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Of Parents and Siblings, Disciplines and Debates: Game Studies as Media Culture Studies and the Possibility of Schools of Thought

Chapter of: Historiographies of Game Studies: What It Has Been, What It Could Be(pp. 227–247)

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Metadata
TitleOf Parents and Siblings, Disciplines and Debates:
SubtitleGame Studies as Media Culture Studies and the Possibility of Schools of Thought
ContributorTobias Unterhuber(author)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.53288/0441.1.10
Landing pagehttps://punctumbooks.com/titles/historiographies-of-game-studies-what-it-has-been-what-it-could-be/
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
CopyrightTobias Unterhuber
Publisherpunctum books
Published on2025-07-25
Long abstractThe inherent methodological pluralism of the humanities has shaped game studies from the very start. Especially because as a field mostly defined by its research object, it not only draws on the traditions and established structures of one but of a plethora of disciplines. As an interdisciplinary /transdisciplinary field, game studies with its rudimentary institutionalization multiplied the methodological pluralism of its parental fields. Thus, the ludology versus narratology debate can be understood as an attempt to establish game studies as its own field and to separate it from its parental disciplines, especially literary studies. The approach of media culture studies offers a different framework for these relationships: fields concerned with different media formations under similar research interests, thus siblings. However, simultaneously, game studies is still informed by the concepts, structures and discussions of its former parental disciplines, especially conceptualizations what a research field even is. This macro-level does also influence the formation of research on a micro-level, e.g. the possibility of research groups evolving into schools of thought. The paper takes an exemplary look at the “Game Studies & Cultural Studies colloquium Munich” and the possibility of a “Munich school” and of schools of thought in game studies in general.
Page rangepp. 227–247
Print length21 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Contributors

Tobias Unterhuber

(author)
post-doc for literature and media studies at Universität Innsbruck
https://orcid.org/0009-0005-4270-1758

Tobias Unterhuber (he/him) studied modern German literature, comparative literature, and study of religion at LMU Munich and at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2018, he earned his PhD with his thesis on the works of Swiss author Christian Kracht. He is a post-doc for literature and media studies at the University of Innsbruck, where he also leads the game studies research group. His research interests include game studies, gender studies, discourse analysis, media history, specifically the media cultural history of games and play. He is co-editor of the game studies journal PAIDIA and the Zeitschrift für Fantastikforschung.