosina 1961–1978. Tutkimukseni kolme pääteemaa ovat musiikinhistoria (historiallinen ja kulttuurinen konteksti Pohjoismaissa 1960–70-luvuilla), musiikkiteknologia (elektronisten soitinten suunnittelu ja käyttö) ja elektroakustinen musiikki (estetiikka ja musiikianalyysi). Työni kuuluu musiikkiteknologian tutkimuksen alaan, ja se muodostuu monitieteisistä tutkimusteemoista. Elektronisen musiikin kulttuurihistorian kuvaukseen ja analyysiin sovellan modernin historiankirjoituksen, etnografian ja esteettisen teorian käsitteitä sekä musiikkianalyysiä. Sosiaalisten verkostojen ja teknologian kehityksen hahmottamiseen hyödynnän tieteen ja teknologian tutkimuksessa (Science and Technology Studies, STS) kehitettyjä teorioita ja käsitteitä. Työni keskeinen toimija on soitinsuunnittelija ja säveltäjä Erkki Kurenniemi (1941–2017). Kurenniemen soittimet mahdollistivat elektronisen musiikin tuottamisen Suomessa aikana, jolloin kyseisen musiikkityylin toteuttamiseen soveltuvat studiot olivat harvinaisia ja teknologia kallista. Suomalaisten yhteistyökumppaneidensa lisäksi Kurenniemi työskenteli myös monien pohjoismaisten säveltäjien ja taiteilijoiden kanssa. Hänen visionäärinen ideointinsa ja tekninen asiantuntemuksensa vaikutti monien hänen aikalaistensa töihin – ja päinvastoin. Kurenniemen työ musiikkiteknologian parissa toimii tutkimukseni lähtökohtana ja linssinä, jonka kautta tarkastelen pohjoismaisen elektronisen ja kokeellisen musiikin kulttuurihistoriallista tilannetta sekä usean säveltäjän ja avantgardetaiteilijan töitä. Kanonisoitujen teosten ja elektroakustisen musiikin keskeisten toimijoiden tarkastelun sijaan tutkimukseni painopiste on helsinkiläisessä pienessä yhteisössä, jolla oli aktiiviset yhteydet Ruotsiin ja Norjaan sekä jopa Keski-Euroopan studioihin. Tutkimukseni yhdeksi keskeiseksi teemaksi muodostuu historiallisten toimijoiden sosiaalisen verkoston ja yhteistyön kuvaaminen. Työni ajallisen ja maantieteellisen rajauksen ohella Kurenniemen ja hänen yhteistyökumppaneidensa tuottama musiikki ja kokeellinen taide luovat pohjan myös musiikin ja teknologian vuorovaikutussuhteen yleisemmälle tarkastelulle. Soitinten staattinen ja yksityiskohtainen kuvailu ei yksinään riitä musiikin teknisen kehityksen ja musiikin esteettisen muutoksen vuorovaikutussuhteen analysointiin. Tutkiakseni tätä muutosta tarkemmin tarkastelen Kurenniemen soittimia erityisesti niiden käyttöyhteyksissä. Analysoimalla Kurenniemen instrumenttien käyttöä osoitan, kuinka teknologiset artefaktit kehittyvät pikemminkin alkuperäisen suunnittelijan, käyttäjien ja itse artefaktin välisessä monimutkaisessa vuorovaikutuksessa kuin yksinäisen suunnittelijan keksintöinä, muusta maailmasta eristetyssä laboratoriossa. Kurenniemen oma taiteellinen tuotanto tarjoaa esimerkin musiikin tuotantoprosessista, jossa teokset luodaan tiiviissä – usein reaaliaikaisessa – vuorovaikutuksessa tuotantoteknologian kanssa. Äärimmäisessä tapauksessa teknologian rooli korostuu ja voi olla jopa musiikintuotantoprosessin tärkein tekijä. Useat elektroakustisen musiikin sävellykset syntyvät tiiviissä vuorovaikutuksessa käytettävän laitteiston kanssa. Jopa siinä määrin, että käytössä oleva teknologia on tärkein musiikin tekemistä ohjaava tekijä. Tällainen musiikintuotantoprosessin äärimmäinen muoto haastaa laajentamaan perinteistä taideteoksen määritelmää sekä kyseenalaistaa säveltäjän intention luomisprosessin osana

Aesthetic Activisms: Language Politics and Inheritances in Recent Poetry From the U.S. South

The purpose of this dissertation, Aesthetic Activisms: Language Politics and Inheritances in Recent Poetry from the U.S. South, is to illustrate how four contemporary poets incorporate and adapt literary forms and linguistic structures to emphasize the exclusionary systems of language that undergird accepted southern cultural practices. Aesthetic Activismslooks at four poets, Natasha Trethewey, Fred Moten, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, and C.D. Wright, who challenge concepts of regional literary inheritances that refuses to recognize a broad plurality of voices and histories. Aesthetic Activisms focuses on poets whose work re-orients, or centralizes, marginalized experience through form and content, resisting essentialist ideas of southern identity by highlighting the disjunction between normalized language and marginalized presence. Most studies of southern literature begin with an attempt to define a canon based on geographic boundaries and origins, but in Chapter 1 I argue that this pedigree denies alternative southern voices. Chapter 2 highlights contemporary poet Natasha Trethewey’s focused attention on the exclusionary practices of “official” histories. I argue that while her 2006 collection Native Guardcan be read as an acknowledgement of alternative southern histories, it also problematizes the concept of a multivalent “new” south by its huge critical success—inadvertently reinforcing some of the ideological structures Trethewey originally intended to dismantle. Chapter 3 examines Fred Moten’s Arkansas (2000), which emphasizes social limitations imposed by standardized systems of speech. Arkansas uses fracture and vernacular to produce a particular effect, one which reflects the experience of the marginalized citizen and simultaneously offers an alternative mode of communal being. Aesthetically, these poems implicate us in social structures predicated upon exclusionary strategies. Chapter 4 focuses on Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, whose poetry uses the structures of indigenous oral literatures to create ecopoetical dwelling in the landscape of her texts. I argue that Hedge Coke’s ecopoetics can also be read as a decolonization of southern literature’s deeply agrarian beginnings. Chapter 5 focuses on C.D. Wright, whose work follows in the particularly southern literary tradition of the author/poet as witness and documentarian, joining her to a very particular subset of authors like Lillian Smith ad James Agee

The Yup'ik relationships of qiluliuryaraq (processing intestine)

Thesis (Ph.D.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2020This project explores multiple Native cultural contexts that intersect in the use and understanding of intestine. Gut (tissues of internal organs including stomach, intestine, bladder and esophagus) as a raw material was historically used by many circumpolar cultures to make items like drums, raincoats, hats, windows, sails, containers, and hunting floats. These items are abundant in museum collections, but rarely seen today in cultural practice or the art market. Intestine is a natural material that was replaced by synthetic materials, but its dual physical properties of protection and permeability are the only features replicated by plastics. Examination of intestine as an obsolete material reveals both changes and resilience in different kinds of relationships. Emphasizing the meaning and materiality of gut over analysis of artifacts made from it emphasizes interactions among human, animal, and spiritual beings over formalistic approaches privileging object interpretations. Preferential investigation of a raw material over finished artifacts focuses the study on actions and values in Native places. Fieldwork components for this study include documentation of indigenous gut processing, sewing and repair workshops in museum contexts, processing fresh intestine in the Yup'ik village of Scammon Bay, and discussion of gut with Yup'ik cultural experts. The theoretical approach uses Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as a foundation, animated with practice theory and relational ontology. Since ANT creates space for human, animal, and object agency, reciprocal relationships among these actors will be explored through frameworks of materiality, object biography, gender studies, animal personhood, and the gift. This endeavor may promote a new model for the use of material culture to illuminate Native values. In the case of intestine, its decline in use connects to changes in technology and spirituality while resilience and revitalization of gut technology promotes identity and demonstrates traditional values.Chapter 1: Introduction -- 1.1. Background -- 1.2. Gut as an Alaska Native traditional technology -- 1.3. Gut as an obsolete material -- 1.4. Gaps in gut knowledge -- 1.5. The research question. Chapter 2: Literature review -- 2.1. Overview of anthropological scholarship on Yup'ik culture -- 2.2. Indigenous accounts -- 2.3. Ceremonial accounts and spiritual concerns -- 2.3.1. Nakaciuryaraq: Bladder Festival -- 2.3.2. Elriq (The Feast for the Dead) -- 2.3.3. Kevgiq (The Messenger Feast) -- 2.3.4. First catch and Uqiquq (The Seal Party) -- 2.3.5. Imarnin (the gut raincoat) -- 2.4. Suppression of ceremonies -- 2.5. Curation and meaning -- 2.6. Accounts of processing -- 2.7. Scammon Bay. Chapter 3: Theoretical orientation and methodology -- 3.1. The network: all the agents -- 3.2. Human agents theorized through practice and gender -- 3.2.1. Pierre Bourdieu -- 3.2.2. Gender -- 3.3. Animal agents theorized through personhood and the gift -- 3.3.1. Marcel Mauss -- 3.4. Object agents theorized through materiality and biography -- 3.4.1. Alfred Gell -- 3.5. Agents in the network and relational ontology -- 3.6. Methodology to investigate networks and agents -- 3.7. Object agents: raincoat, gut-making, foods -- 3.7.1. The Imarnin as an object of shared interest -- 3.7.2. Intestine processing and the merits of "making it" -- 3.7.3. Yup'ik foods -- 3.8. Animal agents -- 3.9. Human agents in various fields of practice -- 3.9.1. Agents in institutions -- 3.9.2. Agents at Native events -- 3.9.3. Key agent: my collaborator -- 3.10. Conduct during participant-observation of village networks -- 3.11. Documentation of a village network. Chapter 4: Findings about networks and agents -- 4.1. The museum network -- 4.1.1. The Burke Museum in Seattle -- 4.1.2. The Cordova Museum -- 4.1.3. The Yupiit Piciryarait Museum in Bethel -- 4.2.1. Animal agents: where, when, and which? -- 4.2.3. Object agents: what do people bring hunting? -- 4.2.4. Human agents: who goes hunting? How are animals caught and shared? -- 4.3. The subsistence processing network -- 4.3.1. Uquq (seal oil) -- 4.3.2. Cooking and cuisine -- 4.4. Food networks -- 4.4.1. Pukuk (to pick all the meat from the bones) -- 4.5. The family network -- 4.5.1. Maqiyaraq (the way of steambathing) -- 4.6. The messenger feast network -- 4.7. The spiritual network -- 4.7.1. The women's meeting -- 4.7.2. Chuna McIntyre -- 4.8. The learning network -- 4.8.1. The Ulak household -- 4.8.2. The classroom -- 4.8.3. The shop -- 4.8.4. Learning in non-verbal ways. Chapter 5: Findings about intestine -- 5.1. Procuring the intestine -- 5.2. Removing the outer layer (Muscularis externa) -- 5.3. Removing the inner layer (muscosa) -- 5.4. Soaking -- 5.5. Drying -- 5.6. Cutting. Chapter 6: Analysis of agents in the network -- 6.1. Weather as an agent -- 6.2. Spirits as agents -- 6.3. Gendered agents -- 6.4. Gut is not an agent? -- 6.5. Failure of the Imarnin as a methodological tool. Chapter 7: Conclusions -- 7.1. Obsolescence and structuralist transformations -- 7.2. Obsolescence and spirituality -- 7.3. Revitalization and continuation: "What kind of person are you?" -- 7.3.1. Of givers and takers -- 7.6. Future directions -- 7.7. Broader impacts -- References

Ecological Teacher Preparation: Rooting Place to Practice

This study is an exploration of ten faculty perceptions of the perceived influence of an ecological or place based focus in three teacher education programs. The qualities and characteristics of such programs, the influence that such a focus could have on curriculum, and the perceptions of faculty members regarding the interactions between the physical place in which the program resides and curriculum were of particular interest to this study. These questions are investigated by using an educational connoisseurship and criticism methodology. The qualities and characteristics of ecologically focused teacher education programs include immersion and integration, mentorship and reflection, and connection to “local knowledge” (Demarest, 2015). Faculty in the programs studied noted that their perceptions of their programs include an attention to place responsiveness, transfer, and affective domains. The implications of this study include how other teacher education programs can benefit from the utilization of this type of teacher education, the extension of the idea of ecological mindedness (McConnell Moroye & Ingman, 2017) from K-12 into teacher education and development, as well as addition of Place as another dimension of Eisner’s Ecology of Schooling (1976)

Putting the Video Back in Video Games: Opportunities and Challenges for Visual Studies Approaches to Video Game Analysis

I argue for the application of visual studies in video game analysis. This approach presents opportunities for the intersectional analysis of video game visuals as games are brought into dialogue with other visual media like film and painting. This approach also presents challenges due to ontological distinctions between different media as well as due to academic divisions regarding the study of different art and media objects. Despite the challenges presented, a visual studies approach is particularly useful as a critical window into contemporary visual culture at large. I outline the fields of game studies and visual studies, marking their distinctions as well as the areas in which they overlap. I provide examples of visual studies approaches to video game analysis through an emphasis on the visual characteristics of video games. As visual studies is generally considered an interdisciplinary endeavor, I contextualize my analyses through comparisons with other visual media, in particular finding intersections with art history and film studies. Specifically, I argue that perspective is an integral visual trait of many video games, relating the use of linear perspective and isometric perspective, used in some genres of games, with the development of perspective in painting. I examine various cinematic techniques used in video games and discuss their ideological potency. I also cover ways in which video games subvert conventional norms, such as through self-reflexivity, to open up novel avenues for visual expression