Jewish Studies and Digital Humanities Students Join to Discuss Serious Games

Professor Maughan delivers a lecture on serious games for students in “Videogames and Human Agency” and “How did the Holocaust Affect …?” at the World Languages and Digital Humanities Studio.

At the end of the spring semester, two courses — WLLC 398V Videogames and Human Agency and JWST 470/570V Special Topics in Jewish Studies: How Did the Holocaust Affect…? — held a joint class meeting to discuss how Germany’s Nazi past has affected the arts, primarily focusing on videogames and censorship.

Curtis Maughan, teaching assistant professor of digital humanities and director of the World Languages and Digital Humanities Studio, and Jennifer Hoyer, associate professor of German and director of the Jewish Studies Program, brought their courses together for a lecture by Maughan and a class discussion on the history of four videogames: Bundesfighter II (2017), Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus (2018), Attentat 1942 (2017) and Through the Darkest of Times (2020).

Students from Maughan’s course — Videogames and Human Agency — and Ellen McPherson’s “Serious Game Night” series meet with Mona Brandt, (on-screen) the lead designer from PaintBucket Games in Berlin, Germany.

Maughan contextualized these games through a discussion of the German Criminal Code section 86a, which bans the use of unconstitutional symbols, including Nazi symbols, and how this policy has adapted to changing perspectives on the artistic importance and educational value of videogames. Maughan detailed how the game Through the Darkest of Times (Paintbucket Games) became the first-ever German-made videogame to legally depict the swastika while engaging with Germany’s Nazi past and the Holocaust.  

Undergraduate students discussed the potential value and harm of serious games that grapple with traumatic historical subject matter. Students in Maughan’s course, as well as students from the “Serious Games Night” event series, organized by Ellen McPherson, a graduate student in German, have been playing Through the Darkest of Times throughout the semester. Both groups met with Mona Brandt of Paintbucket Games, one of the lead designers of the historical game, to discuss the difficulties of and innovative strategies necessary for creating videogames about serious subject matter.

For more information on Digital Humanities programming or the WLDH Studio, please contact Maughan (cmaughan@uark.edu) and check out the WLLC social media Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. Please contact Hoyer (jhoyer@uark.edu) for more information on the Jewish Studies Program. 

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This story also appeared in the University of Arkansas News publication.