Alexander Galloway in Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture argues that play "is a symbolic action for larger issues in culture" (16) and that video game "render social realities into playable form" (17). Using a broad archive of "imagined worlds" and video games, drawing on literature, film, hypertext, and scholarship, this course will identify and explore the key concepts, the key moves, and the key terms of the interdisciplinary fields of cultural studies. In other words, how do we develop a curiosity about the world? What are different critical practices and methodologies for unpacking cultural productions, such as websites or film or novels or video games? How do we understand and analyze the intersections of cultural and social formations like race, gender, class, nation, and sexuality? In this course, we will look at and analyze texts of media old and new through the lenses of cultural studies and deploy virtual worlds and video games as theories about and dramatizations of our social relationships and realities, our cultures, and our world.

Primary texts may include in whole or in excerpt: Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler's Keywords for American Cultural Studies, Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall, Walter Benjamin, Will Crowther's Adventure, Judith Butler, Alexander Galloway, Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl, Benedict Anderson, Ian Bogost, Lisa Nakamura, Orson Scott Card, Sherry Turkle, Howard Rheingold, Maureen McHugh, N. Katherine Hayles, William Gibson, Tron, Donna Haraway, Nick Montfort, Cory Doctorow, The Matrix, and World of Warcraft.

New media and game play will be a required part of the class. Students will be required to keep a "plog" (play log) as part of the course website. Moreover, students will produce two short analytical papers (5-8 pages), which will potentially be used to develop into a larger online group project. Students seeking W-Credit will be accommodated.