Playing America: An Introduction to American Culture through Video Games

"Playing America" is a work-in-progress textbook by Michael Fuchs and Stefan Rabitsch that uses video games as a medium for teaching American culture. Its central argument is that America functions as an imaginative construct, a notion the authors draw from Baudrillard's theory of hyperreality, and that the interactive and simulated qualities of games make them a well-suited vehicle for exploring it. The authors position the United States as a "Gamer Nation," noting that video games have become a dominant cultural force, with nearly everyone under thirty playing digital games regularly. The project responds to the identity crisis of American Studies following the culture wars of the 1990s, offering students a digitally literate and interdisciplinary entry point into national culture.

The book acknowledges scholarly skepticism toward the notion of a unified American culture but maintains that a "National Symbolic" of recurring myths and icons retains explanatory power. Its principal themes include American temporality and space, the American Dream, the melting pot, and the "redeemer nation." These myths are examined through a range of titles, among them The Last of Us, the Red Dead Redemption and Far Cry series, Grand Theft Auto IV, and post-9/11 military shooters, with analysis informed by theorists such as Berlant, Hamscha, and Martin. The work is designed as a teaching resource, incorporating chapter bibliographies, game recommendations, discussion questions, and audiovisual materials for educators.

The accompanying scholarship reflects the book's core preoccupations: national identity and redeemer-nation ideology, the rhetoric of terror following 9/11, nostalgia and historical representation in games, and the dynamics of family play. Drawing on established American Studies scholarship alongside contemporary games and film such as WarGames, the textbook frames games not merely as entertainment but as cultural texts through which broader questions of American identity can be interrogated.