Games People Play: Metafiction, Defense Strategy, and the Cultures of Simulation

Grausam, Daniel

Abstract

This essay situates the American metafiction produced in the 1960s in relation to contemporary defense strategy and war-gaming. As critics have noted, metafiction about games and gaming is a particularly rich site for thinking about metafiction more generally, and I argue that these metafictional texts reveal a profound skepticism about the value and efficacy of simulation. This skepticism should be understood, I argue, in relation to the problems of defense strategy in the thermonuclear age.

Citation

Grausam, D. (2011). Games People Play: Metafiction, Defense Strategy, and the Cultures of Simulation. ELH: English Literary History, 78(3), 507-532. https://doi.org/10.1353/elh.2011.0027

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 2011
• Deposit Date: Aug 28, 2012
• Journal: ELH
• Print ISSN: 0013-8304
• Electronic ISSN: 1080-6547
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 78
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 507-532
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/elh.2011.0027
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1474128