Posts
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Learning From Choice: A Study of the Find Your Fate - Doctor Who Gamebook Series
Like a parent with a child, the books allow readers to make their mistakes, but then picks the reader back up again, dusts them off with a few kind and informational words, and sends the reader off to try, try again.
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Subversion or Submission: Gender, Romance, and Patriarchy in Fantasy Gamebooks
Through an in-depth analysis of fantasy gamebooks -- which I'll loosely define as a genre that includes elements of magic, adventure, and fantastical creatures, often weaving romance into the narrative, whether subtly or overtly -- it is evident that, while a variety of strategies have been employed, each method either deliberately subverts or achingly adheres to traditional gender codes.
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Endings Across Gamebook Genres
Each genre had its own unique criteria for what endings typically entail, and along with this I discovered that whether an ending is seen as 'good' or 'bad' depends on the genre of work in which it is found.
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Chance and Reader Agency: Water and Oil
What happens when a choose-your-own-adventure becomes a random-chance-dictates-what-happens-to-your-own-adventure? What happens when the defining essence of a genre is intentionally broken or disobeyed?
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Discovering the Treasure of Libri-Giochi: Pedagogical Value in the Italian Gamebook Collection
Within original Italian gamebooks I found a small group with an emphasis of the pedagogical uses of gamebooks, rather than using (or viewing) the gamebook for solely entertainment purposes.
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Authorship in Gamebooks
In comparing the works of two authors across several series, I found it very interesting that the structures used [by series] somewhat overshadowed the individual books’ authorship. Both Edward Packard and R.A. Montgomery were able to adjust their writing style and narrative structure according to the gamebook series they were writing in.
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The Romance Genre in Gamebooks
In order to determine the modes of behavior promoted by romance gamebooks I focused on labeling endings and choices. I divided endings into four general groups based on good or bad, and romantic or unromantic.
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Look up on Gamebooks.org
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Research Reports
Researchers are currently compiling brief research reports on individual topics of 2+ pages (at least 600 words) with one or more illustrations (e.g. an Edger graph).
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Authors and Translators
Some of our team members are now working on special topics in authorship and translation. Below are lists of the most productive / prolific authors and translators of gamebooks as listed in the Katz Collection catalog and on gamebooks.org.
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Research Topics
For the remainder of the research assistantships, each undergraduate researcher will focus on a specific research topic, identify and further annotate works of interest, and produce a short research report.
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New Gallery Details
The project gallery now gives the ability to browse by box and series, and shows detail pages with the story graphs, data, log files, and graph source files for each work.
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Foreign Language Research Group
An initiative to look into the foreign language portion of the Katz Collection.
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Genre Research Group
Developing a research group for interrogating the relevance of _genre_ to the narrative structures of gamebooks.
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One Interesting Work
Researchers share details about one interesting interactive narrative that they have encountered.
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Meeting 8-29
Our research meeting is Tuesday Aug 29 at 2p in UCSB South Hall room 2509 (the Transcriptions Lab).
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Website launch
A new project website is up for Transverse Reading, featuring the ongoing research work of the team.
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Edger update
A new version of the Edger software is available for download.
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Resources
A collection of resources and links of interest.
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Special Collections Registration
Please register for a Special Research Collections account here:
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