Browsing by Author "Musgrave, Megan L."
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Item Gamer Girls, Gold Farmers, and Activism In Real Life(Springer, 2016-06) Musgrave, Megan L.; Department of English, School of Liberal ArtsThis essay analyzes the graphic novel In Real Life as an example of Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang’s intention to raise young people’s awareness about gender and economic disparities within the gaming industry. Broadly, In Real Life combats the pervasive cultural anxiety that Jane McGonigal challenges in her book Reality is Broken–namely that young people’s growing connection to technology, and specifically to gaming, will cause them to spend their lives “wasting time, tuning out, and losing out on real life” (2011, p. 11). Specifically, it provides a realistic, accessible example of digital citizenship for twenty-first century youth. The innovative notions of digital citizenship Doctorow and Wang present in the text call for an end to gender and economic marginalization as facilitated by a gaming industry in which many young adults participate. By connecting gaming to activism, In Real Life offers a new avenue by which to use young adult literature to inspire civic engagement on the part of young people. The aim is to show that the imaginary activism depicted in literature not only has the potential to, but is actually designed to engage young people as active users, consumers, and shapers of technology.Item Gaming as Civic Engagement in Salman Rushdie’s Luka and the Fire of Life(Project Muse, 2015) Musgrave, Megan L.; Department of English, School of Liberal ArtsThis essay investigates the ways that Salman Rushdie’s 2010 novel Luka and the Fire of Life engages twenty-first-century concerns about the role of technology in daily life. Borrowing its narrative structure from classic video games, Luka argues that “old” storytelling modes must be adapted in order to remain relevant to new generations for whom technology is becoming indispensable. In this regard, Rushdie supports the position asserted by James Paul Gee, Henry Jenkins, Jane McGonigal, and other new media critics: gaming has the potential not only to bridge the generation gap, but also to sharpen problem-solving skills and inspire young people to integrate play, technology, and citizenship-building activities.Item The Monster at the End of This Book: Posthumanism and New Materialism in the Scholarship of Children’s Literature(Routledge, 2023) Musgrave, Megan L.; English, School of Liberal Arts