Ludohistorical Thinking: Gaming the Gap between Academic and Popular Histories

Abstract

This thesis explores the potential of video games as a tool for communicating history to a popular audience and engaging them in historical thinking. It seeks to understand how games can involve the public in historical thinking, arguments and practices approaching those of professional historians. The research questions include how video games can encourage historical thinking in a mass audience, and what limitations exist in using games as a tool for public history. The thesis is divided into two parts, with the first three chapters exploring theoretical concepts relating to history in gaming and the issues they present. These themes include the relationship between the immersive nature of video games, historical empathy, and critical thinking, non-linearity and historical truth, and themes of historical choice, morality, and complicity. My research draws on case studies of existing games, including Paradise Killer (2020) and Papers, Please (2013), to explore how games can engage with sophisticated historical epistemologies and draw popular history closer to academic historical practice. In Part Two, Chapters Four and Five closely examine the theme of the Holocaust in video games. This case study is used to test the perceived limits of ludic historical representation and assess how these limits are negotiated in the public sphere. Chapter Four examines the popular and critical reception of three cancelled Holocaust games and identifies major themes that emerge in public discourses surrounding them. Chapter Five closely analyses I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream (1995), an adaptation of the Harlan Ellison short story, as a game that depicted traditionally taboo Holocaust content without notable controversy. The thesis proposes some ways to communicate historical research and foster historical understanding in a digital media-dominated world.