Bonds of Blood: Vampire the Masquerade as Urban Heterotopia
Document Type
Oral Presentation
Campus where you would like to present
SURC 271
Start Date
21-5-2015
End Date
21-5-2015
Keywords
Heterotopia, Popular Culture, Urban
Abstract
This presentation explores the Live Action Role Playing game Vampire the Masquerade (VtM) through Foucault's concept of the heterotopia, with special attention to the complex symbolic politics of blood and the family in modern American culture. Although, at times, dismissed as a frivolous game, VtM is taken seriously by its participants. Masqueraders have transitioned, within a microcosm, from hegemonic American notions of family into a completely different sort of family unit, which emerges from in-game dynamics. Due to a desire to be a part of something larger in scope, with stronger bonds, they have joined a system which allows them to have two families. While they may maintain their nuclear, real family ties, they have also joined themselves to another family, which I show to take shape in the form of a lineage with a long, documented, and noble history. These double lives tend to express themselves most frequently within urban environments, where societal bonds tend to weaken or disappear, as opposed to smaller towns, and villages where bonds tend to last longer and be more defined. In order to create new bonds and status hierarchies within the metropolis, the game is conducted in the real world and in a mythic cityscape. While the players may project their own society onto the cityscape, the city’s physical geography is always present underneath, in multilayered inversions. Thus, the heterotopia of the Masquerade is simultaneously produced and transmuted each night.
Recommended Citation
Crosby, Nicolas, "Bonds of Blood: Vampire the Masquerade as Urban Heterotopia" (2015). Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE). 47.
https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/source/2015/oralpresentations/47
Department/Program
Resource Management
Additional Mentoring Department
Anthropology & Museum Studies
Additional Mentoring Department
Anthropology
Bonds of Blood: Vampire the Masquerade as Urban Heterotopia
SURC 271
This presentation explores the Live Action Role Playing game Vampire the Masquerade (VtM) through Foucault's concept of the heterotopia, with special attention to the complex symbolic politics of blood and the family in modern American culture. Although, at times, dismissed as a frivolous game, VtM is taken seriously by its participants. Masqueraders have transitioned, within a microcosm, from hegemonic American notions of family into a completely different sort of family unit, which emerges from in-game dynamics. Due to a desire to be a part of something larger in scope, with stronger bonds, they have joined a system which allows them to have two families. While they may maintain their nuclear, real family ties, they have also joined themselves to another family, which I show to take shape in the form of a lineage with a long, documented, and noble history. These double lives tend to express themselves most frequently within urban environments, where societal bonds tend to weaken or disappear, as opposed to smaller towns, and villages where bonds tend to last longer and be more defined. In order to create new bonds and status hierarchies within the metropolis, the game is conducted in the real world and in a mythic cityscape. While the players may project their own society onto the cityscape, the city’s physical geography is always present underneath, in multilayered inversions. Thus, the heterotopia of the Masquerade is simultaneously produced and transmuted each night.
Faculty Mentor(s)
J. Hope Amason, Mark Auslander