Hannah Puchelt: “Who fights with monsters...”

An Event organised by the Department Cultural Studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

Monster characters go hand in hand with a fascination for transgressing boundaries. We can project our fears but also our aggressive tendencies onto monsters. Not surprising, then, that “killing monsters” serves as a staple gameplay feature in many video games.
In this workshop, we will take a close look at the ways video games deal with monsters: How does the narrative as well as the mechanic of a game justify the destruction of monsters? What leads to players experiencing monsters as awe-inspiring and how does that connect (or contrast) with overcoming and conquering them? When are monsters considered evil, and when do they prompt us to question this categorisation?

Hannah Puchelt studied German language and literature, media and communication studies, and comparative literature. After completing her master’s degree she worked as an editor at kunstanstifter Verlag für Illustration for several years. She is currently pursuing her PhD at the University of Innsbruck with a dissertation on concepts of evil in video games.