PhD Oral Exam - Alexandra Custodio, Humanities (Arts and Science)

When studying for a doctoral degree (PhD), candidates submit a thesis that provides a critical review of the current state of knowledge of the thesis subject as well as the student’s own contributions to the subject. The distinguishing criterion of doctoral graduate research is a significant and original contribution to knowledge.

Once accepted, the candidate presents the thesis orally. This oral exam is open to the public.

Abstract

In the decades since Nintendo launched the Game Boy (1989), hobbyists have hacked, modified, emulated, redesigned, and developed for the handheld. Diverse in aim and execution, these user practices approach closed systems as tools for creative expression and technical experimentation, challenging the notion that platforms are stable, monolithic objects. Adopting in interdisciplinary, media-archaeological approach, In the Player’s Hand articulates the vital role these practices play in negotiating the Game Boy’s ongoing significance as a cultural artifact, computational system, and commercial product. Behind many afterlife practices is a real desire to destabilize the regime of planned obsolescence and to democratize development, preservation, and repair, yet the discourses and industries that take shape around such activities often reproduce the logics they purport to resist. Embracing such frictions, this project documents the tensions and intersections underlying a platform’s afterlives.

Broadly, this study advances three contributions to media research. On a foundational level, it offers an analysis of the Nintendo Game Boy, a surprisingly undertheorized but historically significant handheld. Methodologically, it furthers a critical expansion of platform scholarship by grappling with the fundamental instability of videogame platforms and by enriching their archives through an engagement with their imaginaries. Finally, it connects the Game Boy and its afterlives to timely debates around ownership, preservation, and obsolescence, addressing how user activities transfigure culture as surely as they modify machines. Through an interrogation of the cultural, technical, and political economic dimensions of user practices, In the Player’s Hand offers insights into media imaginaries and global consumer industries.