Cycles of Awe Bibiography

(sorry this post is so late. I'm doing massive catch up after a long two weeks)

Working Thesis
People experience cycles of awe (similar to how characters experience the hero's journey [ps thank you +Greg for the comment about the heroic journey]) for two reasons: first, to return to personal sources of awe because of their psychology, as these sources provides for a spiritual enlightenment, comfort, or resolution; second, whether accidentally or purposefully, these cycles continue because people become stuck in an ever circling loop without ever reaching an enlightened, comforted, or resolved state.

VideoBiblioAwesome-Ography

Here's some stuff about awe and games and stuff:

Working Thesis:

Videogames have followed the path they have not just to play to adolescent male power fantasies, but to serve that purpose of channeling and preserving the public's awe at advanced computing technology. The escapist, fantastic, and violent aesthetics within games are ultimately a result of the residue of this original purpose of the medium, and as the medium grows more into a mode of expression separated from the restraints and potential of the technologies it is bound to, videogames will depart ever further from fantasy and escapism to delve into more realistic and thematically mature content.

Annotated Bibliography:

Bissel, Tom. Why Video Games Matter. New York: Random House, 2010. Print.

This is a former Wall Street Journal writer's book on his perspective on videogames in culture. He talks a lot about the maturation of the medium and the move from "spectacle" to "message." He also makes smart comparisons to the histories of other mediums that could be useful to me.

Bills, Paul. This Storify story I curated on art and videogames might prove useful.

Bogost, Ian. How to Do Things With Videogames. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011. Print.

Another source I've used before. He has a whole chapter on reverence that is a totally unique perspective on games and links well with how games can inspire awe based on their unique blend of narrative and technology.

Egenfeld-Nielsen, Simon, Jonas Heide Smith, and Susana Pajares Tosca. Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2013. Print.

This is my textbook for my IHUM class on games and play right now. It gives a great overview of the history of games that I can use.

Graets, J.M. "The Origin of Spacewar." Wheels.org. Web. 21 Mar 2014.

This is an article written by one of the guys who made Spacewar! the first modern videogame. I've already quoted from it extensively in my first five pages. 

Annotated Bibliography for Reclaiming Awe

Working Thesis (which will surely undergo drastic revision): While the digital age affords us seemingly infinite opportunities, with those opportunities comes the danger of destroying mankind's most fundamental and universal quality, his capacity to experience and create awe.

Realistically, you should probably just skip to the end and read my end commentary, because I'm tweaking my emphasis a bit, and that's the part where I'd be most interested in hearing your feedback. Thanks!

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adorno, Theodor W and Max Horkheimer. "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception." Dialectic of Enlightenment. Trans. John Cummings. New York: Herder & Herder, 1972. 120-167. Print.

Adorno and Horkheimer propose that modern media encourages passive consumption over true creativity and that in their aspirations toward popularity and industrial utility, they have fallen into a state of artistic or aesthetic impoverishment. This ties into my focus on digital creativity as a means of overcoming the impoverishment and rising from passive consumption to a state of "flourishing" productivity.

Arnold, Matthew. “The Study of Poetry.” 1880. Poetry Foundation. 13 Oct. 2009. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.

In this essay, Arnold proposes that the measure of a work’s poetic or artistic greatness (and I would argue, it’s potential to inspire awe) is based on a combination of personal and historical perspectives. Great works, then, partake of the same spirit as landmark works that have come before--touchstones, as he calls them. This in some sense helps to overcome the sense of subjectiveness that many of us have been struggling with in defining awe.