Week Fifteen: Final Evaluation Conferences

"The End" by Paul Robertson

This week we are meeting for individual conferences to discuss your final grade and review your blogs for the semester. You should have already signed up for a conference which will be held during our regular class time. If you have not received an appointment or if you have forgotten your appointment time please contact me by email and get one. Last week in class we discussed the criteria that students will use for their evaluation process.  I look forward to meeting with each of you to discuss what happened in the class for you this semester.

Writing Assignment: For this week please finish all your blog posts and comment on another student's blog.

Final Discussion

This class session will attempt to sum up some of this semester's themes and approaches to studies in media, literature and popular culture. There is no specific homework other than to finish your blog posts and to comment on someone elses blog. In class we will discuss, do the online course evaluations, and wrap up. Final evaluation appointments will be next week. We will review the criteria for the final evaluation during this week's class.

Media and Fan Culture: Case Study My LIttle Pony

This week we will consider the nature of fan culture and the segmentation of cultural experience into overlapping communities. We will look at a recent documentary about Bronies and the suggested readings for this week include some My Little Pony work in comics as well as a comics parody of brony fan culture. Consult the course resources.

Among the questions we will consider is the nature of "hating" and social networks and the position of the artist in relation to fan communities. Also to be discussed are the relationships between such popular franchises and the role played by remixers and internet memes in establishing and nurturing the fan culture.

Highly recommended is to watch My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, Season 5, Episode 1 & 2 an interesting two part story called the Cutie Map. You can watch it here.

A must see is this My Little Pony parody about Income Equality by Adam McKay.

Writing Assignment: Write a blog post and discuss a fan community that you belong to. Describe this fan community, it preoccupations and interests, its obsessions. What are the values and narratives shared by this community? What are the central cultural works that serve as binders and reference points for this community?

My Little Pony fan art by Trudifish

Week Twelve: Youtube and Popular Culture

Georden Whitman writes the following introduction to this week's class on Youtube:

So due to the size of Youtube, and how largely its grown, and the countless famous videos that have been made, we will be focusing on a specific portion of Youtube. The portion we will be discussing has spawned over the last few years, and has been relative to pop culture, especially between animation, and gaming.

Over the last 7 years people on Youtube, have begun a strange journey, and almost walked into what is now a viable career path. Originally youtube seemed to be established for posting fun hilarious videos that were meant for skits and a laugh or two, but eventually they evolved into channels with daily content, a lot like television but free. This week we are talking about how those channels and individuals on Youtube established careers, and how Youtube has changed the rules and affected some of those people.

Some things to watch that have relevancy to this conversation:

Rocket Jump / Freddy Wong : https://www.youtube.com/user/freddiew

Julian Smith : https://www.youtube.com/user/juliansmith87

Markiplier : https://www.youtube.com/user/markiplierGAME

Bee and Puppycat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNs9shgQ2rI

Pew Die Pie : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm112ERjB_o
            Game Grumps: https://www.youtube.com/user/GameGrumps
            Bravest Warriors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpDOscUDQ_0
            Oney NG: https://www.youtube.com/user/OneyNG
            Machinima: https://www.youtube.com/user/machinima

Smosh: https://www.youtube.com/user/smosh

College Humor: https://www.youtube.com/user/collegehumor

HeyAshWatchaPlayinHAWP: https://www.youtube.com/user/HAWPOfficial

Mondo Media: https://www.youtube.com/user/MondoMedia

FilmCow: https://www.youtube.com/user/SecretAgentBob

Jenna Marbles: https://www.youtube.com/user/JennaMarbles

Simons cat: https://www.youtube.com/user/simonscat

Lindsey Stirling: https://www.youtube.com/user/lindseystomp

Ninja Sex Party : https://www.youtube.com/user/NinjaSexParty

Jon Tron : https://www.youtube.com/user/JonTronShow
            Tobuscus: https://www.youtube.com/user/Tobuscus

Harry Partridge: https://www.youtube.com/user/HarryPartridge

Hot Diggedy Demon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ma3wcaYV8k

Kitty Kat Gaming : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOgFRs7l5HM

Annnnddd moreeee!!!

Feel free to send me others you like, I’m aware there are many many more, but these are just some of the people I am familiar with.

Week Eleven: Gaming and Narrative

Here are the links that Jake Porterfield and Melina Perez have curated for this week's class. There are games to play ideas for topics and some general notes dispersed throughout. Let me know if you have suggestions, additions etc...  

Writing Assignment: Write a review of one of the games you have played for this week. What should be in your review? How personal, how impersonal should it be? How focused should your review be and what perspective do you have to offer as a reviewer of games?

Things to Play: games listed are free unless otherwise specified

Interesting and innovative narrative experience: Gravity Bone download from Blendo Games Site

Download Narbacular drop, the game whose mechanic inspired Portal.

Download Octodad the Original student version

The Old Tree a short free-to-play cinematic puzzle game about a newborn alien baby. (Requires Steam)

Thomas Was Alone play the demo here the full game Costs 10 Dollars

I Saw her standing there, a simple love story about a boy and a girl who is a zombie (play in-browser)

Catlateral Damage you are a cat, knock things over (play in browser)

Spelunky

Coma (play in browser)

 Depression Quest not a traditionally “fun” gaming experience but it explores what can be done with the medium

Cube Slam weird, surreal 3d pong (play in browser)

Pandemic 2 You are a disease, infect the world (play in browser)

DOOM Experience the original shooty monster game (play in browser)

Gods Will be Watching, a minimalistic point and click thriller that presents complex moral choices play the demo, the full game on steam Costs 10 Dollars

Superhot, a unique take on fps mechanics, play the prototype

Winter Walk for Android

Super Monsters Ate my Condo, fun action puzzle game developed by Adult Swim, available on Apple devices and in the Google store (mostly included because of the title)

Spaceteam, A cooperative shouting game for phones and tablets. Available on Apple devices and in the Google Store

Mountain is difficult to describe so I won’t try. Made by the artist responsible for designing the videogame in the movie Her, Costs 1 dollar.

80 Days a unique, substantive and addictive mobile experience, well worth checking out, Costs 5 Dollars

Year Walk, Experience the ancient Swedish phenomena of year walking through a different kind of first person adventure, Available on Steam Costs 6 Dollars

One Chance - you have 6 days to find a cure that will wipe out the human race.

Haunt the House - you're a little ghost that needs to scare all the people in the house. Also an App.

Plug and Play - a surreal interactive animation. $2.99

Moonbase Alpha - Free on Steam

Chivalry

Limbo

Bastion

Journey

Shadow of the Colossus

No Man's Sky, a game getting a lot of recognition for it's countless number of planets.

Japanese Gaming we should hit more of the controversial aspects of it, too. Such as the censorship and some that have been localized and the ones that haven't.

Hatsune Miku Project Diva - since it's after the class on anime and manga, it's a good transition. A rhythm game based on the popular idol.

Dating Sims - Hatoful Beautiful, Conception 2, DMMD

Visual Novels - Zero Escape, Ace Attorney, Professor Layton

Censorship in costume design: Bravely Default

RPGs - Fire Emblem, Disgaea, Atelier series, Persona (or Shin Megami Tensei in general)

Themes in Drakengard / Nier

I know Egoraptor did a few lengthy videos discussing the difference in games from their originals. Normally dealing with how they are dumbed down.

Sequelitis Megaman & Legend of Zelda

The Rise of Horror Games

Outlast

PT

Five Nights At Freddy's

Alien: Isolation

Hektor

Movie Games - How game mechanics have been lees about gameplay and more on the story, and sometimes graphics.

The Order 1886 (controversial because of game length)

The Last Of Us (has gameplay)

Heavy Rain

Beyond Two Souls (blockbuster actors)

Life is Strange

Until Dawn

Videos: Videogame related stuff to watch (that aren’t Let’s Plays)

Leo Wichtowski’s on the fuzzy definition of what makes a game a game. The rest of his videos are also brilliant, hilarious and occasionally weirdly moving.

Errant Signal on Violence In Games

Extra Credit on Diversity in Games

Controlling vs "Being" Your Video Game Avatar

Anita Sarkeesian’s Video Series

Adam Sessler on The Wolf Among Us and the tension in the gaming community around new, more narrative based games

Read/Listen to Developers speak about things:

Ken Levine interview: Bioshock creator's vision for gaming

Extended Interview with the delightful Tim Schafer of Double Fine (creator of such games as Grim Fandango, Full Throttle and Psychonauts)

An interview with Peter Molyneux designer of the Fable series, on his (failed) kick-starter project Godus. Molyneux is widely known in the gaming world for his unbridled enthusiasm and creativity, but also for generating cosmological sized expectations for his games that the finished product rarely lives up to. None-the less he has some fascinating insights on Kick-starter culture and the future of gaming.

John Carmack Rambling about the Oculus for 90 minutes at Oculus Connect 2014 a long video, but worth a look if you’re at all interested in what one of the most brilliant technical minds in gaming has to say about virtual reality.

Games and gaming trends you should probably be aware of:

Franchise Gaming- The McDonalds of gaming, churned out on a regular basis with a varying degree of innovation year to year. Worth examining the cultural assumptions posited by these annual experiences. What makes people keep coming back to these franchises? Is it just familiarity (like a McDonalds Hamburger) or is their some other force; cultural, social or economic that drives their popularity?

Call of Duty and similar gritty first person war games are often accused of promoting jingoistic attitudes and distinctly Western Militaristic point of view. (See Spec Ops the Line for it’s largely successful ideological counterpoint)

Battlefield

Assassin’s Creed- actually examines the franchise phenomenon and the idea of history turned-mass entertainment in a very meta and curious way in the later games.

Madden/FIFA, still a thing

Halo

GTA- a biting satire of consumer culture, violence and class in modern America or a crass and misogynistic, male crime power-fantasy? (Tonal inconsistencies in GTA 5, is it a cartoon or a gritty crime drama?)

Remember Guitar Hero? What happens when an intellectual property is horrendously mis-managed i.e. bled dry. The danger of the franchise…

The Japanese gaming world- despite producing some of the most innovate and medium-defining properties recent trends suggests that the Japanese gaming industry has fallen on a period of creative stagnation. Japanese developers atre staring to incorporate elements from western developers into traditional Japanese game structures. What does this mean for the future of Japanese games? Is this the start of a more pluralistic global game development community? Also worth discussing the influence of Nintendo not just on videogames but also on global popular culture, they are in some respects “The Disney of the East.”.

Mario

Dragon Quest

Monster Hunter   

Final Fantasy

Resident Evil

Silent Hill

Metal Gear

…. Etc.  

Games as Educational tools, “Lego-Set” games- these are games that don’t offer a singular experience so much as they give you the tools and an open environment to explore creative solutions in a variety of scenarios.

Learning to Code with Minecraft the Minecraft phenomenon is really a topic unto itself however educators are learning to use Minecraft as a platform to explore new ways of teaching.

Ideas for Using Minecraft in the Classroom

 An introduction to Minecraft by old people for old people, courtesy of NPR

Kerbal Space Program, one of the few games where completing in-game objectives may actually qualify you for a position at NASA. Kerbal Space Program As Played By A Real Astronaut.

Little Big Planet

Total War Series

Age of Empires (a childhood favorite)

Civilization

Besiege

Simulators for every topic imaginable, most notably Train and Farm Simulator

Games with Something to Say

Paper’s Please

This War of Mine

Gone Home, one of many recent first person, non-shooters

Spec Ops the Line

The Binding of Isaac

Papo & Yo

Hotline Miami

The Wolf Among Us, and other recent Telltale games

Among the Sleep

Kentucky Rout Zero

Crowd Source Success Stories/Digital distribution platforms; is digital distribution a viable long-term solution for indie developers, what is the eventual outcome of digital distribution? Does it spell the end for traditional console platforms? What does the popularity of digital distribution say about the way modern consumers demand and consume content from developers?

Steam/Steam Greenlight

Chris Roberts on Star Citizen Crowdfunding Success, and Why He Doesn't Want a Publisher

Minecraft was self-published

The Hardcore Games Revival-Tried of the recent trends in gaming like intuitive user interfaces, edifying game design and linear difficulty progression? Then these throwbacks to the golden days of real games are for you! (*Authors note all the games in this section are actually very well designed though they do lack some of the accessibility of their more commercially successful “mainstream” counterparts)

Dark/Demon Souls The link is to an Honest Trailers, but I think the video gives an excellent overview of the hardcore games phenomenon. (Favorite quote “Bugs are just features that make it more extreme!”)

Mega Man (these games are all impossible why does anyone even bother, discuss…)

The Witcher 2, definitely not for the first-time RPG player, also manages a nuanced and adult narrative. Handles sex in a mature fashion and has well-realized female characters. (Good job Poland!)

How to do world building in Videogames Properly (The Portal appreciation corner)

Portal and it’s sequel Portal 2 are a master class in game design, game mechanics and immersive, indirect storytelling via excellent writing and art design.  

Writing for Videogames an interview with Eric Wolpaw

The complete Cave Johnson audio diaries, beyond the comedic appeal note the specific character choices the writers make that indirectly informs you of the world (Portal 2 spoilers obviously, but it’s been three years people)

The complete Portal developers commentary.

Hardcore Competitive Multiplayer- not really my area of expertise but I just wanted to acknowledge that these kinds of games are hugely popular and represents a very dedicated and diverse fan base.

DOTA and other MOBAs

Counterstrike

Starcraft

“Comedy Games”- Do modern games take themselves too seriously? These developers seem to think so. The recent indie game boom enabled by digital distribution has created a flood of mid-to low budget games hat are frankly far too dumb to have ever been funded by a major publisher.    

Goat Simulator

Surgeon Simulator

Bread Simulator  

Octodad Deadliest Catch

Let's Plays

PewdiePie - The biggest LetsPlayers and how he made a career on it

Markiplier

GameGrumps

Two Best Friends Play

Cr1tikal

Jacksepticeye

Week Ten: Anime and Manga

Watching Assignment: Rachel is this week's guest curator. She has the following list of suggestions for Anime series and anime feature films that you should watch.

Here's the list: 

Personal Favorites:

-Revolutionary Girl Utena

-Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

-Space Dandy

-Akame ga Kill

-Zetman

-Samurai Champloo

-The Eccentric Family

-Tiger and Bunny

-Cute High Earth Defense Club Love!

-Mushi-Shi

-Monster

-Trinity Blood

-Steins’ Gate

-Welcome to the N.H.K.

-Sword Art Online

-Junjo Romantica (BE WARNED--IT’S YAOI)

-Loveless (MORE YAOI)

Most Important Movies to Watch:

-Perfect Blue

-Paprika

-Wolf Children

-Summer Wars

-HAL

-Whisper of the Heart

-Tokyo Magnitude 8

-The Princess and the Pilot

-Evangelion 1.0: You Are Not Alone

Other Movies worth watching

 -In the Forest of the Fireflies (or known as To The Forest of Firefly Lights)

-Children Who Chase Lost Voices

-A Letter to Momo

-Akira

-Pokemon: The First Movie

-Sword of the Stranger

------

Episodes we’ll be watching in class (My most recent watches):

Psycho Pass Ep.1

Parasyte the Maxim Ep. 1

Beyond the Boundary Ep. 1

Cute High Earth Defense Club Love! Ep. 1

To watch these you can go to 

Crunchy Roll 

where you can join on the basis of trial membership

or some are available on HULU or if you want to enter the gray zone you can try

Watch Cartoon Online

You should look at WatchCartoonOnline anyway just to look at what it is offering which is an interesting mix that conflates anime and american animation.

Writing Assignment: After this week's class session write a blog post in which you discuss the importance or lack of importance for young artists to know and understand manga/anime style and representation. What do you think and why? Can you cite specific examples to support your position? You man choose to advance an appreciation of a specific anime or manga series or work as the main part of your argument.

Week Nine: New Comics

This week we will be reading a number of recent issues of several new comics series. All these series have been receiving attention from reviewers and represent a number of ways in which comics have been expanding audiences and exploring new subject matter. I have also included a few recent classic longer form comics on the resource page and here are some links to a few recent online web comics that have garnered critical interest.

Bad Machinery by John Allison starts from 2009. Several adventures available here.

Hip Hop Family Tree by Ed Piskor is a blog comic being collected now by Fantagraphics for print. It has become an excellent popular culture history of hip hop .

Meg, Mogg and Owl by Simon Hanselman is a weekly comic with a unnatural supernatural millennial slant. Site can be tricky to navigate try starting as close to the beginning, last May, 

Oyster War or Hell on the Half-Shell is a recently completed webcomic of 128 pages by  Ben Towle. You can read the whole thing here.

Kate Beaton issued a new sketch comic online this year called Ducks which is autobiographical and more long form; read it here.

Here is a link to Drax Tran-Caffee's web comic Failing Sky. Panel to panel format with very well-drawn panels that you have to explore to understand the narrative which is multi-threaded.

A good blog for young artists who want insight into the life of making comics is the blog of Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon. It shows the importance of the blog in helping support a career position. 


One of the important factors that has shifted the situation of comics in the last few years has been the acknowledgement of the changing demographics of readership that now includes female readers in more or less equal proportion to males. Current comics readership may even be more female than male if we include popular shojo manga series, for example, in our measurements. This changing demographic, or at least the changing perception of it, has meant increasing opportunities for women in all areas of comics production and and increasing importance given to storytelling designed to capture female interest. 

Here, for example, is a link to a recent article on several important women doing comics in a main stream media outlet.

Reading Assignment: Please read as many series as you can among those posted on the course resource page. Alternatively, you can also read a series you have been wanting to read and post your appreciation of that series. 

Writing Assignment: Please post to your blog before coming to class an appreciation of one of the series you have read for this week. Make your appreciation as in-depth as you can.

Week Eight: Travels in the Disneyverse

Disneyland...Disney World....its a Disneyverse. This week we will consider some of the salient traits of what constitutes the disney narrative space in all its variety of productions. Before coming to class please view Mary Poppins (1964) and Saving Mr. Banks (2013).  We will be watching Escape From Tomorrow in class and discussing the nature of the Disneyverse as a world-building environment. 

We will also be evaluating the class at the mid-term and discussing plans for the forth-coming class curated session on Anime and Manga.

Written Assignments:

This week. Please complete and post your take on a specific Disney film or other production. Categorize it and provide other examples that illustrate the pattern you have discerned. Write some appreciations of the examples. 

In two weeks: Please read some of the examples of recent comics on the course resource page. Choose one of the titles your have read, categorize  it, collect some similar items that demonstrate the pattern you are observing. Write an appreciation of the title around which you have focused your discussion.

Week Seven: Existentialism, Love and the Roots of the Hipster Musical

Catherine Deneuve amidst the umbrellas

Watching Assignment: Please watch Pitch Perfect (2012). 

In Class: We will be watching The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) directed by Jacques Demy. After the film we will be discussing musicals, their position in pop culture and their current resurgence in movies like Pitch Perfect and Frozen.

Writing Assignment: Due this week is your discussion of the contemporary hipster. This can be a discussion of the hipster as a sub-culture, hipness as an aesthetic, or even just a discussion of something you think we should be hip to.  The discussion should include your categorization (define whatever you are discussing) a collection (examples of the phenomena you are discussing) and an appreciation (what is cool or interesting about the specific examples you have chosen).

The point of this writing is to advance your skills as a content mediator and commentator on contemporary culture. The best way to approach your discussion of this topic is to start with something you find interesting and important to your own life and work, some element of contemporary culture that sustains you and that we might not consider or know that much about. You are directing our attention to it.

Next Week's Writing Assignment: Comment on a Disney film or other production. Use the same structure as last week. Categorize, collect, appreciate. Give some context, both personal and cultural to your comment. What is the importance of the work you are discussing? What is the effect of the work? Where is it positioned in respect to other works in its category?  

Reading and Watching assignment for next week: Please watch Saving Mr. Banks (2013) dir. John Lee Hancock and Mary Poppins (1964). Read the selected texts on the course resource page.

Week Six: The Roots of Hipster

Hipster: noun, Slang.

1.

a usually young person who is trendy, stylish, or progressive in an unconventional way; someone who is hip.

2.

a person, especially during the 1950s and 1960s, characterized by a particularly strong sense of alienation from most established social activities and relationships; a beatnik or hippie.

3.

a performer or admirer of jazz, especially swing; a hepcat.

--dictionary.com`

This week we are considering the nature of the "hipster"--possibly an urban myth put into motion by advertising or alternatively, maybe a description of an actual sub-culture. As the Wikipedia article on the term explains, the underlying sense of the reference is to someone who is aware, in the know, hip. 

It's hip to be hip.

Since the 1950s, to be hip has also meant to be cool. In his observations on the mediascape of this period, Marshall McLuhan registered/projected the pattern of Hot and Cool as a significant media effect. What is "cool" is defined as the antonym of what is "hot." 

Reading Assignment: This week we will consider some core works of the hipster canon. From the links below and from this week's selections on the course resources, choose several works and read, view or listen to them. Many of these works are linked from UbuWeb which I highly recommend.

Lenny Bruce in Lenny Bruce
Warning: Offensive language, sexual references and intentional provocation. 

Lenny Bruce brought to mature fruition a style of stand-up comedy that was founded on jazz-like riffs and improvisations, personal experience, social and political commentary and a strong impression of style and attitude. This style was highly influential on most of the major stand-up comedians that followed him. Bruce was provocative in a time of political and social repression in this country. As a result he was frequently arrested for obscenity. 

William Burroughs reading the novel Junkie (1953)

Fuck You: a Magazine of the Arts (1962-65)

The City Wears a Slouch Hat Radio Play (1942) by Kenneth Patchen and John Cage

Maya Deren A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945)

The Text of Light (1974) a non-narrative film by Stan Brakhage 

Ron Mann Poetry In Motion (1958) poetry performance film. Classic anthology of beat poetry.

Charles Mingus Live in Belgium, Norway and Sweden (1964) concert/recording film

Jack Kerouac Poetry for the Beat Generation with Steve Allen (1959)

Interview with Painter Peter Saul with some pictures of his paintings.

Diane Di Prima Buddhist New Year Song poem

Poems by Gary SnyderA Dent in a Bucket
Above Pate Valley
Axehandles

Poems by William Everson (Brother Antoninus)
Dust and Glory
The Watchers
We in the Fields

Poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Canticle for Jack KerouacAutobiography
Don't Let That Horse
People Getting Divorced

Poems by Weldon Kees
Four Poems of Fourteen Lines
1926
On a Painting by Rousseau
The Umbrella

Alwin Nikolais dance. 
Tribe
Noumenon (1953)

Writing Assignment: Be a cool hunter. Using the three primary elements of the liberal arts, classification, collection, and appreciation, write a blog post that defines the contemporary hipster. Besides an explanation of the category provide a series of links to works that help define the hipster in the 21st century. Write a statement of appreciation for each of the links you provide explaining the relevance and value of the example to the notion of the hipster and to what is hip. This is due next week, Feb. 25.

Week Five: Fiction Indexing Reality

Gia Coppola and James Franco

Reading Assignment: Before coming to class please read short stories in the collection Palo Alto by James Franco. Read as many as you can.

Writing Assignment: Using the worldbuilding based questions we have been applying the last two weeks in our discussion of the novels we have been reading, write a blog post based on one of the questions (or part of the question) and discuss either the novel by Murakami or Jemisin. The idea of this assignment is to make more concrete some of your ideas from the group discussions by putting them into writing. 

In Class: We will watch Gia Coppola's film Palo Alto which is based on some of the stories in Franco's collection. Then we will discuss elements of the adaptation of the stories into film. We will especially inquire into what aspects of the stories did Coppolla incorporate into her work, what aspects you think are important that didn't get incorporated, and what values you think are reflected in the combination of the film and the stories?

Week Four: Visiting Murakami Land

Image above is a remix using a background from Haruki Murakami Bingo an illustration orginally published in the New Yorker by Grant Snider.
  See his regularly posted cartoons at his blog linked here. .

Reading Assignment: This week I am asking you to read Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami. This is the most recent novel by one of the world's leading literary figures. 

We will discuss the novel in class, much like last week, and I want to apply some the same questions for a portion of the discussion, examining the novel through the lens of world building. These are the questions we will revisit:

What are the primary features of this world--spatial, cultural, biological, fantastic, cosmological? 
What is the world’s ethos (the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize the world)? 
What are the precise strategies that are used by its creator to convey the world to us and us to the world? 
How are our characters connected to the world? 
And how are we the viewer or reader or player connected to the world?”

Link to Paris Review Interview with Haruki Murakami.

Week Three: Writing New Mythologies

Reading Assignment: This week we are reading A Hundred Thousand Kingdoms a fantasy novel by N. K. Jemisin. After having experimented a bit with building our own worlds, we will try to take what we have learned as a platform to begin looking at how Jemisin is building her world. Jemisin is becoming one of the most important authors in the fantasy genre and is one of the most interesting world-builders in contemporary fantasy. 

Her work is different at the assumptive level than the seemingly endless fantasies that are placed in white supremacist, patriarchal, hetero-normative worlds, and her assumptions are very skillfully represented and expressed. In addition, her concepts have a cosmic reach that elevates the experience of reading her work onto an archetypal plane. 

Please read as much of the book as you can before coming to class.

In Class: This week we will be discussing the novel assigned for this week. We will undertake to examine the following questions (feel free to think about them before coming to class):

1. From the syllabus of Junot Diaz for his course in world-building for the Writing program at M.I.T.:

What are the primary features of this world--spatial, cultural, biological, fantastic, cosmological? 

What is the world’s ethos (the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize the world)? 

What are the precise strategies that are used by its creator to convey the world to us and us to the world? 

How are our characters connected to the world? 

And how are we the viewer or reader or player connected to the world?”


2. In the second half of the class I would like to discuss the situation for diverse creators in the current mediascape. and especially the situation for women making genre. 
 
“Science fiction isn’t just thinking about the world out there. It’s also thinking about how that world might be—a particularly important exercise for those who are oppressed, because if they’re going to change the world we live in, they—and all of us—have to be able to think about a world that works differently.”--Samuel R. Delany from the Paris Review Interview Here

In the Land of Make Believe, Racial Diversity is a Fantasy--Washington Post Opinion Piece

N.K. Jemisin's Blog is Here

Link to Feminist Frequency and Anita Sarkeesian's important examination of the representation of women in video games. 

William Gibson Interview in which he discusses his own world-building and the origins of cyberspace as a locale for fiction.