RACE AND VIDEO GAMES:
AN ESSENTIAL READING LIST FOR AN ACADEMIC COURSE
Compiled by Matteo Bittanti
Books
Gray, Kishonna L. and Kappeler, Victor E., Race, Gender, and Deviance in Xbox Live: Theoretical Perspectives from the Virtual Margins, London: Routledge, 2014.
Haggin, Tanner .(2012) Gamic Race: Logics of Difference in Videogame Culture, Riverside, Ca: University of California Riverside Press.
Malkowski, Jennifer and Russworm, TreaAndrea M. (Eds) (2017) Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games (Digital Game Studies), Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Murray, Soraya. (2017) On Video Games: The Visual Politics of Race, Gender and Space, London: IB Tauris.
Nakamura, Lisa and Chow-White Peter. (Eds.) (2011), Race After the Internet, London: Routledge.
Articles and Essays
Blackmon, S., & Terrell, D. J. (2009). “Racing towards Representation: An Understanding of Racial Representation In Video Games”. In C. L. Selfe & G. E. Hawisher (Eds.), Gaming Lives in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, pp.203-216.
Brock, André. (2011) “When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong': Resident Evil 5, Racial Representation, and Gamers," Games and Culture 6, no. 5.
Deskins, Troy G. (2013) “Stereotypes in Video Games and How They Perpetuate Prejudice,” McNair Scholars Research Journal: Vol. 6: Iss. 1, Article 5.
Everett A., Watkins C. and Salen K. (2008) "The Power of play: the portrayal and performance of race in video games” in The ecology of games: connecting youth, games and learning. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 141–166.
Galloway, Alexander. (2011) “Does the Whatever Speak?”, in Nakamura, Lisa and Chow-White Peter (Eds.), Race After the Internet, London: Routledge, pp. 111-126.
Gray, K. (2013) “Collective Organizing, Individual Resistance, or Asshole Griefers? An Ethnographic Analysis of Women of Color in Xbox Live”, A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, No.2.
Higgin, Tanner. (2008) “Blackless Fantasy. The Disappearance of Race in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games”, Games & Culture, 2008.
Higgin, Tanner. (2013) “FCJ-159 /b/lack up: What Trolls Can Teach Us About Race”, Fibreculture, Issue 22.
Ibrahim, Hussen. (2015) “What’s like to always play the bad guy. On the portrayal of Arabs in Online Shooters” in Goldberg Daniel and Larsson, Linus (Eds.) The State of Play: Creators and Critics on Video Game Culture, New York: Seven Stories Press.
Leonard, D.J. (2003, November) “Live in your world, play in ours'': Race, video games, and consuming the other. Studies in Media & Information Literacy Education, 3, 1-9.
Leonard, D.J. (2004) “High tech blackface-Race, sports video games and becoming the other. Intelligent Agent, 4, 1-5.
Leonard, D.J. (2006a) “Not a hater, just keepin' it real: The importance of race and gender based game studies. Games and Culture, 1, 83-88. , Google Scholar
Leonard, D.J. (2006b) “Virtual gangstas, coming to a suburban house near you: Demonization, commodification, and policing blackness. In N. Garrelts (Ed.), The meaning and culture of Grand Theft Auto: Critical essays. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Leonard, D.J. (2007) “Performing Blackness: Sports, Video Games, Minstrelsy, and Becoming the Other in an Era of White Supremacy,” in Mary Flanagan and Austin Booth, eds., Re:Skin, pp. 321–339, MIT Press.
Leonard, D.J., King, C.R. (2009) “War Games as a New Frontier: Race, Space, & Empire in Virtual War,” in Nina Huntemann and Matt Payne, eds., Joystick Soldiers: The Politics of Play in Military Video Games, London: Routledge, pp. 91–105.
Nakamura, L. (2009) “Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game: The Racialization of Labor in World of Warcraft,” Critical Studies in Media Communication 26, no. 2, pp. 128-144.
Nakamura, L. (2012) “Queer Female of Color: The Highest Difficulty Setting There Is? Gaming Rhetoric as Gender Capital, Ada: a Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, No. 1. 2012.
Ritsema, J. & Thakore, B. K. (2012). “Sincere Fictions of Whiteness in Virtual Worlds: How Fantasy Massively Multiplayer Online Games Perpetuate Color-blind, White Supremacist Ideology”, in D. G. Embrick, J. T. Wright, and A. Lukacs , Eds.) Social Exclusion, Power, and Video Game Play. New York: Lexington Books, pp 141-54.
Szai-Fai, Shiu. (2006) “What Yellowface Hides: Video Games, Whiteness, and the American Racial Order.” The Journal of Popular Culture.
Shanahan, Ian. (2015) “Bow Nigger” in Goldberg Daniel and Larsson, Linus (Eds.) The State of Play: Creators and Critics on Video Game Culture, New York: Seven Stories Press.
Shaw, Adrienne. (2012) “Do You Identify as a Gamer?: Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Gamer Identity” in New Media & Society, February, vol. 14, pp. 28-44.
Williams, D., Martins, N., Consalvo, M., Ivory, J. (2009). “The virtual census: Representations of gender, race and age in video games”. New Media & Society 11 (5): 815-34.
