Gerald Voorhees published in Game Studies!

Faculty member Gerald Voorhees' paper, "Play and Possibility in the Rhetoric of the War on Terror: The Structure of Agency in Halo 2", was published in this month's issue of Game Studies. The abstract can be read below. Read the full article...

Abstract

This essay examines the popular military-themed first person shooter video game Halo 2. It contends that Halo 2 is a post-9/11 rhetoric that helps position players attitudinally in relation to the War on Terror. Articulating Halo 2 to the post-9/11 context, this essay uses Michel Foucault’s theory of agency and Northrop Frye's theories of fictional mode and thematic genre to consider a range of possible, potentially overlapping affective responses to Halo 2. These possibilities, which variously affirm and contest the Bush administration's narrative of the War on Terror, foreground both the rhetorical efficacy of digital games and the player’s agency to determine their rhetorical effect.