Is There Such Thing as a Latinx Game"

Regina Mills, Assistant Professor | English

Abstract:As more attention is paid to games in mainstream media beyond the “violence in video game debate,” questions of representation and inclusion are coming to broader attention. As a Latinx literature scholar interested in the limits and possibilities available through genre and medium, Dr. Mills asks a simple question: is there such thing as a “Latinx game”? And if so, what makes something a Latinx game? First, she provides the definitions (explicit and implicit) that seem to already be on offer for this term. Then, she posits a preliminary definition of her own for the study of Latinx games as a genre. Taking the lead from Gerald Voorhees’s agonistic approach to Genre Trouble, Dr. Mills argues that Latinx games as a genre encourages Latinx studies and game studies scholars to examine how games shape constructions of Latinidad as well as how Latinxs have shaped games.

 

 

 

 

 

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“'The Dramatic Sequel to the War': The U.S. Army, The International Tracing Service, and the Search for the Missing, 1945-1950"

Tristan Krause, Ph.D. Candidate | History

Abstract:
As World War II drew to its chaotic close in 1945, Americans were deeply concerned with the fate of missing in action (MIA) military service members. Almost 90,000 remained unaccounted for and families at home demanded answers. In Europe, the U.S. military continued searching for the remains of MIAs long after the hope of recovering them alive had faded. Simultaneously, allied agencies sought to clarify the fates of millions of civilian casualties. Historians have written about these two concurrent searches, but treated them as distinct. Using untapped source material, this paper argues that these twinned searches benefited from and, in some cases, depended on each other in a symbiotic endeavor. This study highlights the cooperation between the American military and an allied agency, as well as the blurred lines between civilian and military casualties in the wake of war.

 

 

 

 

 

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