University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2019 Hearing the Voices of the Deserters: Activist Critical Making in Electronic Literature Laura Okkema University of Central Florida Part of the Digital Humanities Commons, and the Game Design Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation Okkema, Laura, "Hearing the Voices of the Deserters: Activist Critical Making in Electronic Literature" (2019). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 6361. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/6361 HEARING THE VOICES OF THE DESERTERS: ACTIVIST CRITICAL MAKING IN ELECTRONIC LITERATURE by LAURA OKKEMA M.Sc. Michigan Technological University, 2014 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Arts and Humanities in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Spring Term 2019 Major Professor: Anastasia Salter © 2019 Laura Okkema ii ABSTRACT Critical making is an approach to scholarship which combines discursive methods with creative practices. The concept has recently gained traction in the digital humanities, where scholars are looking for ways of integrating making into their research in ways that are inclusive and empowering to marginalized populations. This dissertation explores how digital humanists can engage critical making as a form of activism in electronic literature, specifically in the interactive fiction platform Twine. The author analyzes the making process of her own activis t Twine game The Deserters and embeds the project within digital humanities discourses on activism and social justice, hypertext, electronic literature, critical making, and hacker culture. The Deserters is a text-based digita l game based on the experiences of the author’s family as refugees from East Germany. The player’s objective in the game is to research a family’s history by searching the game- world for authentic documents, including biographical writings, journal entries, photographs, and records, thereby retracing historical events through personal experience. The Deserters aims at inspiring a compassionate and empathetic stance towards immigrants and refugees today. The author reflects on the ethical, narrative, aesthetic, and technical choices she made throughout the creation process of The Deserters to create a critical activist game. The results of the analysis demonstrate that Twine offers a unique environment for composing politically impactful personal narratives. From the project, the author derives best practices for activis t critical making, which emphasize the importance for makers to imagine the needs and perspectives of their audience. The work expands digital humanities’ theoretical and practical toolkit for critical making. iii For Ilse, Manfred, Kristina, and Winfried, for all the love and sacrifices. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to all the people who have supported me during this dissertation project. I want to thank my mother, Kristina, for collecting, copying, and shipping myriads photos, and for all your love, comfort, and support over the years. I want to thank my father, Winfried, for caring, and teaching me how to use my mind. I also want to say thank you to my uncle Manfred, for gathering photos and documents, and for sharing your knowledge and sparking my love for books, and to my grandmother Ilse, for your strength, bravery, and infinite compassion with all living things. I want to thank all the members of our small family, those who are alive and those who are no longer with us, for being the quirky, complicated mess that I wouldn’t exchange for the world. I want to thank my amazing friends all over the world, especially the Dortmund women, Johanna, Nora, Ronja and Caro, who I love and miss every day that I’m gone, and the incredibly dynamite T&T crew, especially Eric, Nondi, Taylor, Rachel, and Corinne – you were my beacon of hope during this PhD program, I wouldn’t have survived without you. Thank you to my fantastic committee, Professors Jonathan Beever, Joey Fanfarelli, Stuart Moulthrop, and especially Anastasia Salter, for your guidance, insight, and support. It has been an honor to work with you. I want to thank my husband, Tim, for the love, care, and comfort you give, and for staying by my side through all of this. You mean the world to me. v TABLE OF CONTENT LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................ ix PREFACE: WHY WE ALL NEED TO BE ACTIVIST SC HOLARS ............................. 1 CHAPTER I: A FRAMEWORK FOR ACTIVIST CRITICAL MAKING ...................... 5 Overview: What this Dissertation is about ..................................................................... 5 Scholarship to Change the World: Critical Theory......................................................... 9 ‘Activist’ Scholarship and the Importance of Vulnerability ......................................... 12 Example: #MeToo Movement .................................................................................. 15 Framework Overvie w ................................................................................................... 17 Making in the Digital Humanities................................................................................. 18 Activist Making, Critical Making ................................................................................. 20 Exa mp le : Eye r is ........................................................................................................ 24 Dissertation Overview................................................................................................... 26 CHAPTER II: ENGAGING ACTIVISM THROUGH ELECTRONIC LITERATURE 28 Chapter Overview ......................................................................................................... 28 Revisiting Hypertext Theory......................................................................................... 29 Defining Electronic Literature ...................................................................................... 33 Twine Games versus Twine Literature ......................................................................... 41 Introducing Twine, the Punk Rock of Electronic Literature......................................... 43 Example: Depression Quest ...................................................................................... 51 Example: Golden Threads ......................................................................................... 58 vi Chapter Review............................................................................................................. 64 CHAPTER III: PUNK OPEN SOURCE? TOOLS FOR ACTIVIST CRITICAL MAKING .......................................................................................................................... 66 Chapter Overview ......................................................................................................... 66 Hacktivism, Hacker Culture, and the Open Source Movement .................................... 67 Critical Making and the Open Source Movement ........................................................ 79 A Punk Rock approach to Open Source via Twine ...................................................... 81 Chapter Review............................................................................................................. 88 CHAPTER IV: THE DESIGN PROCESS ....................................................................... 90 Chapter Overview ......................................................................................................... 90 A Note on Methodology ............................................................................................... 90 Documentation of the Making Process ......................................................................... 91 My Mother, My Archivist: Accessing the Records ...................................................... 92 The Trouble of Information Gaps ................................................................................. 94 Storyboarding & Arrangement...................................................................................... 95 Ethical Questions and the Inclusion of Private Information ......................................... 97 Narrative choices........................................................................................................... 99 The P layer’s In-Game Character................................................................................. 101 Aesthetic Choices........................................................................................................ 105 Transcribing the Journals ............................................................................................ 108 Translating the Journals .............................................................................................. 113 Presenting the P hotographs ......................................................................................... 117 vii Coding the Photo Gallery...........................................................................................