Video Game Lit Studies

Catalog description

A comparative look at the nature and history of video games as cultural artifacts, from Pond to online role-playing. This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. The video game industry is larger than the film industry, and yet the academic study of video games has only just begun. This course is a comparative introduction to the nature and history of video games as cultural artifacts, from Pong to online role-playing. It introduces students to academic discussion on and creative work in new digital forms including hypertexts, video games, cell phone novels, machinima, and more. Studentswill learn basic narrative theory, and study its impact on game studies and game production. They will survey major debates over the meaning and value of video games, and review its history from Pong to contemporary games, including online world-based games. The course extends students' skills in literary interpretation to a variety of new objects, and makes them aware of the role medium plays in aesthetic development and production. Students will leave with a far sharper understanding of how the interpretivetools used in the humanities can be extended to include new media, and with a sense of the historical role video games have played and will continue to play in global cultural production.