Red Dead Redemption 2 teaches at university
Over the last few years there has been a growing attention to the potential role of video games in school teaching, with illustrious examples that have helped to bring the medium into classes of different orders and levels.From the initiatives of Ubisoft linked, for example, to the Discovery Tour of the Assassin's Creed, to the increasingly complete Minecraft Education, the illustrious cases certainly are not lacking. Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2 are now added to the list, thanks to the initiative carried out by a history professor in force at the University of Tennessee. In the next academic year, Professor Tore Olsson will propose a course called "Red Dead America", which will explore the historical reality behind the acclaimed production of Rockstar Games.
"Although often historically inaccurate - writes the teacher - the games skillfully deal with a large number of crucial historical passages of the period 1899-1911". Among the latter, Tore Olsson identifies:
The myth of the frontier; The expansion of monopoly capitalism, particularly in the railway sector; Colonialism and discrimination against Native Americans; Racial violence in the southern states; The Mexican Revolution and its impact across borders; The women's right to vote movement; The US expansion of 1898; The development of a multicultural society in the USA, thanks to Chinese, German, Italian and Mexican immigration; The university course promises to be extremely interesting and will kick off in September 2021 with a student ceiling set at 35 for now, with the teacher promising to work to expand it in the event of a positive response from students. Definitely one of the best ways to discover the historical context of Red Dead Redemption 2 and its predecessor.