Projecting Histories: Gender, Race, and Memory Manipulation in "Remember Me"

• In Event: Transgression, Gender Disturbance, and Feminist Sci-Fi Futures

Abstract

Social justice scholarship has long theorized how memory influences power structures, just as science fiction has long explored the fantasy of control through memory manipulation. In the procedural virtual worlds of video games, such fantasies may be realized: memory can become an actionable digital space that the gamer can alter at will. This paper will trace how the relationship between Nilin (the mixed race female protagonist of the 2013 title Remember Me), the gamer, and the memories that they inhabit and manipulate together offers a compelling restaging of how technology can influence the power dynamics of narrative, history, and identity.

Presenter

• Amanda Phillips, University of California, Santa Barbara