Assignments

Plogs (10%) -- You will be required to keep a weekly “plog” or “play log” about the texts that you see and read and your larping experience. Plog entries will be short reactions, responses, meditations, and provocations that engage the game and your play on a critical, analytical, or theoretical level. Plogs will be posted each week to the class blog.

Creative Responses (10%) -- Not only will you be reading and writing academically about fantasy literature, you will have the opportunity to write (more) creatively to explore and demonstrate the ideas and goals of the course in different ways. Over the course of the semester, you will write a personal essay, a character history, a short-short story, and a critical review. These creative responses will be evaluated on completion and your critical, thoughtful engagement with the prompts.

Critical Response Papers (30%) -- You will complete a number short, critical, analytical response papers. These single-spaced, one-page writings serve as close readings of, analyses of, and articulations of the texts and connections you see, read, and talk about in class. These responses are more than just summaries or personal reactions and will be graded on clarity, focus, coherence, critique, and your ability to concisely formulate arguments. You will be required to generate a response paper approximately every other week for a minimum total of 5. Response papers are turned in via the class Blackboard.

Research Proposal Memo & Bibliography (10%)

As part of your Final Project research and writing process, you must generate a 1-page research proposal in business memo format and a working bibliography. You will also arrange for a conference with me to go over your proposal. The proposal and bibliography will be graded for clarity, detail, completion, and manuscript format. Your proposal and conference must be completed at least 4 weeks prior to the end of the semester.

Final Project (40%)

By the end of the semester, you will complete a Final Project that integrates what you have read, explored, and written about in your Response Papers, that draws on specific terms, concepts, or issues from the class, and that articulates the critical value of fantasy literature and LARPs. The project asks you to make connections and to create an argument across different kinds of evidence and added research. Your final project can be a traditional research paper, a media production (which includes a substantive analytical component), or a hybrid of the two.

Information Sheets

The following are handouts, informational sheets, and readings that will be assigned or used over the course of the quarter. Each student will recieve a copy of each as a handout in class during the appropriate week. If you miss a sheet, feel free to print out a new copy.

Ed's Top Ten List of "Ways to Survive University"

Ed's Top Ten Rules of Writing

Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing

MLA Citation and Bibliographic Format

What is Close Reading?

How to Write a Summary

Introductions & Conclusions

Claims

Example Claim

Revision

Readings

Course texts are available via the Ohio University online bookstore (or through any reputable bookseller). Shorter readings are available via the course Blackboard. The required texts for this class are:

• Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring. • Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea. • Okorafor, Who Fears Death. • Nguyen, She Kills Monsters. • Liu & Takeda, Monstress. • Roanhorse, Trail of Lightning. • Chang, Archaea Live-Action Role-Playing and Wargaming.

Consult the course syllabus for the week's required reading. The following is a full bibliographical list of the class readings:

Attebery, “Locating Fantasy.” Chang, Edmond Y. Archaea Live-Action Role-Playing and Wargaming. Fifth Edition. CreateSpace, 2015. Del Giudice, Marguerite. "Dungeons, Dragons, and the Fantasy Role-Playing Craze; Which Side Are You On - Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil?" Boston Globe. 20 Apr. 1980: 1. Ferguson, Robert A. "Race." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 191-196. Fine, Gary Alan. "Introduction." Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983. 1-4. Flieger, Verlyn. “Fantasy and Reality.” Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 2012. pp. 5-13. Halberstam, Judith. "Gender." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 116-120. Hall, Carla. "Into the Dragon's Lair: Detective William Dear's Story of a Student Suicide." The Washington Post. 28 Nov. 1984: F1. Hately, Shaun. "The Disappearance of James Dallas Eggbert III (Part I & II)." Places to Go, People to Be. 25 Mar. 2009. <http://ptgptb.org/0006/egbert.html>. Jago, Wendy. “A Wizard of Earthsea and the Charge of Escapism.” Lee, Mai Cha. "Play and the Subculture of Larping: Gender, Motivations, and Self." The Eagle Feather. 2011. http://web3.unt.edu/honors/eaglefeather/2010/play-and-the-subculture-of-larping-gender-motivations-and-self-2/6/. Le Guin, Ursula K. A Wizard of Earthsea. HMH Books for Young Readers, 2012. ---. "Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?" The Language of the Night. New York: Perigee, 1979. 39-45. Liu, Marjorie and Sana Takeda, Monstress (Book One). Image Comics, 2016. "Live-Action Role-Playing Game." Wikipedia. 16 Mar. 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LARP. Livingstone, Ian. "The Tragic Tale of a Boy Genius." Herald Sun. 3 Aug. 1991: 57. Mendlesohn, “Introduction.” Rhetorics of Fantasy. Nguyen, Qui. She Kills Monsters. Samuel French, Inc., 2016. Okorafor, Nnedi. Who Fears Death. DAW, 2014. Plank, “The Scouring of the Shire: Tolkien’s View of Fascism." A Tolkien Compass. Ed. Jared Lobdell. Chicago: Open Court, 2003. 105-113. Roanhorse, Rebecca. Trail of Lightning. Saga Press, 2018. Somerville, Siobhan B. "Queer." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 187-191. Stark, Lizzie. "Closeted Gamers and the Satanic Panic." Leaving Mundania: Inside the Transformative World of Live Action Role-Playing Games. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2012. 91-105. Tolkien, J.R.R. The Fellowship of the Ring. Mariner Books, 2012. Zipes, Jack. “Why Fantasy Matters Too Much.” The Journal of Aesthetic Education. Vol. 43, No. 2 (Summer, 2009), pp. 77-91

Media & Games

Darkon. Dir. Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer. DVD. PorchLight Entertainment, 2007. Monster Camp. Dir. Cullen Hoback. DVD. Hyrax Films and Aaron Douglas Enterprises, 2007.

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