Playing Sites of Memory: Framing the Representation of Cultural Memory in Digital Games

Abstract

Basing on an understanding of digital games as cultural objectivations, this article suggests interpreting them as sites of memory, or in other words as ‘carrier’ of cultural memory. By merging game studies, literary studies, and memory studies, the article aims at providing an operational and theoretical toolkit useful to put different kinds of representation within (and beyond) digital games towards a broader cultural memory framework. The toolkit is inspired by Paul Ricoeur and his threefold model of textual mimesis, and favours an approach to digital games that takes into account how they represent and re- configure pre-existent cultural forms; and therefore can be refigured into novel ones during, after, and beyond the game experience.

Keywords

• memory studies, sites of memory, cultural memory, game studies, literary studies.