I am happy to announce Grand Theft Studies, a one day conference on Rockstar Games' most accomplished series, Grand Theft Auto. The event will take place on Friday May 10 2019 from 10.00 until 12.30 at IULM University, In Milan, and will feature contributions by Andrea Chiurato, Fabio Vittorini, Alberto Vanolo, and yours truly. Gemma Fantacci will moderate the panel. Grand Theft Studies coincides with the release of Fenomenologia di Grand Theft Auto, a new critical anthology about Rockstar Games' cultural, political, social, and artistic aspects edited by Matteo Bittanti and published by Mimesis Edizioni. The event is organized by the Master of Arts in Game Design at IULM University.
The event is free and open to the public but seats are limited. To register, please click here.
Matteo Bittanti is an artist, writer, curator, publisher, translator, and scholar. His academic research focuses on the cultural, social, and theoretical aspects of emerging technologies, with an emphasis on their effects on communication, visual culture, and the arts. His approach is interdisciplinary, connecting media studies, game studies, visual studies, and art history. He lives in San Francisco and Milan.
Gemma Fantacci received an M.A. in Arts, Markets and Cultural Heritage from IULM University and later enrolled in the Master of Arts in Game Design, combining her interest for art with new media, especially video games, machinima, and in-game photography. She is a regular contributor to ATP DIARY, an online magazine focusing on contemporary art. Gemma Fantacci lives and works in Milan.
Fabio Vittorini is an Italian literary critic, currently Professor of Comparative Literature at IULM University of Milan. He is known for his studies on opera and on metamodern narratives. He is the author of many books and articles, including USA Narrative 1984-2014: Novels, Films, Graphic Novels, TV Series, Videogames (2015) in which he outlined the trajectory of contemporary North American narrative fiction and Storytelling today. Metamodernism between narratology, hermeneutics and intermediality (2017), in which he tried to develop a comprehensive theory of the metamodern narratives.
Andrea Chiurato received his Ph.D in Comparative Literature in 2008, with a Dissertation on the relationship between the Nouveau Roman and the new Italian avant-garde. Currently, he is a research fellow in the department of Comparative art, culture and literature at IULM University. His studies focus primarily on 20th century avant-garde art movements and the evolution of the image of the city in the Western imagery between the XIX and the XXI century. His book include The Rearguard of the Avantgarde (2011); There where the city ends. Reflections on J. G. Ballard’s work (2013) and The outskirts of the metropolis. Otherness, diversity and exclusion between the XIX and the XX century (2016).
Alberto Vanolo is an Associate Professor of Political and Economic Geography at the University of Turin, Italy. His main research fields include urban studies and cultural geography. His latest book, entitled City Branding, Urban Imaginaries and Ghosts: The Politics of Representation in Globalising Cities focuses on the cultural and political dimensions of urban representations. He is also associate editor of the journal Cities.
LINK: GRAND THEFT STUDIES
