ICE Seminar: War and Video Games
Tuesday, October 9 at 4:30 PM
MLC Room 248
The sophistication of war video games offers a stunningly realistic experience of ground combat and a glimpse into the increasingly virtual world of long-distance, push-button warfare. Far less clear, though, is what these games are doing to users, our political culture, and our capacity to empathize with people directly affected by the actual trauma of war.
ICE will host a screening and discussion of Returning Fire (44 minutes), a film by Roger Stahl. In three separate vignettes, we see how Anne-Marie Schleiner, Wafaa Bilal, and Joseph Delappe move dissent from the streets to our screens, infiltrating war games in an attempt to break the hypnotic spell of “militainment.”
Roger Stahl is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies with interests in rhetoric, media, and culture. His research focuses on the rhetoric of war, specifically the intersection of military realities and popular culture. For more information visit http://rogerstahl.info.