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sarah Juliet lauro.

Kill the Overseer! Playing the Rebel Slave in Videogames

Sarah Juliet Lauro
Wednesday, February 1, 2017 at 10AM and 7PM
Theater and Evelyn's Cafe

In a video game demo and talk, Sarah Juliet Lauro will discuss how resistance to slavery is represented in video and computer games. Lauro will profile many games that feature this narrative and will demo an art game being developed by students at the University of Southern California called Thralled, which focuses on a runaway slave in Brazil. During the day leading up to her evening talk, Lauro will demo chapter one of Thralled in Evelyn’s Café on EMPAC’s 5th floor. This chapter features the playable character Isaura, who attempts to flee slavery through the rainforest with her infant in her arms. On her journey, Isaura encounters many obstacles as she is pursued by a ghostly specter. Lauro will then expand on this storyline in her talk Kill the Overseer! Playing the Rebel Slave in Videogames, which will consider race, empathy, and power dynamics between players and characters in game-based digital commemorations of slave revolt.

Main Image: Sarah Juliet Lauro speaking in the theater in 2017.

Media

Sarah Juliet Lauro presenting her talk in the Theater in February, 2017.

Dates + Tickets

Talk
Kill the Overseer!
Sarah Juliet Lauro
Wednesday 1
7:00 PM
February 2017
Demo
Kill the Overseer!
Playing the Rebel Slave in Videogames
Wednesday 1
February 2017

The demo will run from 10AM–9PM.

Event Type
Discipline
Humanities
Tools and Technology

Season

Production Credits

Material from this talk is forthcoming and under contract with the University of Minnesota Press’s Forerunner series as a slim volume Kill the Overseer: The Gamification of the Slave Resistance.