Taking the reader on a journey through queer manifestations in games, this book advocates for video games as a rich, political and cultural medium, which provides us with tools to navigate the future of gaming.
Situated at the intersection of New Media, Game, Cultural and Queer Studies, the book navigates diverse interspecies relationships, queer villains from the past, Pokémon memes on border politics, flânerie in post-industrial cities and one-sided erotic fights. It provides new critical engagements with the works of Jose Esteban Muñoz, Bonnie Ruberg, Guy Debord and Jack Halberstam, examining queer representation, gaming subcultures and dissident play practices. Making the bold claim that video games might be the queerest medium today, this book provides organic, self-reflective and, ultimately, thought-provoking thinking in which both games and gamers are queered.
This book will be of interest to scholars researching game studies, sex, gender and sexuality in new media, but also readers interested in literature, digital media, society, participatory culture and queer studies.
Introduction 1. Sporting Moustaches, Riding Bulls, Flashing Bums – Dorian Pavus’s Queer Odyssey 2. The Sissy & the Cyborg – or How to Set the World on Fire in Fabulous Robes 3. "Gotta Smuggle them All!" – Queer Détournement, Drag, and Border Politics 4. Wandering through Paths and Pixels – the Queer Meandering of the Gaming Flâneur 5. Flawless in Defeat – In and For the Margins
Biography
Gaspard Pelurson is a Lecturer in Creative Media and Global Industries at King’s College London.
