Return to home.

Assignments

Game Play Presentation -- You will be a required to sign up for an oral presentation in small groups. For your presentation, generate a brief close playing demonstration and a critical and analytical question to get class discussion started for the day. Create a short single-spaced handout for the whole class. Presentations are 10 minutes and should include media.

Plogs -- You will be required to keep a weekly "plog" or "play log" about the games that you play and the texts that you read. 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.

Exams -- You will have three take-home exam opportunities, which will consist of short answer and essay questions. Exams will be due at the end of Week 4 (Exam I), Week 8 (Exam II), and Week 11 (Exam III). You must complete two of the three exams. Exams will be cumulative and based on the class readings, video games and other media, and class discussions.

Virtual Worlds & Video Games Critical Review -- a 500-750 word analytical review of a text you would think could be or should be included in our class. You must have your text approved by the instructor before completing the assignment. Critical Reviews are due by the last day of instruction and will be posted to the class blog.
Return to home.Go to top.


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?

Readings

Course texts are available via the UO Duck Store (or through any reputable bookseller). Course readers are available only via the Duck Store or Campus Copy. The required texts for this class are:

Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game. New York: Tor, 1991.

WGS 361 Course Reader

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

Barlow, John Perry. "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace." Electronic Frontier Foundation. 8 Feb. 1996. 26 Mar. 2010. https://projects.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html.

Bogost, Ian. "Introduction." How to Do Things with Videogames. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2011. 1-8.

Burgett, Bruce and Glenn Hendler, Eds. Keywords for American Cultural Studies. New York: New York University Press, 2007.

Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game. New York: Tor, 1991.

Chang, Edmond Y. "Close Playing, a Meditation on Teaching (with) Video Games." ED(MOND)CHANG(ED)AGOGY. 11 Nov. 2010. 5 Jan. 2016. http://www.edmondchang.com/2010/11/11/close-playing-a-meditation/.

---. "Love is in the Air: Queer (Im)Possibility and Straightwashing in FrontierVille and World of Warcraft." QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking. 2.2 (Summer 2015): 6-31.

Chen, Jenova. "Flow in Games." Communications of the ACM. 50.4 (April 2007): 31-34.

Clark, Naomi and Merritt Kopas. "Queering Human-Game Relations." First Person Scholar. 18 Feb. 2015. 5 Jan. 2016. http://www.firstpersonscholar.com/queering-human-game-relations/.

Collins, Sean T. "Anita Sarkeesian on GamerGate: 'We Have a Problem and We're Going to Fix This.'" 17 Oct. 2014. 5 Jan. 2016. http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/anita-sarkeesian-gamergate-interview-20141017.

Consalvo, Mia. "There is No Magic Circle." Games and Culture. 4.4 (2009): 408-417.

Dewey, Caitlin. "The Only Guide to Gamergate You Will Ever Need to Read." The Washington Post. 14 Oct. 2014. 5 Jan. 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/10/14/the-only-guide-to-gamergate-you-will-ever-need-to-read/.

Dibbell, Julian. "The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer." The New York Times. 17 Jun. 2007. 10 Feb. 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/magazine/17lootfarmers-t.html?adx&_r=0.

---. "A Rape in Cyberspace." My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World. New York: Henry Holt, 1998. 11-30. (Also available via Dibbell's website http://www.juliandibbell.com/texts/bungle.html.)

Evans, Sarah Beth and Elyse Janish. "#INeedDiverseGames: How the Queer Backlash to GamerGate Enables Nonbinary Coalition." QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking. 2.2 (Summer 2015): 125-150.

Ferguson, Robert A. "Race." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 191-196.

Frasca, Gonzalo. "Ideological Video Games." IGDA. November 2003. http://www.igda.org/columns/ivorytower/ivory_Nov03.php.

Halberstam, Judith. "Gender." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 116-120.

Higgin, Tanner. "Blackless Fantasy: The Disappearance of Race in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games." Games and Culture. 4.1 (Jan. 2009): 3-26.

---. "How I Use Leeroy Jenkins to Teach Race in Videogames." Gaming the System. 17 Sep. 2009. http://www.tannerhiggin.com/how-i-use-leeroy-jenkins-to-teach-race-in-videogames/.

Losh, Liz. "#gamergate101." VirtualPolitik. 17 Oct. 2014. 5 Jan. 2016. http://virtualpolitik.blogspot.com/2014/10/gamergate-101.html.

McGonigal, Jane. "Introduction." Reality is Broken: How Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. New York: The Penguin Press, 2011. 1-15.

Nakamura, Lisa. "Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game: The Racialization of Labor in World of Warcraft." Critical Studies in Media Communication. 26.2 (June 2009): 128-144.

---. "'It's a Nigger in Here! Kill the Nigger!': User-Generated Media Campaigns Against Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia in Digital Games." The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies: Media Studies Futures. Ed. Kelly Gates. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell Publishing, 2013. 1-15.

Nardi, Bonnie A. "Gender." My Life as a Night Elf Priest. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2010. 152-175.

Ruberg, Bonnie. "No Fun: The Queer Potential of Video Games that Annoy, Anger, Disappoint, Sadden, and Hurt." QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking. 2.2 (Summer 2015): 108-124.

Salen, Katie and Eric Zimmerman. "The Immersive Fallacy." Rules of Play. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. 449-456.

Shaw, Adrienne. "Circles, Charmed and Magic: Queering Game Studies." QED: A Journal of GLBTQ Worldmaking. 2.2 (Summer 2015): 64-97.

---. "Introduction: Cliches versus Women: Moving beyond Sexy Sidekicks and Damsels in Distress." Gaming at the Margins: Sexuality and Gender at the Margins of Gamer Culture. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2015. 1-11.

Sisler, Vit. "Digital Arabs: Representation in Video Games." European Journal of Cultural Studies. 11.2 (2008): 203-219.

Somerville, Siobhan B. "Queer." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 187-191.

Stabile, Carol. "'I Will Own You': Accountability in Massively Multiplayer Online Games." Television and New Media. 15.1 (2014): 43-57.

Steinkuehler, Constance. "The Mangle of Play." Games and Culture. 1.3 (Jul. 2006): 199-213.

Wagner, Kyle. "The Future of the Cultural Wars is Here, And It's Gamergate." 14 Oct. 2014. 5 Jan. 2016. http://deadspin.com/the-future-of-the-culture-wars-is-here-and-its-gamerga-1646145844.

Media & Games

America's Army. 2002. https://www.americasarmy.com/.

Anthropy, Anna. Dys4ia. 2012. http://jayisgames.com/games/dys4ia/

Queer Power. Molleindustria. 2004. http://www.molleindustria.org/en/queer-power/.

Border Crossing. 2006. http://www.flashrolls.com/shooting-games/Border-Patrol-Flash-Game.htm.

Case, Nicky. Coming Out Simulator. 2014. http://ncase.itch.io/coming-out-simulator-2014.

Chen, Genova. flOw. 2006. http://interactive.usc.edu/projects/cloud/flowing/.

Darkon. Dir. Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer. DVD. PorchLight Entertainment, 2007.

Depression Quest. 2013. http://www.depressionquest.com/.

"Ethnic Cleansing (PC, 2002) Gameplay." 25 Jun. 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdLX4GuySwQ.

Gone Home 2013. http://www.gonehomegame.com/.

"How to Log on to LambdaMOO." 5 Jan. 1999. 5 Jan. 2016. http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/cs8113e_99_winter/lambda.html.

ImmorTall. 2010. http://pgstudios.org/games.php?g=2.

Jackson, Shelley. "My Body." Electronic Literature Collection: Volume One. October 2006. http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/jackson__my_body_a_wunderkammer.html.

"Leeroy Jenkins HD." 27 Feb. 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hooKVstzbz0.

Pope, Lucas. Papers, Please. 2013. http://papersplea.se/.

QWOP. 2008. https://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html.

Rohrer, Jason. Gravitation. 2008. http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/gravitation/index.html.

Second Skin. Dir. Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza. DVD. Pure West Films, 2008.

SuperColumbineMassacre RPG. 2005. http://www.columbinegame.com/.

Unmanned. Molleindustria. 2012. http://unmanned.molleindustria.org/.

World of Warcraft. Blizzard Entertainment. 2004. http://www.worldofwarcraft.com.

"World of Warcraft All Race Dances." 9 Jan. 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF7C9utC5r4.


Return to home.Go to top.


© 2015-16 Edmond Chang. All original material. All rights reserved. Email the webmaster of this site. These pages are best viewed with Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer. Open your browser to the largest viewable area. These pages are hosted by ED(MOND)CHANG(ED)AGOGY, the academic, professional, and creative website of Edmond Y. Chang.