Japan’s digital cultures. Videogames and digital media as challenge in teaching.

Summary

Vision
“Understanding digital cultures in theory and practice”

Team

Robert Aust (Luxemburg University/ Humboldt University Berlin)

Martin Roth (Leipzig University)

In this first part of the module “Japan’s Digital Cultures” we will learn about, discuss and explore videogame cultures in Japan. The course is split into three parts. In the first part, it offers an introduction to game studies and to the history of videogames in Japan. Here, participants will review existing literature and establish a general sense of what videogame culture is in the context of contemporary culture, and how we might approach it. In the second part, our guest lecturer Hiroshi Yoshida from Japan will discuss the idea of self-referentiality and in-game games in depth. Building on this discussion, each participant will engage in an individual, empirical research project on a self-chosen question in the third part. Participants will be guided by a tutor, who provides help with designing the research project, and will have access to the [j]Games Lab and support for using its infrastructure.