conceptual skeleton
by ibull
Foreclosing Possibility in Virtual Worlds:
An Exploration of Language, Space, and Bodies
in the Simulation of Gender and Minecraft
This thesis is a textual analysis and discourse analysis that examines the social and programmatic construction of the videogame Minecraft by interrogating how code, design, and fan modifications limit and facilitate play in and outside the game. This thesis will argue that the constitution of gender—and subjectivity, more broadly—is reflected in the language, space, and bodies that shape the boundaries of the virtual world. What makes a player “cyborgian” when they embody a virtual avatar may have less to do the abstraction of agency into a computerized self and more to do with the way in which humans create and maintain conduits to exist between worlds that are both digital and material.
This is fantastic!
Hello! Your thesis is awesome! A lot of it went over my head, but I totally see what you mean by Minecraft being like the American frontier. I wrote something on a blog about how players creating factory farms in Minecraft that are eerily similar to those in real life. Have you read “The Sexual Politics of Meat” by Carol J. Adams? It connects vegetarianism to sexism, and while there really is no academic rigor in what I’m saying, it’s interesting to see how gender and the mechanism of the food system can be reproduced within Minecraft.
https://frankphilosophy.wordpress.com/2014/07/28/virtual-factory-farming/