News & Events Cassandra Hradil ’17
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Cassandra Hradil consulted many non-traditional sources for her thesis on the “blossoming space” of beautiful, insightful Native video games. She did a “close playing” of the narratives within <em>Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna)</em>.
“One stereotype around Native peoples is that they aren’t modern or technological,” says Hradil. “I wanted to push back against this.” And so she leveled up in the “blossoming space” of narrative-based, sometimes culturally explanatory video games created by Native peoples.
Mainstream academia hasn’t really pursued this genre yet, although indegenous academics and game developers have been writing about it for years. That meant Hradil could blaze some new trails, but she also had to get creative with nontraditional sources. The Five College Digital Humanities program granted her funds to attend two relevant conferences: imagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival in Toronto, and Indigenous Comic Con in Albuquerque, N.M.
She also did a deep dive into websites and social media, especially the online writings of an academic named Elizabeth LaPensée, an Anishinaabe, Métis and Irish writer and artist who designed such games as Honour Water (Anishinaabe) and Gathering Native Foods (Tulalip).
Hradil, herself “an avid gamer” from Barrington, R.I., particularly savored her thesis-given opportunity to do a “close-playing” of the award-winning platform puzzler Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna), built in partnership with the Alaskan Native community.
And she lauds two professors: thesis adviser and Assistant Professor of American Studies Kiara Vigil for her “powerful literary scholarship,” and Associate Professor of English and American Studies Lisa Brooks. Hradil helped Brooks build a website to complement her forthcoming book on King Phillip’s War. “Lisa has informed the way I think in really deep ways,” says Hradil, who has also created her own website, indigenousimaginary.com, on which you can read about—and play!—the games covered in her thesis.
As a non-Native, Hradil was hesitant about pursuing a Native subject. “But I met many wonderful Native people who were very welcoming to me, and were excited by the idea of my project. They’re extremely interested in using these games as teaching tools. After all, Native peoples have been doing ‘interactive storytelling’ for thousands of years.”