<div dir="ltr">
<div id="gmail-:3x0" class="gmail-a3s gmail-aiL"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail-adM">
</div><p>Join us Friday, March 8, as <em>ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories </em>hosts games studies scholar Jaroslav Švelch for a talk about his recent book, <em>Player vs. Monster: The Making and Breaking of Video Game Monstrosity.</em> The event will be at 1PM EST on the ROMchip Twitch channel, <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/romchipjournal" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.twitch.tv/romchipjournal</a>. Sign up for <a href="https://romchip.us13.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=27c1594af9abf2dc80455091b&id=caaf5790a7" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">our newsletter</a> to never miss an update.<br></p><p><a href="https://www.tickettailor.com/events/romchipajournalofgamehistories/1144604" target="_blank">REGISTER HERE</a><br><br><strong>About the Book</strong><em></em><br>Since the early days of video games, monsters have played pivotal
roles as dangers to be avoided, level bosses to be defeated, or targets
to be destroyed for extra points. But why is the figure of the monster
so important in gaming, and how have video games come to shape our
culture's conceptions of monstrosity? To answer these questions, <em>Player vs. Monster </em>explores
the past half-century of monsters in games, from the dragons of early
tabletop role-playing games and the pixelated aliens of <em>Space Invaders </em>to the malformed mutants of <em>The Last of Us </em>and the bizarre beasts of <em>Bloodborne</em>, and reveals the common threads among them.<br>
</p>
<p>Covering
examples from aliens to zombies, Jaroslav Švelch explores the art of
monster design and traces its influences from mythology, visual arts,
popular culture, and tabletop role-playing games. At the same time, he
shows that video games follow the Cold War–era notion of clearly
defined, calculable enemies, portraying monsters as figures that are
irredeemably evil yet invariably vulnerable to defeat. He explains the
appeal of such simplistic video game monsters, but also explores how the
medium could evolve to present more nuanced depictions of monstrosity.</p>
<p><b>About the Author</b><strong><br></strong>Jaroslav Švelch
is Assistant Professor in the Department of Media Studies at Charles
University, Prague, and Lecturer in the Department of Game Design at the
Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. He is the
author of <em>Gaming the Iron Curtain: How Teenagers and Amateurs in Communist Czechoslovakia Claimed the Medium of Computer Games</em>.</p>
<p><strong></strong><strong>About <em>ROMchip<br></em></strong><em><a href="https://www.romchip.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories</a></em> is a free, online scholarly journal for game history. <em>ROMchip </em>develops,
edits, and publishes ad-free, open access game history research for a
range of audiences. It supports any discipline of work enlivening the
history of games in local and global contexts, and embraces diversity in
how game history is studied, documented, collected, preserved, and
practiced. <em>ROM</em><em>c</em><em>hip</em> is a donation-based organization fiscally sponsored by <a href="https://www.fracturedatlas.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Fractured Atlas</a>; to donate to ROMchip, please visit our <a href="https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/romchip-a-journal-of-game-histories" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sponsor website</a>. <br></p></div></div><div><br></div><div>--</div><div><br></div>
<div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:normal"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:normal"><font size="2"><a href="http://www.lainenooney.com/" target="_blank">Laine Nooney</a></font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:13px;line-height:normal"><div><font size="2"><br></font></div><div><font size="2"><span>Assistant Professor | </span><a href="http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/mcc/" target="_blank">MCC</a> @ <span><a href="http://www.nyu.edu/" target="_blank">NYU</a> | they/them</span></font></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div>-Need to make an appt? Click, don't email: <a href="https://bit.ly/2GIHuK0" target="_blank">https://bit.ly/2GIHuK0</a></div><div>-Probably typed by voice recognition, so please cherish typos</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>