Colleagues and students are warmly invited to join the School of Modern Languages and Cultures’ guest lecture

Date and time: 18 March, 3.30 pm Venue: James Watt Building 361 Speaker: David Matencio Duran (University of Glasgow) Title: Representation of Poverty and Oppression using Rogues in Video Games: The Influence of Picaresque Literature
Abstract: Story-driven video games usually feature characters that suffer some type of discrimination or oppression. If we analyse these characters, many of them follow closely the characteristics of picaresque literature and can be categorised as rogues, giving birth to what can be called the videoludic picaresque. Through the tradition of this literature, video games reflect and explore current sociocultural challenges in a variety of contexts. As it happened in picaresque literature, videoludic rogues experience the effects of poverty, racial or gender discrimination, are frequently tied to non-normative sexualities, and engage with delinquency. These characters dwell in virtual urban spaces that unveil the life conditions of the lower classes through the lenses of rogues and their acquaintances. This lecture will analyse a series of video game case studies to explain this transmedia phenomenon from a multidisciplinary perspective combining analysis strategies from game studies, literary studies, and comparative literature. It will focus on explaining the nature of the sociocultural aspect of the videoludic picaresque, and how its literary roots are implemented in a new interactive medium. This lecture is part of project MASQUES, supported by the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme.
Bio: David Matencio Durán is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow in Spanish Literature and Game Studies at the University of Glasgow. He is interested in the cultural influences of video games, with a primary focus on the influence of Literature (Spanish and English, mainly), on role-playing video games and tabletop games. His doctoral dissertation, “The Spanish Picaresque as a Literary Model for Video Games” (2024), was funded by Séneca Foundation Agency of Science and Technology of the Region of Murcia. David’s PhD dissertation received an international mention, a cum laude award and the best doctorate award in Arts and Humanities (University of Murcia, 2024). David has been a visiting researcher at the Center of Excellence in Game Culture Studies of University of Tampere, Finland (2021). He has published in journals such as Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Games & Culture or Eludamos.

Followed by refreshments