Critical Distance: Keywords in Play
Leisure:Video Games
This episode we have a departure from academia; a different approach to the creation and transmission of knowledge. We interview Eli Smith, Traditional Music Consultant for Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption 2. In our first COVID-19 recording (you may hear some sirens), we discuss the American music archive both as living tradition and recording technology, and the ways in which these interface with the virtual space of a digital game.
Eli is a folk singer, banjo player and guitarist who grew up in New York’s Greenwich Village. Smith has recorded for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and regularly performs as a solo musician and with the string band the Down Hill Strugglers http://elismithmusic.blogspot.com/
“Keywords in Play” is an interview series about game research supported by Critical Distance and the Digital Games Research Association. As a joint venture, “Keywords in Play” expands Critical Distance’s commitment to innovative writing and research about games while using a conversational style to bring new and diverse scholarship to a wider audience.
Our goal is to highlight the work of graduate students, early career researchers and scholars from under-represented groups, backgrounds and regions. The primary inspiration comes from sociologist and critic Raymond Williams. In the Preface to his book Keywords: a vocabulary of culture and society, Williams envisaged not a static dictionary but an interactive document, encouraging readers to populate blank pages with their own keywords, notes and amendments. “Keywords in Play” follows Williams in affirming that “The significance is in the selection”, and works towards diversifying the critical terms with which we describe games and game culture.
Please consider supporting Critical Distance at https://www.patreon.com/critdistance
Production Team: Darshana Jayemanne, Zoyander Street, Emilie Reed.
Audio Direction and Engineering: Damian Stewart
Double Bass: Aaron Stewart
Episode 45 - Documentary Delight
Episode 44 - A Cagey Interview
Episode 43 - Think, Game, Love
Episode 42 - Great Levels, The Best Levels in Gaming
Episode 41 - Every Game a Painting
Episode 40 - Games Literary Studies on YouTube
Episode 39 - This is Innuendo Studios
Episode 38 - The Spawn of History
Episode 37 - Noah's Crit
Minisode 13 - Soundscapes and Dreamscapes
Episode 36 - The Hows and Whys of TWIVGB
Minisode 12 - Not Dark Souls
Episode 35 - Camp's Signal
Minisode 11 - Grab Bag of Games
Episode 34 - Chat with Matt
Minisode 10 - Abstract Aesthetics
Episode 33 - Game OverThinker
Minisode 09 - Long Games and Short Games
Episode 32 - Supplementary Grades
Episode 31 - Back to the 2015
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