552.280 (17W) Topics in Anglophone Literary Studies: Playin' It Cool – Poetry, Empathy and the Video Game

Wintersemester 2017/18

Registration deadline has expired.

First course session
06.10.2017 14:00 - 16:00 N.0.42 On Campus
... no further dates known

Overview

Lecturer
LV Nummer Südostverbund ENL04001UL
Course title german Topics in Anglophone Literary Studies: Playin' It Cool – Poetry, Empathy and the Video Game
Type Proseminar (continuous assessment course )
Hours per Week 2.0
ECTS credits 3.0
Registrations 29 (25 max.)
Organisational unit
Language of instruction English
possible language(s) of the assessment English
Course begins on 06.10.2017
eLearning Go to Moodle course

Time and place

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Course Information

Intended learning outcomes

empathetic and academic progress, a wish to look behind the curtain;

References to poems, when adapted across the media, offer their service to the attentive audience and adopt features of media other than written texts while enriching visualising products with their poetic voice.

When Walt Whitman writes »I do not ask the wounded person how he feels,I myself become the wounded person« in his poem »Song of Myself« (1855), he also poetically and explicitly points to the need to make an effort to feel into other beings, humans as well as animals. He stresses the importance of raising people’s awareness of empathy as a true moral imperative. 

Videogames bring canonical poetry back to life and may encourage intercultural consciousness. 

Teaching methodology including the use of eLearning tools

input units, expert sessions/presentations, gaming- & reading-sessions, discussions, group assignments; i.e. academic structure interspersed with creative elements

Course content

The manner of ›playin’ it cool‹ the title literally plays with, is to be taken literally, as it refers to the process of developing and playing videogames with references to poems and poets. Thus, videogames can assist in making older, canonical poems »cool« again by returning them into the focus of scholarly and public attention.

This class is dedicated to unveiling the implications that can be derived from the forms, functions, and effects of intermedial references to poems in videogames. The theoretical framework is constituted by literature-, culture-, and media studies, as it paves the way for a research interest in audience reception, participation in the process of meaning-making, interactivity, hermeneutic interpretability and relevant psychosocial recontextualisations. 

Interferences of cognitive psychology, as applied to literature studies (cf. Damasio: 2000; Keen: 2010), and cognitive cultural studies (cf. Zunshine: 2010) with affect studies (cf. Gregg & Seigworth, 2010) are echoed in what in this course is referred to as the ›Four E’s of Edutainment‹ (Auer, 2014), being Ethics, Empathy, Eschatology and Epistemology, which shaped the criteria according to which the corpus of poetic pretexts and videogame-realisations was compiled.

Prior knowledge expected

STEOP, prerequisites according to curriculum; Plus an interest in literature, visual(ising) media, ludic principles, gaming, creativity, art, science - intermediality, interdisciplinarity etc.

Literature

Damasio, Antonio: The Feeling of What Happens. London [Vintage/Random House] 2000

Gee, James Paul: What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. NewYork [Palgrave Macmillan] 2007

Gregg, Melissa; Gregory J. Seigworth (Eds.): TheAffect Theory Reader. United States [Duke University Press] 2010

Heaney, Seamus: Feeling into Words. In: Ramazani, Jahan; Richard Ellmann; Robert O’Clair (Eds.): The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. 3rd Edition, Volume 2. New York, London[W. W. Norton & Company] 2003 [1974], p. 1096-1109

Jenkins, Henry: Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York [New York University Press] 2006

Keen, Suzanne: Empathy and the Novel. Oxford, New York [Oxford University Press] 2010

Larkin, Philip: The Pleasure Principle. In: Ramazani, Jahan; RichardEllmann; Robert O’Clair (Eds.): The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. 3rd Edition, Volume 2. New York, London[W. W. Norton & Company] 2003 [1957], p. 1067-1069

Smuts, Aaron: Video Games and the Philosophy of Art. In: Aesthetics Online, 2005. http://www.aesthetics-online.org/articles/index.php?articles_id=26 [13.02.2014]

Whitehurst, Scott: Pacifism in Videogames. Entertainment ResearchDissertation. Staffordshire University. 2013. https://scottacon.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/scott-whitehurst-pacifism-in-video-games-dissertation.pdf [28.02.2015]

Zunshine, Lisa (Ed.): Introduction to CognitiveCultural Studies. Baltimore [The John Hopkins University Press] 2010

Examination information

Im Fall von online durchgeführten Prüfungen sind die Standards zu beachten, die die technischen Geräte der Studierenden erfüllen müssen, um an diesen Prüfungen teilnehmen zu können.

Grading scheme

Grade / Grade grading scheme

Position in the curriculum

  • Bachelor-Lehramtsstudium Bachelor Unterrichtsfach Englisch (SKZ: 407, Version: 17W.2)
    • Subject: Anglophone Literary Studies II: Historical Surveys, Terminology and Practice of Interpretation (Compulsory subject)
      • ENL.004 Topics in Anglophone Literary Studies ( 2.0h PS / 3.0 ECTS)
        • 552.280 Topics in Anglophone Literary Studies: Playin' It Cool – Poetry, Empathy and the Video Game (2.0h PS / 3.0 ECTS)
          Absolvierung im 7., 8. Semester empfohlen
  • Bachelor-Lehramtsstudium Bachelor Unterrichtsfach Englisch (SKZ: 407, Version: 15W.2)
    • Subject: Anglophone Literary Studies II: Historical Surveys, Terminology and Practice of Interpretation (Compulsory subject)
      • ENL.004 Topics in Anglophone Literary Studies, Lehrveranstaltung ( 2.0h PS / 3.0 ECTS)
        • 552.280 Topics in Anglophone Literary Studies: Playin' It Cool – Poetry, Empathy and the Video Game (2.0h PS / 3.0 ECTS)
          Absolvierung im 3., 4. Semester empfohlen
  • Teacher training programme English (Secondary School Teacher Accreditation) (SKZ: 344, Version: 04W.7)
    • Stage one
      • Subject: Culture Studies (Compulsory subject)
        • Cultures in Close-Up ( 1.0h PS / 2.0 ECTS)
          • 552.280 Topics in Anglophone Literary Studies: Playin' It Cool – Poetry, Empathy and the Video Game (2.0h PS / 4.0 ECTS)
  • Teacher training programme English (Secondary School Teacher Accreditation) (SKZ: 344, Version: 04W.7)
    • Stage one
      • Subject: Linguistic Basis (Compulsory subject)
        • Cultures in Close-Up ( 1.0h PS / 2.0 ECTS)
          • 552.280 Topics in Anglophone Literary Studies: Playin' It Cool – Poetry, Empathy and the Video Game (2.0h PS / 4.0 ECTS)
  • Bachelor's degree programme English and American Studies (SKZ: 612, Version: 15W.3)
    • Subject: Fachliches Grund- und Aufbaustudium Literature (Compulsory subject)
      • Module: Aufbaustudium Literature
        • 5.5 Topics in Anglophone Literary Studies ( 0.0h PS / 3.0 ECTS)
          • 552.280 Topics in Anglophone Literary Studies: Playin' It Cool – Poetry, Empathy and the Video Game (2.0h PS / 3.0 ECTS)
            Absolvierung im 4. Semester empfohlen
  • Bachelor's degree programme English and American Studies (SKZ: 612, Version: 10W.3)
    • Subject: Fachliches Aufbaustudium (ab 11W) (Compulsory subject)
      • Module: Literature (ab 11W)
        • Topics in Literature ( 2.0h PS / 5.0 ECTS)
          • 552.280 Topics in Anglophone Literary Studies: Playin' It Cool – Poetry, Empathy and the Video Game (2.0h PS / 5.0 ECTS)
  • Bachelor's degree programme English and American Studies (SKZ: 612, Version: 10W.3)
    • Subject: Fachliches Aufbaustudium (Compulsory subject)
      • Module: Literature
        • Topics in Literature ( 2.0h PS / 5.0 ECTS)
          • 552.280 Topics in Anglophone Literary Studies: Playin' It Cool – Poetry, Empathy and the Video Game (2.0h PS / 5.0 ECTS)
            Absolvierung im 3. Semester empfohlen

Equivalent courses for counting the examination attempts

There is no equivalent course for the purpose of counting examination attempts.