Prospectus

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Games and Transmedia Storytelling

Course
2014-2015

Description

Games are being sold and experienced, not as “atonomous” products, but as components of a conglomeration of different texts that are distributed through a range of platforms. Games derive characters and plots from other media (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc), or they may become the point of departure of screen adaptations or novelisations themselves (Tomb Raider, Assasin’s Creed). In this 6-week course we will explore how stories are told across various platforms, and how this network of cultural texts creates a fictional space with which the gamer/reader/viewer can interact.

Course objectives

After this course, students have obtained

  • insight in the theoretical and methodological implications of the concept of “convergence culture” (Jenkins);

  • insight in, and the ability to analyse, the intertextual relations between video games and other media;

  • insight in the ways in which games influence other art forms, and vice versa;

  • insight in the differences between media-specific forms of narration, and the ability to analyze the different forms.

Timetable

Timetable

Mode of instruction

Seminars

Assessment method

Take-home exam (100%), October 22
Resit: Take-home exam (100%), December 22

Blackboard

Blackboard will be used to provide students with additional information/reading material.

Reading list

The reading list will be announced on Blackboard. Short essays that are not available on internet will be placed on Blackboard, longer texts will be available on the “werkgroepenplank” (working group shelves) in the library.

Registration

Students should register through uSis. Exchange students cannot register through uSis, but must see the director of studies and register with her. If you have any questions, please contact the departmental office, tel. 071 5272251 or mail: secrlw@hum.leidenuniv.nl.

Contact information

Coordinator Ms I.Hoving

Remarks

For more information van de opleiding Film- en literatuurwetenschap