Gaming by a Gamer

In Gaming, Alexander R. Galloway considers the video game as a distinct cultural form that demands a new and unique interpretive framework. Using examples from more than fifty video games, Galloway constructs a classification system of action in video games, and, ultimately offers a new conception of gaming and, more broadly, of electronic culture, one that celebrates the qualities of the digital age.

Cyberfolk on Wired blog

The Souls of Cyberfolk: Posthumanism as Vernacular Theory by Thomas Foster was recently mentioned on a Wired blog.

Do-It-Yourself Memorials

From a do-it-yourself Mount Rushmore, to an automated tribute to the annual toll of traffic deaths, Electronic Monuments describes commemoration as a fundamental experience, joining individual and collective identity. Gregory L. Ulmer proposes that the Internet makes it possible for monumentality to become a site of self-knowledge, one that holds the promise of bringing citizens back into the political equation.

View Electronic Monuments' table of contents.

REVIEW: Lara Croft

The latest issue of Leonardo features a review of Lara Croft: Cyber Heroine by Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky.

For millions of fans around the world, Lara Croft, not Tomb Raider, is what drives their interest, just as for an entertainment company her image, not the game, showcases its news. It is this curiosity that Deuber-Mankowsky seeks to explain in the book.