XBox Apocalypse: Roman Games, Revelation & the Secular Apocalypse
We close our course with an end that represents a new beginning—the apocalyptic Book of Revelation, where Christians conclude their "text of God" by imagining the birth of a new world, a new Jerusalem. It is a bloody book, filled with spectacular scenes of destruction, and Wagner will explore how the religious imaginary at work in this genre is kin to the magic circle of first-person shooter games.
In class, we will compare Revelation's images to another magic circle—the spectacles that the Roman Empire mounted in its theatres and colosseums, which through their procedural rhetoric performed Rome's power in games of life and death. Scholars now imagine that the spectacular and bloody imagery of the Book of Revelation is mimicking these Roman spectacles, creating a virtual magic circle in the text in which Rome's procedural rhetoric is turned back on itself, and the Roman perpetrators are imagined as God's targets in a final spectacle of divine vindication.
Prepare to address the following two questions from the reading:
From Revelation, see if you can discern any images or actions in the plot that mimic Rome's spectacles in the arena, and be able to discuss how both Christian text and Roman spectacle are magic circles.
From Wagner, identify the similarities between the magic circles of apocalyptic literature and first-person shooter games.
Assigned Readings
Primary: Revelation 4–7; 13–14; 17–22 (Action Bible 742-743; you'll need to read these chapters in the NRSV, since the Action Bible’s treatment is so short)
Secondary: Wagner, Godwired chapter 8 (Camino); online class prep
Rachel Wagner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Ithaca College in New York. Her courses and research center on the study of religion and culture, including religion and film and religion and virtual reality. She's published pieces in Halos and Avatars: Playing Games with God (Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), God in the Details (2d ed.; Routledge, 2010), and Resisting the Place of Belonging: Uncanny Homecomings in Religion, Narrative and Art (Ashgate, forthcoming).
Sergio Cariello is a Brazilian-American comic book artist. He's published with major comic book publishers such as Marvel Comics and DC Comics, and recently has been penciling and inking "The Lone Ranger" for Dynamite Entertainment" and the "Son of Samson" series for Christian publisher Zondervan.
Further Reading
Bartle, Richard. Designing Virtual Worlds. Indianapolis: New Riders, 2003.
Bogost, Ian. Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Video Games. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2007.
Coleman, Kathleen M. "Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments." Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990) 44-73, pls. II-III.
Collins, John J. "Introduction: Towards the Morphology of a Genre." Semeia 14 (1979) 1-20.
Salen, Katie and Eric Zimmerman, eds. The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2006.
Links
The Sign of the Beast (Rev 13:11-18) - David A. deSilva explores the meaning of this esoteric symbol on the Bible Odyssey site (accessible articles by biblical scholars).
Digital Roman Forum - A reconstruction of the Roman forum as it would have appeared around 400 C.E., desigend by the Cultural Virtual Reality Laboratory at UCLA.
Virtual Rome - Dr. Matthew Nicholls of the Department of Classics at the University of Reading has created a digital model of the city of Rome c. 315 C.E. (see the final video link below for an alternative fly-through of Rome titled Rome Reborn).
Video Links:
Halo 5 - This is a later version of Halo than the one Wagner comments on, but this launch gameplay trailer released by Xbox nevertheless gives a sense of the look and feel of the game.
2.53
Assassin's Creed - ScreenDale has posted a video on YouTube combining all of the trailers for Assassin's Creed that give a sense of the game.
23.57
Heaven: The Game - A selection of clips from the game that demonstrate the biblical content of the game, posted by paulo3809 on YouTube (12 December 2012).
6.01
Gladiator - A scene from the 2000 movie directed by Ridley Scott in which Russell Crowe and other gladiators are made to reenact the Battle of Zama (202 BCE, Second Punic War) as doomed Carthaginians, for the entertainment of Roman spectators in the Colosseum a few centuries later. The film gives a good sense of one type of "spectacle" mounted in the arena, enacted to perform Rome's past and present power.
7.44
Ancient Rome - Virtual archaeologist Bernard Frischer has developed a "fly-through" mock-up of Rome around the year 320 C.E. called "Rome Reborn," but the online version has no soundtrack. This version, produced by Smarthistory for Khan Academy, includes voiceover by Dr. Steven Zucker and Frischer. Their description of the Colosseum starts around 4.40.
13.46
Acknowledgements
Alpha/Omega image adapted from a graphic on the page for "Life Teen Retreat XXXV Alpha and Omega," Christ the King Life Teen (on or before 8 October 2012), online, http://christthekinglifeteen.com/life-teen-retreat-xxxv-alpha-and-omega/, accessed 19 September 2015. The phrase is from Revelation 1:8; 22:13.
The artist's reconstruction of the Flavian Amphitheatre (the famed Colosseum of Rome) comes from the blogpost by MSW, "Colosseum," Weapons and Warfare - History and Hardware of Warfare (20 September 2015), online, http://weaponsandwarfare.com/2015/09/20/colosseum/, accessed 3 December 2015.
We close our course with an end that represents a new beginning—the apocalyptic Book of Revelation, where Christians conclude their "text of God" by imagining the birth of a new world, a new Jerusalem. It is a bloody book, filled with spectacular scenes of destruction, and Wagner will explore how the religious imaginary at work in this genre is kin to the magic circle of first-person shooter games.
