Video Game Chronotopes and Social Justice

Mike Piero is a Professor of English at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio. In addition to winning national awards for innovative teaching, his work has recently appeared in The Popular Culture Studies Journal, Transnational Literature, MediaCommons, MediaTropes, and Teaching English in the Two-Year College. He is co-editor of Being Dragonborn: Critical Essays on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2021). He teaches courses in game studies, British literature, college composition, and the humanities.

Introduction: Queering Video Game Timespace through Threshold Chronotopes.- 1. The Chronotope of the Bonfire: Reconfiguring Community in Medieval-Themed Role-Playing Games.- 2.The Chronotope of the Archipelago: Archipelagic Maps and Playing Colonial Conquest in Real-Time Strategy Games.- 3.The Chronotope of the Abject: Understanding Video Game Abjection under Sovereign State Power.- 4.The Chronotope of the Fart as Pharmakon: Laughter, Censorship, and Social Justice in Carnivalesque Games.- 5.The Chronotope of Madness: Medical Rhetorics and Mental Illness Stigma in Video Games.- 6.The Chronotope of Coupled Love: Compulsory Monogamy, Video Games, and Polyamorous Possibilities Beyond Belonging.- Afterword: Future Areas of Research Opened by Threshold Chronotopes.