Thumb-bangers : exploring the cultural bond between video games and heavy metal

« Heavy Metal Generations » is the fourth volume in the series of papers drawn from the 2012 Music, Metal and Politics international conference (http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/product/heavy-metal-generations/).Heavy metal and video games share an almost simultaneous birth, with Black Sabbath’s debut album in 1970 and Nolan Bushnell’s Computer Space in 1971. From Judas Priest’s ‘Freewheel Burning’ music video in 1984 to Tim Schafer’s Brütal Legend in 2009, the exchanges between these two subcultures have been both reciprocal and exponential. This chapter will present a historical survey of the bond between video games and heavy metal cultures through its highest-profile examples. There are two underlying reasons for this symbiosis: 1) the historical development and popular dissemination of the video game came at an opportune time, first with the video game arcades in the 1970s and early 1980s, and then with the Nintendo Entertainment System, whose technical sound-channel limitations happened to fall in line with the typical structures of heavy metal; 2) heavy metal and video games, along with their creators and consumers, have faced similar sociocultural paths and challenges, notably through the policies set in place by the PMRC and the ESRB, and a flurry of lawsuits and attacks, especially from United States congressmen, that resulted in an overlapping of their respective spaces outside dominant culture. These reasons explain the natural bond between these cultural practices, and the more recent developments like Last Chance to Reason’s Level 2 let us foresee a future where new hybrid creations could emerge

L'impact de l'universalisation dans Grand Theft Auto VICE CITYtm

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.Pour respecter les droits d'auteur, la version électronique de cette thèse ou ce mémoire a été dépouillée, le cas échéant, de ses documents visuels et audio-visuels. La version intégrale de la thèse ou du mémoire a été déposée au Service de la gestion des documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Exploration, colonisation et développement durable: Portrait en trois temps de l’industrie du jeu vidéoau Québec

In this article, we will sketch a historical portrait of the video game sector in Quebec, both on the geographical plane (from Montreal to Quebec City through Trois-Rivières and other off-centred studios) and for different firm types (from the large studios to independent developers and amateurs). This historical overview will shed light on the challenges and characteristics of this sector which straddles both the technology and cultural industries in three stages : 1) the explorations of amateur entrepreneurs and enthusiasts; 2) the colonisation by large foreign firms and the injection of foreign capital which stimulated industry growth; 3) the structuration of independent developers (notably with La Guilde du jeu video du Québec) and the post-fission transition to a sustainable development of the sector. Our overview will cover the factual aspects of the industry, issues of contents and creative processes, and the challenges of achieving cultural sovereignty in a business sector based on liberalized markets, the free flow of capital, and a dematerialized digital economy.Dans cet article, nous réunissons des données ou des informations généralement éparses pour offrir un portrait synthétique de l’histoire du secteur du jeu vidéo au Québec, nous intéressant au territoire sur lequel s’écrit cette histoire (de Montréal à Québec en passant par Trois-Rivières et d’autres studios excentrés) aussi bien qu’à la nature des entreprises qui y participent (des grands studios aux développeurs indépendants et amateurs). Cet historique veut mettre en lumière les particularités de ce secteur d’activité où industries technologiques et industries culturelles se chevauchent, et adopte pour ce faire une division en trois périodes : 1) période d’exploration au sein d’un entrepreneuriat amateur et enthousiaste; 2) période de colonisation par les grandes firmes étrangères, l’injection de capitaux étrangers stimulant la croissance de l’industrie; 3) période que la structuration des développeurs indépendants (notamment avec la Guilde du jeu vidéo du Québec) et la relève par une génération post-fission autorisent à considérer comme étant celle du développement durable. Notre tour d’horizon touche à des aspects de l’industrie qui sont factuels aussi bien qu’à des questions de fond comme les contenus, le processus créatif et l’enjeu de la souveraineté culturelle dans un secteur d’activité fondé sur des marchés libéralisés, la fluidité des capitaux et une économie dématérialisée

The twilight of the Liberal Social Contract? On the Reception of Rawlsian Political Liberalism

This chapter discusses the Rawlsian project of public reason, or public justification-based 'political' liberalism, and its reception. After a brief philosophical rather than philological reconstruction of the project, the chapter revolves around a distinction between idealist and realist responses to it. Focusing on political liberalism’s critical reception illuminates an overarching question: was Rawls’s revival of a contractualist approach to liberal legitimacy a fruitful move for liberalism and/or the social contract tradition? The last section contains a largely negative answer to that question. Nonetheless the chapter's conclusion shows that the research programme of political liberalism provided and continues to provide illuminating insights into the limitations of liberal contractualism, especially under conditions of persistent and radical diversity. The programme is, however, less receptive to challenges to do with the relative decline of the power of modern states

Constitutivism

A brief explanation and overview of constitutivism

Philosophy of action

The philosophical study of human action begins with Plato and Aristotle. Their influence in late antiquity and the Middle Ages yielded sophisticated theories of action and motivation, notably in the works of Augustine and Aquinas.1 But the ideas that were dominant in 1945 have their roots in the early modern period, when advances in physics and mathematics reshaped philosophy

Canada

Résumé du livre « Video games around the world » sur le site de MIT Press : https://mitpress.mit.edu/index.php?q=node/249697

Synthesis and biological evaluation of novel 1,4-benzodiazepin-3-one derivatives as potential antitumor agents against prostate cancer

A novel tumor suppressing agent was discovered against PC-3 prostate cancer cells from the screening of a 1,4-benzodiazepin-3-one library. In this study, 96 highly diversified 2,4,5- trisubstituted 1,4-benzodiazepin-3-one derivatives were prepared by a two-step approach using sequential Ugi multicomponent reaction and simultaneous deprotection and cyclization to afford pure compounds bearing a wide variety of substituents. The most promising compound showed a potent and selective antiproliferative activity against prostate cancer cell line PC-3 (GI₅₀ = 10.2 µM), but had no effect on LNCAP, LAPC4 and DU145 cell lines. The compound was initially prepared as a mixture of two diastereomers and after their separation by HPLC, similar antiproliferative activities against PC-3 cells were observed for both diastereomers (2S,5S: GI₅₀ = 10.8 µM and 2S,5R: GI₅₀ = 7.0 µM). Additionally, both diastereomers showed comparable stability profiles after incubation with human liver microsomes. Finally, in vivo evaluation of the hit compound with the chick chorioallantoïc membrane xenograft assay revealed a good toxicity profile and significant antitumor activity after intravenous injection