Gaming Courses

Upcoming Courses

Spring 2021

Gaming Centered

ENGL 155. The Visual and Graphic Narrative. [3 Credits]

This course examines various visual texts, including graphic novels and emerging narrative forms, and explores how meaning is conveyed through composition, the juxtaposition and framing of images, and the relationship between words and images. Students create their own visual narratives.

Gen Ed: LA, GL.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ENGL 105. English Composition and Rhetoric. [3 Credits]

Instructor: David Hall

In this course, we will investigate how writing works across the disciplines at the university (specifically the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities). We will discover how different disciplines frame research questions, evaluate evidence, and make knowledge claims. You will participate in writing activities that call upon you to think about and place yourself in realistic rhetorical situations themed around the subject of games and gaming. No experience with games, video or otherwise, is required — we will simply be using them as a way to approach the process of writing in a fun and engaging way.

Gen Ed: CR.
Grading status: Letter grade.

Gaming as Supplemental Element

CMPL 254. Horror and the Global Gothic: Film, Literature, Theory. [3 Credits]

Instructor: Guillermo Rodríguez-Romaguera

This course traces the development of horror in film and writing from the 18th-century European novel to contemporary Asian film. Theoretical readings will embrace a range of disciplines, from literary and film theory to anthropology, feminism and gender studies, and psychoanalysis.

Gen Ed: VP.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ENGL 147. Mystery Fiction. [3 Credits]

Instructor: Stephanie Kinzinger

In this course, we will examine mystery fiction from mid-19^th-century literary texts to contemporary modes of media. Throughout the semester we will engage with intriguing and suspenseful narratives by way of literature, movies, television shows, and video games, in order to investigate three central questions: 1.) What explains the enduring popularity, aesthetic malleability and commercial success of modern mystery fiction? 2.) How does interest in mystery fiction illuminate enduring questions concerning how knowledge and reasoning operate (or do not operate)? 3.) How do definitions of “mystery” reflect or refract contemporary concerns?

Gen Ed: LA.
Grading status: Letter grade.

Previous Courses Taught

Fall 2020

Gaming Centered

ENGL 118. Storytelling and Game Development. [3 Credits]

Instructor: Courtney Rivard

This course examines video games as narrative texts through game play and game design. By the end of the semester, students will develop and create an original interactive narrative video game using the open-source software Twine. Through this making-centered course, students will study existing non-linear narratives to explore the basic principles of writing and examine the needs and expectations of the audience/viewer/player for immersive/interactive media and that of established media.

Link to ENGL118 Syllabus

Gen Ed: LA, CI.
Grading status: Letter grade.

ENGL 155. The Visual and Graphic Narrative. [3 Credits]

Instructor: Courtney Rivard

ENGL 105. English Composition and Rhetoric. [3 Credits]

Instructor: David Hall

Gen Ed: CR.
Grading status: Letter grade.

Link to Fall 2020 ENGL105 Syllabus

Gaming as Supplemental Element

ENGL 367. African American Literature to 1930. [3 Credits]

Instructor: Danielle Christmas

Survey of writers and literary and cultural traditions from the beginning of African American literature to 1930. Honors version available

Gen Ed: LA, NA.

ROML 89H.001: Sex, Sexuality and the Body in Early Modern European Literature. [3 Credits]

Instructor: Lucia Binotti

The aim of this course is to explore the cultural constructions of gender and sexuality in the literature of Medieval and Renaissance Southern Europe. We will approach questions such as the status of women and the context of misogyny, the societal role of same-sex relations, the presentation and visualization of sexuality, desire and the body. We will observe the period through the lens of 5 overarching themes that recur at different moments and in different texts throughout the course: “Sex, beauty and artistic creation,” “Sex, marriage and family,” “Sex and religion”, “Sex and science,” “Sex, deviancy, and crime.” Using such themes as the framework for our interpretations we will read, analyze, and discuss in loose chronological order an array of literary works mostly of the Iberian and Italian tradition, from which we will tease out a interdisciplinary understanding of the cultural and aesthetic forces that shaped the representation of sex and sexual love before the advent of the scientific theories that in turn define modern gender and sexuality for us today. This historical approach will offer insights into the shaping of our own cultural and personal attitudes. By focusing our attention on the challenged and changing meanings of sexuality, this course aims to strengthen your skills of critical analysis.

Gen Eds: LA, NA

AMST 101. The Emergence of Modern America. [3 Credits]

Instructor: Michelle Robinson

Interdisciplinary examination of two centuries of American culture, focusing on moments of change and transformation.

Gen Ed: HS, NA.

CLAS 59. First-Year Seminar: Ancient Magic and Religion. [3 Credits]

Instructor: Susanne Lye

In this class, we examine descriptions of religious and magical practices in the multicultural contexts of ancient Greece and Rome. Our sources include literary accounts, legal documents, and material objects, such as inscriptions, amulets, tablets, magical images, and papyri.

Gen Ed: CI, EE- Mentored Research, WB.

ENGL 105. English Composition and Rhetoric. [3 Credits]

Instructor: Doug Stark

Gen Ed: CR.
Grading status: Letter grade.