2019 Spring ENGL 217 Course Calendar
| Week | Days | Readings / Lectures / Discussions | Topic | Play or Screen at Home | Assignment Due Dates |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WEEK ONE | January 9 Tuesday | - Introduction to Course, Games + Play - S. Chess, “Power On: Why Video Games Matter” SCREEN IN CLASS Journey Gameplay / Playthrough (No Commentary) [YouTube] | What is a Game? What is a Narrative? | EVERYONE PLAYS - Frogger [Flash, online] - Bla Bla [NFB.ca, online] - SuperHot [Flash, online] - Spend two hours playing Thomas Was Alone [Steam, PSN, iPad, Free Demo Available for PC and Mac] | Student Information Sheets, First Readings |
| January 11 Friday | - E. Aarseth, “Computer Game Studies, Year One,” Game Studies - J. Juul, “Games Telling Stories?,” Game Studies |
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| WEEK TWO | January 15 Tuesday | - Juul, “Introduction,” p. 1-22 and “Video Games and the Classic Game Model,” p. 23-54 from Half-Real: Video Games Between Real and Fictional Worlds - Bissell and Ferrari, “On Videogame Criticism [an email exchange]” from Paste | Games and Play, Games and Capitalism | EVERYONE SCREENS - Black Mirror, Season 1, Ep. 2 (“Fifteen Million Merits”) [Netflix – free month trial offered ] | |
| January 18 Friday | - Tulathimutte, “Clash Rules Everything Around Me,” Real Life - Bown, “Video Games, Capitalism, and Dreams: An Interview with Alfie Bown” in LA Review of Books -Black Mirror, Season 1, Ep. 2 (“Fifteen Million Merits”) |
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| WEEK THREE | January 22 Tuesday | - Borges, “The Garden of Forking Paths” - Geyser, "One Click at a Time: Playing Porpentine's howling dogs," Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) IN-CLASS HANDOUT Culler, “What is Literature and Does it Matter?” from Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction | Narrative I: Forks | COURSE FORK NO. 1 Spend two hours playing EITHER The Stanley Parable [Steam] OR Emily is Away [Steam] - Map to TSP EVERYONE PLAYS howling dogs [Twine, online], overview/reviews of howling dogs, here. OPTIONAL PLAY Grayscale [click on “Launch Application” link] | DUE | RESPONSE PAPER ONE |
| January 25 Friday | - The Stanley Parable - Jenkins and Squire, “The Art of Contested Spaces” |
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| WEEK FOUR | January 29 Tuesday | - Eadicicco, "'Detroit: Become Human' Forces You to Make Hard Choices - as an Android," Time - "History Respawned: Bioshock," History Respawned - Cowen, “How Bioshock: Infinite Will be Prescient – Interview with Nick Levine,” The Guardian - Bogost, Introduction, Chapters 1, 2, How to Do Things With Video Games [E-Book available at Cap. U. library website ] | Literary Games, What is Electronic Literature? | COURSE FORK NO. 2 Start playing either Detroit: Become Human OR Bioshock: Infinite at home. Choose one only based on either our discussions in class this week or on your own independent interests. Talk to the instructor if you would like input in your choice. Plan on playing two hours per week of your chosen game until the end of the term. EVERYONE SCREENS "History Respawned: Bioshock," History Respawned EVERYONE PLAYS - Andrews, “Blue Hyacinth” - Nelson, “This is How You Will Die” and “Game, Game, Game, and Again Game” - Spend 30 minutes browsing the Electronic Literature Collection, Vol. 1 | |
| February 1 Friday | - Pressman, “Navigating Electronic Literature” - Szilak, “It’s All Fun Until Someone Loses: E-Lit Plays Games” - Andrews, “Blue Hyacinth” - Nelson, “This is How You Will Die” and “Game, Game, Game, and Again Game” |
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| WEEK FIVE | February 5 Tuesday | - McCloud, Understanding Comics, Chapters 1, 2, 3 - Gone Home | Visual Storytelling | COURSE FORK NO 3. Spend two hours playing Gone Home [Steam, Windows, Mac, Linux, PS4, Xbox]; those who do NOT pick this fork will play Papers, Please (see below) OPTIONAL READINGS Bogost, "Videogames Are Better Without Stories," The Atlantic | |
| February 8 Friday | - Sakurazaka, H. et.al. All You Need is Kill - D. Lodge, “Repetition” from The Art of Fiction |
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| WEEK SIX | February 12 Tuesday | - L. Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” - Billotte, “She’s Not There: Absent Agency in Video Games,” First Person Scholar SCREEN IN CLASS "Laura Mulvey 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' Examples," YouTube | Visual Pleasure, Visual Tragedy | EVERYONE SCREENS - FILM: Edge of Tomorrow (2014) - “Slavoj Zizek on Video Games" [YouTube] * OPTIONAL SCREENING John Berger, Ways of Seeing, Vol. 1, 2, 3 [YouTube] | |
| February 15 Friday | - Film: Edge of Tomorrow (2014) - Juul, “The Paradox of Failure” from The Art of Failure: An Essay on the Art of Playing Video Games (available online as e-book in Capilano U. library – search the library catalog) |
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| READING WEEK | February 18-22 | NO CLASS MEETINGS, UNIVERSITY CLOSED FOR READING BREAK | COURSE FORK NO. 4 Spend two hours with EITHER Horowitz, The Silent History [iOS app, Kindle, or print.] OR with Pry: A Novella (Note: you must download this to an iPhone or iPad for @ $3.99) | ||
| WEEK SEVEN | February 26 Tuesday | Pry: A Novella, “Pry is a Novella-Meets-iPad App That You Touch,” LA Weekly and “Prying," LA Review of Books - "Amaranth Borsuk: The Past and Future of the Book," Thinking Aloud REVIEW IN CLASS Ulises Carrión, “THE NEW ART OF MAKING BOOKS” | Past and Future of the Book, Navigating History | EVERYBODY SCREENS Visit PlaythePast and Screen Episodes 1-5 of History’s Creed BIOSHOCK: INFINITE PLAYERS SCREEN "History Respawned: Bioshock Infinite and the Boxer Uprising," History Respawned DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN PLAYERS READ Cole, “‘Detroit’ Siphons and Squanders a History of Marginalized Struggle,” Waypoint * OPTIONAL FOR DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN PLAYERS - LISTEN TO Podcast, "'I Have a ... Nightmare?' A Conversation about Detroit: Become Human," NYMG [skip to about 30 minutes into the podcast for the specific conversation] | |
| March 1 Friday | - Horowitz, E. The Silent History. iOS app, Kindle, or print. - Chapman, “Privileging Form Over Content: Analyzing Historical Videogames,” Journal of Digital Humanities |
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| WEEK EIGHT | March 5 Tuesday | Bioshock: Infinite Forums | COURSE FORUMS | ||
| March 8 Friday | Detroit: Become Human Forums | ||||
| WEEK NINE | March 12 Tuesday | - Bolek and LeMieux, "Breaking the Metagame: Feminist Spoilsports and Magic Circle Jerks" from Metagaming: Playing, Competing, Spectating, Cheating, Trading, Making, and Breaking Videogames - Anthropy, Rise of the Videogame Zinsters, Chapter 1 and 2 | Feminism, Electronic Literature 2 | EVERYBODY PLAYS - Jackson, "my body: a Wunderkammer," Electronic Literature Collection, Vol. 1 - dys4ia[Flash, Online] - Depression Quest OPTIONAL SCREENINGS Feminist Frequency [YouTube Channel] OPTIONAL READINGS - Alexander, "Playing Outside," The New Inquiry - Huntemann, "Introduction: Feminist Game Studies," Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media & Technology | |
| March 15 Friday | - Stabile, "'I Will Own You': Accountability in Massively Multiplayer Online Games," Television & New Media | ||||
| WEEK TEN | March 19 Tuesday | READINGS TBA | |||
| March 22 Friday | READINGS TBA | ||||
| WEEK ELEVEN | March 26 Tuesday | COURSE PATH PRESENTATIONS | |||
| March 29 Friday | |||||
| WEEK TWELVE | READINGS TBA | ||||
| READINGS TBA | |||||
| WEEK THIRTEEN | READINGS TBA | ||||
| READINGS TBA | |||||
| WEEK FOURTEEN (NO CLASS MEETING - FINALS WEEK) | FINAL PAPER DUE, SUNDAY APRIL 21 |