Jennifer Malkowski is Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies at Smith College. Her research areas include digital media; documentary; race, gender, and sexuality in media; and death and dying. She is the author of Dying in Full Detail: Mortality and Digital Documentary.

TreaAndrea M. Russworm is Associate Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where she teaches classes on digital media, race, and popular culture. She is coeditor of From Madea to Media Mogul: Theorizing Tyler Perry and author of Blackness is Burning: Civil Rights, Popular Culture, and the Problem of Recognition.

Foreword / Anna Everett

Acknowledgments

Introduction: "Identity, Representation, and Video Game Studies Beyond the Politics of the Image" / Jennifer Malkowski and TreaAndrea M. Russworm

Part 1: Gender / Bodies / Spaces

1. "I Turned Out to Be Such a Damsel in Distress": Noir Games and the Unrealized Femme Fatale / Jennifer Malkowski

2. No Time to Dream: Killing Time, Casual Games, and Gender / Braxton Soderman

3. "Aw Fuck, I Got a Bitch on My Team!": Women and the Exclusionary Cultures of the Computer Game Complex / Carly A. Kocurek and Jennifer deWinter

4. Attention Whores and Ugly Nerds: Gender and Cosplay at the Game Con / Nina Huntemann

5. Machinima Parodies: Appropriating Video Games to Criticize Gender Norms / Gabrielle Trépanier-Jobin

Part 2: Race / Identity / Nation

6. Dystopian Blackness and the Limits of Racial Empathy in The Walking Dead and The Last of Us / TreaAndrea M. Russworm

7. Journey into the Techno-Primitive Desert / Irene Chien

8. The Rubble and the Ruin: Race, Gender, and Sites of Inglorious Conflict in Spec Ops: The Line / Soraya Murray

9. Representing Race and Disability: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as a Whole Text / Rachael Hutchinson

10. Entering the Picture: Digital Portraiture and the Aesthetics of Video Game Representation / Lisa Patti

Part 3: Play / Queer / Games

11. Playing to Lose: The Queer Art of Failing at Video Games / Bonnie Ruberg

12. Romancing an Empire, Becoming Isaac: The Queer Possibilities of Jade Empire and The Binding of Isaac / Jordan Wood

13. A Game Chooses, a Player Obeys: BioShock, Posthumanism, and the Limits of Queerness / Edmond Y. Chang

Afterword: Racism, Sexism, and Gaming's Cruel Optimism / Lisa Nakamura

Index