Desecrations by Matt Rader

Review of Matt Rader\u27s Desecrations

The survival of a President:Alternate history and the spectre of Vietnam in Stephen King’s 11/22/63

The assassination of John F. Kennedy has haunted American cultural history for more than half a century, a moment that Stephen King explores in his 2012 novel, 11/22/63. The assassination has become a moment recognized more widely within the world’s collective consciousness. It has been written about in fiction, analysed in documentaries, reproduced in film, and even in recreated in videogames. King’s 11/22/63 enters into a literary tradition that spans many years with literary appropriations of Kennedy’s death extending beyond historical representations of the figures and events surrounding the assassination. This is achieved by speculating on the prospective consequences of erasing the trauma of the shooting from America’s cultural memory and presenting an alternate history in which the President the assassination. King’s use of alternate history in 11/22/63 and the survival of the President within that narrative, allows the reader to examine the Kennedy assassination and its repercussions in detail, both in terms of the conspiracy theories that surround the shooting, the ramifications of the President’s death, and his hypothetical survival. This paper uses King’s novel to consider whether the ability to change past events should be undertaken, even if they can be, through this pivotal and globally recognized event

I will Abandon this Body and Take to the Air:The Suicide at the Heart of Dear Esther

The Gothic, Catherine Spooner asserts has never been solely restricted to books (2007, p. 195), and it is not surprising that the Gothic is a source of much inspiration for new media; Gothic tropes and elements frequently appear in a variety of videogames, including Doom (id Software, 1993) as Fred Botting (2002) argues, and more recently, the Portal franchise (Valve, 2007-2011)which Ewan Kirkland considers to have a ‘distinctly Gothic theme and tone’ (2014). Gothic narratives more widely flourish in videogames, a fertile breeding ground for the undead – vampires, zombies and ghosts are found throughout videogames history, and Gothicism can be seen repeatedly in the settings, aesthetics, and narratives of many of the videogames released. Recent years have seen an evolution in terms of game content, with developers turning their attention from solely ludic enjoyment to ‘serious’ games that are explicitly foregrounding a moral aspect, dialectic content, or a strong narrative over play, with text-based games such as Gone Home (Fullbright, 2013), which deals with sexuality and acceptance, and Depression Quest (Quinn, 2013)which offers the player a chance to begin to understand depression through a choice based interactive narrative, one which requires the player to make decisions and react to some of the situations that a depressed person might recognise, including suicidal feelings and the reaction to those feelings– something not frequently explored in traditional videogames. Gothic themes, tropes, and narrative come together in the 2012 videogame Dear Esther. Set in a perpetual twilight on a deserted Hebridean island, this game is part of a growing sub-genre known as the ‘first person walker’, which involves the player exploring a typically Gothic space – a setting as evocative as that of Frankenstein or Wuthering Heights. Through a subversion of gaming expectations and tropes, I argue that Dear Esther’s control system, and lack of interactivity with the games landscape allows the player to take the role of a ghost, haunting the island. I further argue that through the games construction the player forces the narrator, an unnamed male whom the player hears as she walks across and even inside the island delivering fragments of letters to the titular Esther, to endlessly repeat his suicide and the events that lead up to it. Through its narrative and through ludic disempowerment, Dear Esther is not only able to offer the player a ghost story, but also provides an insight into the mind of the suicidal protagonist, through a tale of death, imprisonment, madness, and escape that is recognisable throughout the history of Gothic fiction, from The Castle of Otranto onwards, placing the player within the narrative itself, physically driving it onward, both through her actions and the replay necessary to come to a full understanding of that narrative, and asking her to interpret the information she discovers in order to discover the game’s Gothic heart

Social media for dissemination and public engagement in neurosurgery-the example of Brainbook.

BACKGROUND: Public engagement has become one of the most effective tools in gaining feedback and perspectives from members of the public, involving patients with decisions, and inspiring young people to carry the medical profession forwards. Brainbook is a multi-platform, social media-based resource that was created specifically to enhance public engagement in neurosurgery and results from one of its case discussions will be reported in this paper. METHODS: A Brainbook case was created in collaboration with the NIHR Global Health Research Group on Neurotrauma and presented over 3 days (23-25 February 2018). YouTube videos were created depicting the management of an acute subdural haematoma using patient interviews, medical illustration, consultant-led discussion and operative footage. Content was shared across all Brainbook social media platforms and analytics were gathered through social media applications. RESULTS: Over a 72-hour time period, and across multiple social media accounts, 101,418 impressions were achieved (defined as penetrance onto individual media feeds and total views of the content), with active discussion on social media. CONCLUSIONS: Neurosurgical content published across multiple social media outlets represents an encouraging and exciting potential for global engagement across multiple audiences. Social media can be an effective method of not only disseminating neurosurgical knowledge, but activating and engaging the public, allied healthcare professionals, medical students and neurosurgeons

¡Roba, colecciona, mira y disfruta! Museos en videojuegos.

Lugar de misterios o poso de la memoria de un co-lectivo, el museo se ha convertido en el escenario perfecto para el argumento de numerosos videojuegos. Gracias a ello, usuarios de todas las edades re-corren estos escenarios virtuales con más frecuencia de lo que lo hacen en la vida real, abriendo sus puertas a nuevos públicos ¿Qué imagen se da en estos medios del museo? ¿Qué expectativas generan en el jugador? En este artículo, haremos un repaso de los ejemplos más notables (como las sagas Broken Sword, Tomb Raider, Pokémon o Animal Crossing) y propondremos una categorización según sus características para estudiar posibles tendencias y entender qué percepción sobre estas instituciones podría tener el público, a raíz de la imagen que se da en esta industria de masas.Whether mysterious places or preservers of heritage, museums have become the perfect stage for videogames. Consequently, many users of all ages take a step into these places more often than they do in real life, ope-ning their doors to new audiences. What is the image of the museums reflected in these games? What expec-tations do they create? In this paper, we will look at some remarkable examples (such as the Broken Sword, Tomb Raider, Pokémon or Animal Crossing sagas) and propose a new classification according to their cha-racteristics in order to study possible trends and unders-tand the public¿s perception of these institutions based on their image in this mass industry.Universidad Pablo de Olavid

Tackling difficult estates.

There are up to 2,000 difficult social housing estates across the UK. Residents, landlords, local authorities, government and other agencies face a challenging set of problems in trying to make these ‘difficult to live in’ areas work. In some of these estates there are individuals and organisations who are successfully rebuilding communities - tackling unemployment, crime, health, family and youth problems and co-ordinating service delivery. This report summarises the presentations and discussion at a seminar on ‘Tackling Difficult Estates’ organised by CASE on behalf of the Social Exclusion Unit. It took place at the National Tenants Resource Centre, at Trafford Hall near Chester, on 30th-31st March 1998. The seminar brought together front line practitioners, civil servants, policy makers and community representatives – all interested in looking at positive ways to make deprived neighbourhoods better. We heard presentations from practitioners who live and work on difficult estates about their experiences. Cutting across the different case study examples were several common themes about the types of approaches that have been shown to work, together with questions about how to replicate and implement these approaches in other estates. Those themes and outstanding questions are summarised here. The case studies are given in full in the second section. As well as the recommendations from the frontline project examples, we heard about two sets of stimulating proposals: for neighbourhood management; and rebuilding communities. These are outlined in the third section of the document. The organisers are very grateful to Trafford Hall for its help in making this event happen, and to all the participants for their contributions.