Course Syllabus

Week 1: Close Reading and Case Studies

January 10: Why Study Digital Media and Social Life?

January 12: Close Reading and Stardew Valley

  • Play Stardew Valley for 4 hours
  • “Areas of Analysis 2: Game Overview” (Clara Fernández-Vara, Introduction to Game Analysis, p. 86-116)
  • “Operational Logics and Playable Models” (Noah Wardrip-Fruin, How Pac-Man Eats, p. 2-15)

Week 2: Interviews

January 17: Interviewing People About Digital Media Debates and Issues

NO CLASS MLK Jr. Day but Readings Assigned

  • “Do You Identify as a Gamer? Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Gamer Identity” (Adrienne Shaw, p, 28-44)
  • “Isn’t It Just A Way To Protect Walt Disney’s Rights? Media User Perspectives on Copyright” (Lee Edwards et al., p.691-707)

January 19:  Interviewing People About How They Use Apps and “The Internet”

  • “Introduction” and “Toward a Method/ology” (Whitney Phillips, This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things, p. 1-12 and 36-47)
  • “Doing Sexual Responsibility: HIV, Risk Discourses, Trust, and Gay Men Interacting Online” (Brandon Robinson, p. 383-393)
  • Play Stardew Valley for 4 hours

Week 3: Critical Theory

January 24: Political Economy from Marxism to Environmental Theory

January 26: Feminist and Queer Theory

  • Guest Lecture (In Class): Dana Glaser
  • “Introduction: Reframing Hegemonic Conceptions of Women and Feminism in Gaming Culture (Kishonna L. Gray, Gerald Voorhees, and Emma Vossen, p. 1-17)
  • “On a History of Love and Affection Games” in Love and Electronic Affection: A Design Primer (Lindsay D. Grace, p. 3-28)
  • “Towards the Aesthetics of Cozy Video Games” (Agata Waszkiewicz and Martyna Bakun, Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, p. 225-240)
  • “Queergaming” (Edmond Chang, p. 15-23)
  • “Stardew Valley is Not the LGBT Utopia I First Thought It Was” (Aimee Hart)

January 28: Close Reading and Critical Theory Blog Due

Week 4: Content/Discourse/Textual Analysis

January 31: Using Old Media to Understand the Now

  • “How Gaming Became Sexist: A Study of UK Gaming Magazines 1981-1995” (Graeme Kirkpatrick, p. 453-468)
  • “The Discursive Construction of ‘Good Parenting’ and Digital Media- The Case of Children’s Virtual World Games” (Rebekah J. Willett, p. 1060-1075)

February 2: Analyzing Online Content as Data

  • “Genetic Ancestry Testing Among White Nationalists: From Identity Repair to Citizen Science” (Aaron Panofsky and Joan Donovan, p. 653-681)
  • “Play to the Camera: Video Ethnography, Spectatorship, and E-Sports” (Nicholas Taylor, p. 115-130)

February 4: Final Paper/Project Abstract Due

Week 5: Autoethnography and Phenomenology 

February 7: Autoethnography and Phenomenology

  • “Autoethnography” (Tony E. Adams, Carolyn Ellis, and Stacy Holman Jones, p. 1-11)
  • Play Breakout (game) for 5 minutes
  • Pilgrim in the Microworld (David Sudnow, p. 7-61)
  • “Suspended” (Michael Clune, Gamelife: A Memoir, Chapter 1)

February 8: Stardew Valley Coop special session

February 9: Play-Centric Methodology and Meta-Gaming

  • “Against Procedurality” (Miguel Sicart)
  • “About, Within, Around, Without: A Survey of Six Metagames” in Metagaming (Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux, p. 23-76)

February 11: Autoethnography Blog Due

Week 6: Ethnography

February 14:  How People Work With Algorithms

  • “The Technology Pitch” and “How I Studied Uber” (Alex Rosenblat, Uberland: How Algorithms are Changing the World of Work, 73-107 and 209-215)
  • “Between Sexuality and Professionalism: Experiences of Gay Workers at Blued, a Chinese Gay Social App Company.” (Weishan Miao and Lik Sam Chan, p. 1882-1898)

February 16: How Algorithms Work on People

  • “Work-Game Balance: Work Interference, Social Capital, and Tactical Play in a Mobile Massively Multi-player Online Real-Time Strategy Game” (Anya Hommadova Lu and Stephen Carradini; New Media & Society, p. 2257-2280).
  • “From the Fringe to the Fore: An Algorithmic Ethnography of the Far-Right Conspiracy Theory Group QAnon” (Peter Forberg, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, p. 1-27).

Week 7: Historicism

February 21:

February 23:

  • Guest Lecture (In Class): Cameron Day (Sociology)
  • “Facebook and the Imperative of Sharing” (José van Dijck, The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media, Chapter 3)
  • “Thinking about Feeling Historical” (Lauren Berlant, Emotion, Space and Society, p.4-9)
  • Explore Stardew Valley Developer Blog

    February 25: Annotated Bibliography Due

Week 8: Critical Making

February 28

  • “Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in Technology and Social Life” (Matt Ratto, The Information Society, p. 252-260)
  • “Critique and Critical Making” (Patrick Jagoda, PMLA, p. 356-363)
  • Case: Terrarium alternate reality game (short documentary)

March 2: Mods

March 4: Mods and Online Cultures Blog Due

Week 9: Quantitative and Data Approaches 

March 7: Quantitative Methods

March 9: Course Conclusion (No New Reading)

March 11: Final Research Paper Due

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GRADING

  • Attendance, Discussion in Class, and Participation in Stardew Valley sessions: 20%
  • Blog Posts (3 Entries: close reading, phenomenology, and mods/cultures of Stardew Valley): 10% each for 30%
  • Final Paper Abstract (300 words): 5%
  • Final Paper Annotated Bibliography (5 sources): 5%
  • Final Research Paper (12-15 pages): 40%

 

ASSIGNMENTS

Blog Posts and Responses: Over the course of the quarter, you will contribute to a class blog (located on this site) through original posts about a few different topics. These posts are intended to influence and extend the conversations we have during our shared meetings, and to engage with our shared digital object for the quarter: the video game Stardew Valley. The three entries will map onto topics during particular weeks. Each post should be 500-1,000 words long:

  1. Week 3: Close Reading and Critical Theory: Write a close analysis of Stardew Valley that draws on a critical theory approach of your choice, taken either from this course or another course that you’ve taken. Critical theories can include, but are not limited to historicism, feminist theory, queer theory, critical race theory, Marxism, media theory, or ecological theory.
  2. Week 5: Autoethnography: Write an autoethnographic account that uses your own experience of playing Stardew Valley, either alone or in a group, in order to produce some non-obvious insight or argument about the game.
  3. Week 8: Mods and Online Cultures: Members of the Stardew Valley community have created countless mods of the game, some of which you can find here. Introduce us to a mod of your choice and review how it modifies the original game in a meaningful way. You can also write about the people or cultures that play these mods.

Final Paper Abstract (300 words): Write a brief abstract for your final paper. In this abstract, you should describe your core digital or networked object or cultural scene, your selected method and how you plan to use it, your in-progress argument, and the stakes of your paper (why the knowledge you are generating matters).

Final Paper Annotated Bibliography: This bibliography should include 5 sources from outside of our shared syllabus that you will be citing in your paper. You can of course also use sources from our shared class, but for this assignment, we would like you to offer a brief description of 5 new sources and what they promise to add to your lit review or analysis for the final research paper.

 

Final Research Paper (12-15 pages): For your 12-15 page final paper, you should choose a core digital or networked object or cultural scene to analyze via one or more methods covered in this course. To clarify, you can NOT write about Stardew Valley for this paper. You could, however, do a close reading of another videogame, do a content analysis of a web forum of your choice, or interview a group of people who participate in a shared activity, subculture, or ideology. En route to this assignment, you will write an abstract and an annotated bibliography. If you choose the “critical making” project option, you should include with it a brief artist’s statement about the theoretical foundations of your work.

 

CLASS EXPECTATIONS

Timely Arrival: We only meet a handful of times throughout the quarter so make the most of each session. Arrive on time!

Attendance: Attendance is required for this course. Students absent for more than one class risk lowering their participation grade; students with more than three unexcused absences will be given a final grade of incomplete or fail. However, if you are experiencing symptoms of illness, do not attend class, following the University of Chicago’s COVID-19 guidelines.

Preparation: Do the reading and take the gameplay seriously. Meaningful discussion depends on your engagement with our core texts and games. All readings and games are to be completed for the date on which they are listed.

Annotations and Notes: Bring your notes and annotated readings to class. You should get into the habit of writing down ideas that will strengthen your participation in our group exchange. Just because we’re discussing digital works, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t jot down ideas that will strengthen your participation in our group exchange. These notes may also serve as the starting point for your video essay and final project.

Questions and Office Hours: Always feel free to ask questions either in class or during office hours. A seminar can’t succeed without open discussion and curiosity!

Plagiarism: As the Office of the Vice President and Dean of Students notes, “It is contrary to ethics, to academic integrity, and to the spirit of intellectual inquiry to submit the statements, ideas, or work of others as one’s own. Such conduct is punishable under the University’s disciplinary system.” If you have any doubts about whether something constitutes plagiarism, you should contact me in advance of turning in work with plagiarized content. Academic dishonesty is a very serious offense — even if it is unintentional. The penalty for plagiarism might include both failure on the paper and failure of this course. Please review the University of Chicago’s official policy online. Keep in mind that academic dishonesty includes buying papers online, outsourcing your academic work to someone else (paid or unpaid), and submitting the same paper to more than one course. This is not an exhaustive list of the practices that constitute academic dishonesty and plagiarism. For more details, please consult the discussion of plagiarism and academic honesty in Doing Honest Work in College: How to Prepare Citations, Avoid Plagiarism, and Achieve Real Academic Success.

Cell Phones and Laptops: Cell phones must absolutely be turned off in class. While laptops are permitted, we recommend that anyone tempted to check in with social media, email, and other sites unrelated to class should stick to pen and paper for note-taking. If you have a compulsion about emailing, messaging, or checking social media during class (and cannot control yourself), you should absolutely refrain from bringing your laptop to class.

Late Assignments and Extensions: If any assignment is late, surpassing the deadline, it will immediately drop half a grade (e.g. from a B to B-). The grade will continue to drop at a comparable increment every 24 hours thereafter. We do grant extensions (especially in cases of major life events or emergencies) but you should talk to us about this possibility well in advance of the deadline.

  • Student Disability Services: We are committed to meeting the needs of all students. To arrange class-related accommodations, please see Student Disability Services prior to scheduling a meeting with me.