Game creators use literary tricks - and lure audiences

Once known for being crude and violent, some video games now feature sophisticated storylines and characters. Some players see a new literary tradition arising.

Clementine is a girl who is trying to survive a zombie apocalypse in a video game series based on the comic book and television franchise The Walking Dead. But for Michael Abbott, who teaches theatre at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana, she is more than that. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25305351

"London NW" von Zadie Smith: Muskeln zeigen

Rassismus, Klassensystem und Coolness: In "London NW" fügt Literaturstar Zadie Smith ein faszinierendes Mosaik urbaner Biografien zusammen. Ihr bestes Buch.

Zadie Smith heißt nicht Zadie Smith, jedenfalls nicht exakt so. Ihre Eltern hatten sie Sadie genannt, als Teenager tauschte sie selbst das S gegen ein Z ein. Eine winzige kleine Änderung, die trotzdem als Schlüssel zu Smiths neuem Buch "London NW" taugt. Auch in dem ändert eine der Hauptfiguren ihren Namen. Als Keisha geboren, nimmt eine schwarze angehende Anwältin während des Studiums den Namen Natalie an. Weil das womöglich "weißer", in jedem Fall aber mehr nach Mittelschicht klingt als nach der Sozialbausiedlung im Londoner Nordwesten, in der sie aufgewachsen ist. 

http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/literatur/london-nw-neuer-roman-von-zadie-smith-zaehne-zeigen-a-942488.html 

Poet und Black-Power-Aktivist: Amiri Baraka ist tot

Er war einer der großen Intellektuellen der schwarzen Bürgerrechtsbewegung in den USA der Sechziger und Siebziger - und bis zu seinem Tod eine umstrittene Figur. Der radikale Poet Amiri Baraka starb am Donnerstag mit 79 Jahren.

Amiri Baraka, geboren als Everett LeRoi Jones am 7. Oktober 1934 in Newark, New Jersey war Dichter, bekennender Kommunist, Black Power-Aktivist und radikaler Regierungskritiker. Sein leidenschaftlicher Spoken-Word-Vortragsstil nahm den Rap vorweg - und er war eine höchst umstrittene Figur. Am Donnerstag starb der Schriftsteller im Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, wie sein Agente Celeste Bateman mitteilte. 

http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/literatur/amiri-baraka-leroi-jones-schriftsteller-und-black-power-aktivist-gestorben-a-942770.html 

The Most Popular Book Among Critics in 2013 Was…

It’s December, and along with the holiday preparations and the shortened days, this time of year brings with it the barrage of year-end lists. Over the past weeks, critics and editors from numerous publications have released their Top 10 and Best-of-2013 lists in which they share their favorite movies,TV shows, albums, songs, and books (among an array of cultural offerings) of the past year.

http://entertainment.time.com/2013/12/13/the-most-popular-book-among-critics-in-2013-was/

A Point Of View: Why Charles Dickens endures

As Christmas approaches, so Charles Dickens begins to seep once again into TV and theatre schedules. I have my own theory about the reason for his cultural longevity. Listen to this:
"There was a man who, though not more than thirty, had seen the world in divers irreconcilable capacities - had been an officer in a South American regiment among other odd things - but had not achieved much in any way of life, and was in debt, and in hiding. He occupied chambers of the dreariest nature in Lyons Inn; his name, however, was not up on the door, or door-post, but in lieu of it stood the name of a friend who had died in the chambers, and had given him the furniture. The story arose out of the furniture… "

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25347787 

Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming

It's important for people to tell you what side they are on and why, and whether they might be biased. A declaration of members' interests, of a sort. So, I am going to be talking to you about reading. I'm going to tell you that libraries are important. I'm going to suggest that reading fiction, that reading for pleasure, is one of the most important things one can do. I'm going to make an impassioned plea for people to understand what libraries and librarians are, and to preserve both of these things.

And I am biased, obviously and enormously: I'm an author, often an author of fiction. I write for children and for adults. For about 30 years I have been earning my living though my words, mostly by making things up and writing them down. It is obviously in my interest for people to read, for them to read fiction, for libraries and librarians to exist and help foster a love of reading and places in which reading can occur.

So I'm biased as a writer. But I am much, much more biased as a reader. And I am even more biased as a British citizen.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming?CMP=fb_gu 

Teaching Thoreau In a Hyper-Connected World

Nashville English teacher Elizabeth Smith introduced Thoreau’s Walden by asking her AP juniors if they were ever truly alone in a hyper-connected world — even without a smartphone. In doing so, she wanted to emphasize how Thoreau’s Transcendentalist experiment living alone in the woods might be nearly impossible to replicate in modern, plugged-in lives — at least not without some effort.

“One student said that he gets panicked if he goes an hour without a text message,” she said, “and he has to blow up his friends’ phones with messages to make sure they are still out there.” Other students, she said, bristled at the idea they were sheep in the digital herd, and liked to think of themselves as being able to manage a healthy balance between solitude and digital connection.

But for both adults and kids — parents, teachers, and students — because we have the luxury of being instantly and constantly connected, “Being alone feels like a problem to be solved,” said MIT Professor Sherry Turkle in the moving TED Talk based on her book, Alone, Together. Based on her research, Turkle argued that relationships maintained through texting and social media might make kids feel connected, but because the phone is always buzzing, they may miss valuable opportunities to experience real solitude, which is vital for self-reflection. “If we don’t teach our children how to be alone,” she said, “they will only know how to be lonely.”

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/10/teaching-thoreau-in-a-hyper-connected-world/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kqed%2FnHAK+%28MindShift%29