Alienation and Identification

We wish to use history as a kind of purposeful alienation. Berthold Brecht often set his plays in places foreign to their first audiences. This was one of the ways he imposed an alienation (Verfremdungseffekt) on the social or political content in order to allow audiences an analytic distance from which they would be compelled to draw their own analogies to the situations close to home.

Particular History

Studying a portion of the past from a specified vantage point or position has been termed particular history. It allows explorations of the subtler factors contributing to the formation and maintenance of institutions, the nuanced motivations of protagonists and creators in history, and it facilitates sympathy for victims and understanding of circumstances leading to complicitous and collusive roles

The Nonverbal and Experiential

Communication and expression suffer when sensations must be translated into descriptive words, and emotions are reduced to verbal utterances. It is hoped that the project will open a breadth of possibilities enabled through virtual reality. It is likewise hoped that the project can contribute to new ways of overcoming the limitations of verbal communications in scholarly endeavors. Why should these wonderful means of communication be left to the entertainment and gaming industries?