This schedule is likely to change – always check the week before readings are due.
Follow the links and read or watch assigned material before class unless otherwise stated.
Unit 1: Making Media, Challenging Culture
Week 1 8/30 Introductions; thinking about media and culture
Friday September 2: Confidential questionnaire and blog post 1 due.
Week 2 9/6: Zines: at the Women’s Studies Multimedia Studio/DCC Sound Studio (Taliaferro 0135)
• Raina Lee, “A Personal History of Zines”
• Allison Piepmeier, “Why Zines Matter: Materiality and the Creation of Embodied Community”
• Joshunda Sanders, “Empowering Women of Color Through Zines: My Visit to the Barnard Library Archive”
Friday September 9: Blog post 2 due
Week 3 9/13: Identity, Power, and Expression
Read at least three of the following, and preferably all of them:
• Audre Lorde, “Race, Class, Sex, and Age: Women Redefining Difference”
• Eli Clare, The Mountain” (You can listen to the author reading it aloud at this link; author’s page here. Brief mention of sexual abuse in part III.)
• Roxane Gay, Girls Girls Girls
• Janet Mock, excerpts from Redefining Realness
• MXD Zine! True Stories by Mixed Race Writers
Friday September 16: Blog post 3 due
Creative Exploration 1: Semester Manifesto Zine.
Bring a copy for each of your classmates on 9/20. We will not spend time in class going over these, but I encourage you to share and discuss outside of class.
Unit 2: Imagining Otherwise
Week 4 9/20: Visionary Fiction
Imarisha and Brown, Octavia’s Brood: read the following and as much more as you wish:
• Introductions by brown and Imarisha
• Alexis Pauline Gumbs, “Evidence”
• Dani McClain, “Homing Instinct”
• adrienne maree brown, “the river”
• Mia Mingus, “Hollow”;
Friday September 23: Blog post 4 due
Week 5 9/28: Visionary Media
Watch before class: Born in Flames (available on ELMS)
• At least one of: Allyson Mitchell, Deirdre Logue and Scott Miller Berry, “Are you burning?: Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames circa 2012“; Eric A. Stanley, Wu Tsang and Chris Vargas, “Queer Love Economies: Making trans/feminist film in precarious times”
• Mumia Abu-Jamal, “Star Wars and the American Imagination” (Octavia’s Brood)
Creative Exploration 2: Speculate on media and culture. Due on blog Friday September 30.
Unit 3: Engaging Dominant Media
Week 6 10/4: Politics and Practices of Representation
• John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing” Part One and Part Two (half an hour each)
• Stuart Hall, from “Encoding/Decoding” (read parts marked in green)
• bell hooks, from “The Oppositional Gaze”
• Soraya Nadia McDonald, “Meet Dylan Marron, the actor and playwright behind those ‘every single word spoken by a person of color’ YouTube videos”
Friday October 7: Blog post 5 due
Week 7 10/11: Reframing Media Through Fan Remix Video
• Jonathan McIntosh, “A History of Subversive Remix Video Before YouTube”
• Francesca Coppa, “An Editing Room of One’s Own”
• Alexis Lothian, “A Different Kind of Love Song: Vidding Fandom’s Undercommons”
• thingswithwings, “The Price” and “some thoughts on manpain, uh, many thoughts on manpain actually”
Guest speaker: thingswithwings
Friday October 14: Blog post 6 due.
Week 8 10/18: Remix Practicum
We will use a media text we have all viewed – the film Born in Flames – to experiment with the process of creating video remix. Though we will all share the same video footage, you will be responsible for your own audio, so bring a sound file (most likely a song, but it can be something else if you like) that you would like to work with. We will also discuss what it might mean to utilize this method in a capstone project.
Creative Exploration 3: Remix Video planning assignment. Due on blog Friday October 21.
Unit 4: Critical Play
Week 9 10/25: Game Design Workshop
Guest speaker: Amanda Phillips (Georgetown University).
• Mary Flanagan and Helen Nissenbaum, “Values at Play in Digital Games”
Friday November 4: Blog post 7 due.
Week 10 11/1: Games as Zines
• Anthropy, Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: chapters 1-4 and as much of the rest of the book as you can.
• Laura Hudson, “Twine, the Videogame Technology For All”
Play: dys4ia; Depression Quest by Zoe Quinn; howling dogs by porpentine
Friday October 28: Blog post 8 due.
Week 11 11/8: Twine Practicum
Complete a draft of your Twine creative exploration before class. In class, we will test one another’s games, explore how our ideas could be developed and expanded, and discuss what it might mean to utilize this method in a capstone project.
Creative Exploration 4: Twine Game. Share your game and reflect on the experience of creating it. Due on blog Friday November 11.
Week 12 11/15: No class: individual meetings during class time to discuss capstone proposals. Sign up for a meeting here.
Friday November 18: Blog post 9 due. Tell us what’s most exciting and interesting about your capstone and/or practitioner presentation and/or final project plans!
Capstone Proposals due to DCC Monday November 21.
Week 13 11/22. Practitioner presentations
Week 14 11/29: Final Project Workshop
You will be workshopping projects in small groups. Bring a draft of your project that you can share with your peers (depending on the format of your project, this might be a video, a playable game, a physical object, etc) and three questions you would like to ask them as they engage with it.
Week 15 12/6 Final Project Presentations and potluck! Bring food 🙂
Friday December 9: Post your final project on the blog
Monday December 12: Thematic reflection, participation questionnaire, and any outstanding class work due.