Geeky Classes At Colorado Colleges and Beyond 2023 List

One of the easiest ways to geek out your education is by taking a class that is directly related to a geeky topic. After years managing curriculum and course equivalencies, I have ran into some very interesting classes that different schools offer. Here are some of the fun ones I have found in college catalogs for this year. Schools will not always run a class in their catalog, but you can always go to the department that oversees it and ask them when the next time they will be offering it. This will show that there is an interest in these courses and that they could make money by running them.

University of Colorado Denver

ANTH 3042 Lost Worlds and Crystal Skulls: This class explores the differences between science and pseudoscience specifically within the realm of anthropology. Scientific method and critical thought are employed in a way that trains students to question and recognize the difference between fact and fiction in data. 

ARTS 1400 The Horror Film: This course is an analysis of the horror film genre and its significance as a reflection on society. It will look at both the history and development of this genre and the impact these films have had.

FINE 1004 Video Games, Story and Society: By investigating various methods and theories, this course will examine how stories are crafted to fit the interactive aspects of video games, their resemblance and dependence on traditional stories, and how unorthodox plots, characters, and impact game play.

FINE 3014 The Graphic Novel Workshop: This course introduces students to the visual language of the graphic novel through the creation of sequential imagery and page development. Students will delve into the pictorial methods found in both historical and contemporary comic books, Manga and alternative cartooning.

HIST 4216 History of American Popular Culture: Explores American popular culture from the early 1800s to the present. By tracing the development of various entertainment media, including theater, music, movies, and television sitcoms, this course probes how popular culture both reflected and shaped American values and behavior. 

SOCY 1011 From Killer Apps to Killer Bots: Technology and Social Change: A young college student updates her social media page to stay in touch with family and high school friends while making new friends on campus. An upstart automobile manufacturer builds a factory manned by robots to produce electronic vehicles designed to reduce the environmental impact of automobiles. The military deploys battalions of unmanned drones to engage with adversaries without risking the lives of their soldiers. Technology mediates nearly all aspects of social life, from reproduction and parenting to crime control and heath care. This course is designed to provide students an introduction to the different social dimensions of technological innovation as well as the theoretical and methodological tools sociologists use to study them.

WGST 4420  Goddess Traditions: Explores the many forms which Goddesses have assumed through history, including the Neolithic Great Mother and her heiresses in the ancient Mediterranean cultures, such as: Isis, Ishtar, Demeter, Hecate, Aphrodite, Artemis, Athena and others, and their parallels in India. Goddess traditions have encompassed a full spectrum from virgins to Great Mothers to dark underworld Goddesses of death and destruction.

University of Colorado Boulder

ANTH 4745 Science, Technology and Society: Explores the cultural work of science and technology in contemporary societies. The course will focus on anthropological studies of technoscientific works ranging from high-energy particle physics and marine biology to hackathons and space exploration. Discussion topics include the relationship between science, technology and political power; scientific controversies; paradigm shifts and scientific revolutions; and ideas of objectivity, representation and abstraction.

AHUM 2006 American Comics and Graphic Novels- An Ambivalent Art: Immerse yourself in comics. Spanning all media platforms, comics are a global force in the twenty-first century culture. This course is an introduction to comics history and a headlong dive into comics today. It covers superheroes, movies, novels, as well as making comics. It proposes that comics help us understand ourselves in the world today. Formerly offered as a special topics course.

CHIN 3343 Chinese Science Fiction: This is a survey course on Chinese science fiction in literature, comics, and film. 21st century Chinese sci-fi has recently gained prominence in world literature, and this course will introduce its genealogies going back to the 19th century. We will explore concepts such as futurism, civilizational discourse, techno-orientalism, utopian thought, dystopian critique, genre, and translation. Students will be encouraged to think in a cross-cultural context about diverse visions of the future.

CINE 3042 Horror Film: History, Contexts, Aesthetics: Surveys the most exemplary and significant films in the Horror film genre from the 1920s to the present. With a historical emphasis, the course explores the ways in which the Horror genre has evolved in response to shifting social anxieties and cultural developments, and its reflections on society in various national or international contexts. Expect disturbing content and images. Formerly FILM 3042. Non-majors will need department consent to enroll.

ENGL 1220 From Gothic to Horror: Explores literature in the Gothic mode and aesthetic and critical theories related to modern "horror" genres or their precursors. Introduces literary-critical concepts (such as notions of abjection, repression and anxiety) that developed alongside this branch of literature. Students read canonical works in British and American traditions while reflecting on notions of popular or marginalized literature.

ENGL 1240 Planetarity: Focuses on post-WWII American writing and thought about the planet and humanity. We explore how postwar efforts to transform the terrestrial environmental and conquer outer space raise questions about humanity, technology, and nature. We also study how earth and space serve novelists, artists, and film-makers as environments to confront large-scale questions about culture, identity, and power.

ENGL 1310 The Modern Fairy Tale: This course will introduce you to a great variety of fairy tales, folk tales, parables and legends written and composed in English, translated from other languages, and criticism around the form. By the end of the semester, you will have tools to understand these types of stories in terms of both reading and writing. We will discuss terminology, themes, tradition and innovation, as well as the ways that fairytales live in the world now.

ENGL 2006 American Comics and Graphic Novels- An Ambivalent Art: Immerse yourself in comics. Spanning all media platforms, comics are a global force in the twenty-first century culture. This course is an introduction to comics history and a headlong dive into comics today. It covers superheroes, movies, novels, as well as making comics. It proposes that comics help us understand ourselves in the world today. Formerly offered as a special topics course.

ENGL 2212 Science Fiction: This course examines science fiction novels, short stories, and movies, paying close attention to what they teach us about our world. How do these works speculate about the future and alternative realms, and how do they portray our hopes and fears for the promises and limits of technology? Science fiction thinks about ways in which bodies, individuals, and societies might be different, and imagines ways of being and living other than our present.

ENES 3370 Harry Potter and the Conflict of Being: Addressing the idea of conflict from a wide variety of perspectives: personal identity, class, race, morality, education, age, ambition, leadership and friendship, this course will explore how these themes are worked out both within this extended coming of age narrative and against the classical background that J.K. Rowling so freely appropriates. Through a close reading of the texts, themselves, we will map out their philosophical/existential significance and how this is related to their popularity. Formerly offered as a special topics course.

ENES 3858 American Comics and Graphic Novels: Immerse yourself in comics. Spanning all media platforms, comics are a global force in the twenty-first century culture. This course is an introduction to comics history and a headlong dive into comics today. It covers superheroes, movies, novels, as well as making comics. It proposes that comics help us understand ourselves in the world today.

GRMN 2504 Gothic, Horror, and Fantasy: Introduces students to gothic, horror, and fantasy with a multimedia approach. Investigates links between scary, creepy, and fantastical representations and their social and historical contexts. Explores German and Austrian films, images, fiction and poetry from a range of periods. Taught in English.

JPNS 3871 Horror and the Macabre in Japanese Literature, Film, Culture: Explores Japanese horror texts from both the pre-modern and modern eras in a variety of genres, including the monogatari, kaidan, kabuki, contemporary horror fiction, film and anime. Texts will be considered in historical and cultural context with attention being given to interactions with and within popular culture. Taught in English.

LIBB 2800 Horror Films and American Culture: Examines American horror films in an historical context through which students learn to recognize how horror films represent our culture's "collective fears" and provides an analysis of the horror film genre. Considers the cultural contexts in which horror films are made through study of the creation and reception of these films during specific times in American history.

MDST 3021 Comic Books- Culture and Industry: Explores practices of comic culture across a broad range of graphic stories. Using culture studies approaches to industry analysis and fan community discourses, students examine culture created through and around graphic texts, particularly representations of race, gender, sexuality, institutions and ideology. Considers the political economy of the comic industry, the struggles of independent producers and active fan practices.

PHIL 2250 Philosophy and Video Games: Introduces philosophical issues raised in and by video games. Students will discuss ethical, aesthetic, and/or metaphysical questions such as: Is it okay to engage in otherwise immoral behavior (like violence or murder) in video games? What do in-game choices say about you? What is the relationship between you and your avatar? Is gaming culture misogynistic? Are video games art? Is virtual reality ¿real¿? Is social media a kind of video game?

PHIL 2750 Philosophy and Science Fiction: Explores philosophical issues in science fiction literature and film. Topics may include time travel, artificial intelligence, free will, personal identity, and how scientific advances will change human life and society. Students may read science fiction stories and philosophical articles, and watch several movies.

REES 3241 Red Star Trek- Russian Science Fiction Between Utopia and Dystopia: Examines Russo-Soviet science fiction in literature and film. Within this popular genre, writers conceive and criticize social utopias, thus creating works situated between the poles of utopia and dystopia. Through discussions of Soviet and post-Soviet science fiction the course introduces a Russo-Soviet "alternative modernity" and studies its historical development.

SPAN 3900 Cosmos Latinos- Hispanic Science Fiction and New Worlds: Examines how Hispanic science fiction (from both Spain and Latin America) in literature and film portrays and addresses topics such as technological development, the exploration (and exploitation) of space, life in on other planets, alternative paradigms of modernity, and the cultural and social landscape of technologically saturated societies. Course taught in English. Does not count towards the requirements for the Spanish major or minor.

Metro State University

ANT 1400 Introduction to Folklore: In this textual studies course, students explore how people use informal and traditional culture, called folklore, to sustain their cultural identities and resist or reinforce social norms. Since folklore has existed throughout history and across cultures around the world, students may study a wide-range of folklore, including but not limited to: storytelling, folk poetry, jokes, memes, conspiracy theories, slang, proverbs, folk song, prayers and blessings, customary behaviors, performances, and folk art.

ENG 2170 Medieval Mythologies: In this course, students study mythologies of the world as circulated in the period 500-1500, including stories about the Asian Monkey King, the Aztec Quetzalcoatl, Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Japanese samurai, and Arabian jinn. It considers these legends in their sacred contexts and looks at transmission and changes across cultures and across time-many of these mythologies are part of contemporary culture.

ENG 2270: Monsters and Monstrosity: This course offers an introduction to the practices of literary studies through the theme of monsters and monstrosity. Considering examples from different genres, media (such as literature, film, graphic novels), and time periods, students analyze the cultural significance of the monster in the many forms it may take and explore the ways in which creative works, through such figures as the monster, represent and rethink realities (social, cultural, scientific, human) through the blurring of the real and the imaginary.

ENG 2400 Disney Culture: Students study the cultural productions of Walt Disney and the Walt Disney Company, doing so via cultural, aesthetic, ideological, and historical analysis practices. Students analyze a historical trajectory of Disney cultural productions, from early hand-drawn cartoons to more contemporary live action and computer animated film and television productions, Disney theme parks, and texts in a variety of other media.

ENG 2810 Vampire Films: In this course students learn about vampire traditions in Western cultures and how they have evolved from the late Middle Ages to the present in written and cinematic forms. The emphasis is on theatrical-released film representations of those traditions, including their intercultural origins and their transmission across national and cultural boundaries.

HIS 3001 Magic in the British Isles, 1500-1700: Alchemy, sorcerers, ghosts, and witches in early modern England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales provide the content for this Historical Writing and Thinking course. Its primary purpose is to hone students’ abilities to find relevant material, critically read historical literature, analyze primary sources, and persuasively relate historical arguments.

JMP 2480 Introduction to Animation: This course introduces students to traditional animation techniques and the planning and production of computer animation. The course focuses on techniques used to create 2D objects and animate them in order to communicate a professional message. Students will create numerous computer animations to be viewed on the Internet.

Colorado State University

E 237 Introduction to Science Fiction: Historical development and major themes of science fiction, featuring writers such as Wells, Huxley, Bradbury, and LeGuin.

ETST 373 Gynaehorror Horror Films, Race, Female Body: A critique of horror films as sites of women’s gendered bodies and as representations of women’s roles as evil, monster slayers, and avengers.

LJPN 336 Japanese Pop Culture- Edo Period to Present: Examines Japanese popular culture from Edo period to the present through selected reading materials on Japanese anime, manga, art, and music. Taught in Japanese.

SPCM 358B Gender and Genre in Film- Horror: An in-depth study of classical and contemporary horror films produced in the United States and around the world, with attention given to their representations of gender and intersectional identity.

Adams State University

ENG 313 Fantasy & Sci-Fi Literature: This course will consider major texts in the genres of sci-fi and fantasy literature.

Community College of Aurora

FVM 1186 The Horror Film: Provides an overview, history, and examination of the horror genre. Students will analyze films from a variety of perspectives: drama, history, culture, and film aesthetics and techniques. The approach will be by sub-genre, i.e. Vampires, Mad Scientists, Zombies, etc.

FVM 1187 The Science Fiction Film: Provides an overview, history, and examination of science fiction movies, the ultimate "what if" films. Students will analyze films from a variety of perspectives: drama, history, culture, and film aesthetics and techniques. The approach will be by sub-genre, i.e. space travel, time travel, etc.

Here's also some interesting courses at schools outside of Colorado.

University of Chicago

ANTH 23803 Magical Politics: Following Donald Trump's election to the presidency in 2016, witches all over North America collaborated on spells to resist him and his politics by 'binding' his administration. Alt-right activists had already for some time been engaged in 'meme magic' against Trump's liberal critics. How can we begin to understand these magical interventions in present-day politics? Rather than presuming that 'magical politics' is a fringe or crackpot phenomenon, this class draws on activist, esoteric, and academic materials to suggest that our thinking about everyday life and ordinary politics can be fundamentally enlivened and enhanced by taking 'magic' seriously.

ANTH 23920 Gaming Religion: Video games commonly feature religious ideas, imagery, emotions, and practices. In this course, we will take a hands-on, experimental approach to the study of religion in video games. We will play various games individually and in groups, and reflect on the design and gameplay in conversation with readings in theory.

ANTH 25908 Balkan Folklore: Vampires, fire-breathing dragons, vengeful mountain nymphs. 7/8 and other uneven dance beats, heart-rending laments, and a living epic tradition. This course is an overview of Balkan folklore from historical, political, and anthropological perspectives. We seek to understand folk tradition as a dynamic process and consider the function of different folklore genres in the imagining and maintenance of community and the socialization of the individual. We also experience this living tradition firsthand through visits of a Chicago-based folk dance ensemble, "Balkan Dance."

ARTV 20018 Death Panels- Exploring dying and death through comics: What do comics add to the discourse on dying and death? What insights do comics provide about the experience of dying, death, caregiving, grieving, and memorialization? Can comics help us better understand our own wishes about the end of life? This is an interactive course designed to introduce students to the field of graphic medicine and explore how comics can be used as a mode of scholarly investigation into issues related to dying, death, and the end of life. The framework for this course intends to balance readings and discussion with creative drawing and comics-making assignments. The work will provoke personal inquiry and self-reflection and promote understanding of a range of topics relating to the end of life, including examining how we die, defining death, euthanasia, rituals around dying and death, and grieving. The readings will primarily be drawn from a wide variety of graphic memoirs and comics, but will be supplemented with materials from a variety of multimedia sources including the biomedical literature, philosophy, cinema, podcasts, and the visual arts. Guest participants in the course may include a funeral director, chaplain, hospice and palliative care specialists, cartoonists, and authors. The course will be taught by a nurse cartoonist and a physician, both of whom are active in the graphic medicine community and scholars of the health humanities.

CMST 14350 Videogame Level Design: Level design is the process of creating interactive virtual environments and scenarios. Through the deliberate placement of game assets, a level designer can evoke emotions and a sense of flow for the player. Similarly, in architecture, considerations are made into how aesthetics and form impact the experience of built environments. In this course, we will explore the level design of 3D games through an architectural lens and investigate how these conditions incentivize gameplay. With a focus on theories and techniques, we will develop a language to examine and analyze virtual worlds and the purpose behind their design. Course materials include foundational architecture texts, writings on games, talks by practicing designers, and gameplay.

CMST 14920 Comparative Media Poetics- Horror: Cinema, videogames, and VR: all moving-image media, which have at times exerted multi-directional aesthetic influences on each other. This course will investigate the raw materials and basic forms at the disposal of artists working in and across these media, with a special focus on horror as a genre. Along with fundamental questions regarding the social, psychological, and political uses (and abuses) of horror as a genre, this course will also look at how horror works across a variety of media. In what way do the possibilities available to game developers differ from those available to filmmakers, and vice versa? How are space, time, and action presented and segmented differently across moving images (cinema), interactive moving images (games), and fully-immersive virtual environments (VR)? How do techniques ranging from psychological identification to jump scares work in each medium, and what aesthetic effects are open to one that are not open to the other? Course materials will include horror cinema, horror games (video and otherwise), VR experiences, and written horror literature.

CMST 22322 Introduction to Game Design: This course introduces students to the theories and processes underlying game design through the creation of analog projects. We will be designing for forms that include board games, tabletop games, and live-action games. No prior design experience is absolutely required though some background with game studies will enable more innovative work. This course will be project-based and collaborative in nature.

CMST 25620 Japanese Animation- The Making of a Global Media: This course offers an introduction to Japanese animation, from its origins in the 1910s to its emergence as global culture in the 1990s. The goal is not only to provide insight into Japanese animation within the context of Japan but also to consider those factors that have transformed it into a global cultural form with a diverse, worldwide fanbase. As such, the course approaches Japanese animation from three distinct perspectives on Japanese animation, which are designed to introduce students to three important methodological approaches to contemporary media - film studies, media studies, and fan studies or cultural studies. As we look at Japanese animation in light of these different conceptual frameworks, we will also consider how its transnational dissemination and 'Asianization' challenge some of our basic assumptions about global culture, which have been shaped primarily through the lens of Americanization.

CRWR 12141 Intro to Genres- Drawing on Graphic Novels: Like film, comics are a language, and there's much to be learned from studying them, even if we have no intention of 'writing' them. Comics tell two or more stories simultaneously, one via image, the other via text, and these parallel stories can not only complement but also contradict one another, creating subtexts and effects that words alone can't. Or can they? Our goal will be to draw, both literally and metaphorically, on the structures and techniques of the form. While it's aimed at the aspiring graphic novelist (or graphic essayist, or poet), it's equally appropriate for those of us who work strictly with words (or images). What comics techniques can any artist emulate, approximate, or otherwise aspire to, and how can these lead us to a deeper understanding of the possibilities of point of view, tone, structure and style? We'll learn the basics of the medium via Ivan Brunetti's book Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice, as well as Syllabus, by Lynda Barry. Readings include the scholar David Kunzle on the origins of the form, the first avant-garde of George Herriman, Frank King, and Lyonel Feininger, finishing with contemporaries like Chris Ware, Emil Ferris and Alison Bechdel. Assignments include weekly creative and critical assignments, culminating in a final portfolio and paper.

ENGL 12320 Critical Videogame Studies: Since the 1960s, games have arguably blossomed into the world's most profitable and experimental medium. This course attends specifically to video games, including popular arcade and console games, experimental art games, and educational serious games. Students will analyze both the formal properties and sociopolitical dynamics of video games. Readings by theorists such as Ian Bogost, Roger Caillois, Alenda Chang, Nick Dyer‐Witheford, Mary Flanagan, Jane McGonigal, Soraya Murray, Lisa Nakamura, Amanda Phillips, and Trea Andrea Russworm will help us think about the growing field of video game studies. Students will have opportunities to learn about game analysis and apply these lessons to a collaborative game design project. Students need not be technologically gifted or savvy, but a wide-ranging imagination and interest in digital media or game cultures will make for a more exciting quarter.

ENGL 20171 Robots, animals, technologies: Science fiction and the more-than-human: Science fiction allows encounters with other beings that variously encourage or strain the bonds of kinship, and many of those beings are related to entities with whom we already share a world. From companion animals and modified humans to starfish and androids, estrangement from familiar categories allows us to trouble assumptions about the certainty of species, the superiority of consciousness, and what care looks like in relation with those who may not respond to, recognize, or return care in familiar ways. In this class, we'll look at relations with the more-than-human in the context of urgent and emergent lived experience, in which social, political, and environmental realities require a response that thinks beyond entrenched approaches and takes wild and revolutionary imagination as a reparative possibility. We'll explore these and other questions through science fiction novels, poetry, graphic novels, music, and video (by Octavia Butler, Ursula Le Guin, Vonda McIntyre, Janelle Monae, Grant Morrison, Margaret Rhee, and others). We'll engage with theoretical work on topics including multispecies kinship, race and technology, and non-conscious/non-biological life (by Karen Barad, Beth Coleman, Wendy Chun, Donna Haraway, N. Katherine Hayles, Shannon Mattern, Sophia Roosth, Alan Turing, and others). 

ENGL 24510 Kawaii (cuteness) culture in Japan and the world: The Japanese word kawaii (commonly translated as "cute" or "adorable") has long been a part of Japanese culture, but, originating from schoolgirl subculture of the 1970s, today's conception of kawaiihas become ubiquitous as a cultural keyword of contemporary Japanese life. We now find kawaii in clothing, food, toys, engineering, films, music, personal appearance, behavior and mannerisms, and even in government. With the popularity of Japanese entertainment, fashion and other consumer products abroad, kawaii has also become a global cultural idiom in a process Christine Yano has called "Pink Globalization". With the key figures of Hello Kitty and Rilakkuma as our guides, this course explores the many dimensions of kawaii culture, in Japan and globally, from beauty and aesthetics, affect and psychological dimensions, consumerism and marketing, gender, sexuality and queerness, to racism, orientalism and robot design.

GRMN 28500 Comparative Fairy Tales: How do we account for the allure of fairy tales? For some, fairy tales count as sacred tales meant to enchant rather than edify. For others, they are cautionary tales, replete with obvious moral lessons. For the purposes of the course, we will assume that these critics are correct in their contention that fairy tales contain essential underlying meanings. We will conduct our own readings of fairy tales from the German Brothers Grimm, the Norwegians, Asbjørnsen and Moe and the Dane, Hans Christian Andersen, relying on our own critical skills as well as selected secondary readings.

HIST 24613 God of Manga- Osamu Tezuka's "Phoenix," Buddhism, and Post-WWII Manga and Anime: How can the Buddhist axiom "All Life is Sacred" describe a universe that contains the atrocities of WWII? Osamu Tezuka, creator of Astro Boy and father of modern Japanese animation, wrestled with this problem over decades in his science fiction epic Phoenix (Hi no Tori), celebrated as the philosophical masterpiece of modern manga. Through a close reading of Phoenix and related texts, this course explores the challenges genocide and other atrocities pose to traditional forms of ethics, and how we understand the human species and our role in nature. The course will also examine the flowering of manga after WWII, how manga authors bypassed censorship to help people understand the war and its causes, and the role manga and anime have played in Japan's global contributions to politics, science, medicine, technology, techno-utopianism, environmentalism, ethics, theories of war and peace, global popular culture, and contemporary Buddhism. Readings will be mainly manga, and the final paper will have a creative option including the possibility of creating graphic work.

MAAD 13012 Caricature: Though usually traced to Renaissance experiments with drawing deformed heads, caricature as a mode of parody, humor and invective has various roots, in ancient comedy, ancient modern physiognomy and psychology, the literature and (pseudo)science of social types, and above all in the rise of a public sphere of newspaper readers and broadsheet buyers avid for the ridiculing of public figures, beloved or otherwise. We approach caricature broadly, considering its inverse relation with a neoclassical aesthetics of the ideal body, its theorization around historically significant moments like 1848 and 1939, its relation to technological developments like the newspaper comic and the animated cartoon, and most recently, the viral meme.

MAAD 14822 Video Game Music and Sound: From 8-bit audio tracks to orchestral concerts of video game music, from the percussive clicks of keyboards and controllers to menu noises, sound is tightly tied to the experience of playing video games. In this course, we'll explore how game music and sound interact with narrative, the embodiment of play, and musical environments outside of the games themselves. Our engagement with game music and sound will be mostly analytical, but there will be an opportunity for a creative final project for those students who might be interested. No prior music courses are required, although some familiarity with musical terminology and experience playing video games may prove useful.

MAAD 14920 Comparative Media Poetics: Horror: Cinema, videogames, and VR: all moving-image media, which have at times exerted multi-directional aesthetic influences on each other. This course will investigate the raw materials and basic forms at the disposal of artists working in and across these media, with a special focus on horror as a genre. Along with fundamental questions regarding the social, psychological, and political uses (and abuses) of horror as a genre, this course will also look at how horror works across a variety of media. In what way do the possibilities available to game developers differ from those available to filmmakers, and vice versa? How are space, time, and action presented and segmented differently across moving images (cinema), interactive moving images (games), and fully-immersive virtual environments (VR)? How do techniques ranging from psychological identification to jump scares work in each medium, and what aesthetic effects are open to one that are not open to the other? Course materials will include horror cinema, horror games (video and otherwise), VR experiences, and written horror literature.

MAAD 15416 1990s Videogame History: This course will trace developments in the videogame medium and videogame cultures in the final decade of the 20th century, discuss the unique possibilities and difficulties arising from the study of recent history, and put these discussions into practice through research-based assignments. Questions that will guide our study include: what was the relationship between technological innovations and stylistic changes in the videogame medium? How did the entry of new corporate and creative players into the business affect industrial structures and strategies? What do we make of "freedom," "realism," and other concepts that dominated videogame press coverage - and how were they connected to broader cultural discourses? How did understandings of what it meant to play videogames, and the types of experiences that videogames could offer, change over the course of the decade? What was the relationship between developments in the videogame medium and other media - from film and fiction to virtual reality and the Internet? How has this decade been remembered, conceptualized, preserved, and repackaged in subsequent decades?

MAAD 15620 Japanese Animation- The Making of a Global Media: This course offers an introduction to Japanese animation, from its origins in the 1910s to its emergence as global culture in the 1990s. The goal is not only to provide insight into Japanese animation within the context of Japan but also to consider those factors that have transformed it into a global cultural form with a diverse, worldwide fanbase. As such, the course approaches Japanese animation from three distinct perspectives on Japanese animation, which are designed to introduce students to three important methodological approaches to contemporary media - film studies, media studies, and fan studies or cultural studies. As we look at Japanese animation in light of these different conceptual frameworks, we will also consider how its transnational dissemination and 'Asianization' challenge some of our basic assumptions about global culture, which have been shaped primarily through the lens of Americanization.

MAAD 17817 Sonic the Hedgehog: In this course, we will use a single franchise - Sonic the Hedgehog - as an access point to study media history, aesthetics, social and cultural practice, and the relationships between games, film, and other artforms. Originally released in 1991 for Sega's Genesis console, the Sonic series has spawned over three decades of games, cartoons, manga, novels, films, music, board games, action figures, fan art, cosplay, and merchandizing. Both the volume and the variety of these texts allow the Sonic corpus to be a focal point for questions with broader stakes for the study of games and media in general. Some of the questions we will be considering in this course include: What has been the relationship between particular videogame characters and franchises and the business practices and strategies of entertainment industries? What form does stardom take in the world of digital games, and is it an appropriate concept to apply to a mascot like Sonic? How have established game franchises responded to major technological and aesthetic shifts in the medium? How might we understand the concept and practice of adaptation as applied to the digital games, and what does it reveal about the medium specificity of and the relationship between games, film, comics, novels, and other forms? What can a game franchise that has taken a wide variety of generic forms (platforming, racing, fighting, and pinball, to name just a few) tell us about how genre works as concept and system in digital games?

MAAD 17880 Videogame Consoles- A Platform Studies Approach: While videogames' mix of art, play, and advanced technology gives game studies much of its vitality, the technological and computational aspects of the medium can be daunting for many would-be students and designers. And yet no approach to the study of videogames can be exhaustive without some consideration of the material and technological grounds that make games possible. With this in mind, this course will introduce approaches to videogame studies that emphasize the platforms - the hardware, operating systems, etc. - on which games are played, and is intended for students with all levels of familiarity with the technological side of videogames. How do the various components of game platforms, from computer architecture to controllers to the underlying code, affect how games look, sound, and feel, how they are played, who designs them and how, how they are marketed and to whom, and how they are preserved? How do platforms emerge from particular technological, industrial, social, and cultural contexts, and how do they in turn affect the course of game history and culture? Classroom lectures and discussions of readings will be accompanied by weekly gameplay sessions at the MADD Center, which will provide close, hands-on engagement with game platforms. Possible objects of study include the Atari 2600 (1977), ColecoVision (1982), Sega Game Gear (1990) and Genesis/CD/32X (1988-94), Panasonic 3DO (1993), Nintendo 64 (1996) and Wii (2006), and PlayStation 4/VR (2013-16).

RLST 20130 Textual Amulets in the Ancient Mediterranean: Amulets with inscribed texts were used broadly by individuals and households and across ancient Mediterranean cultures for protection against evils, for curing disease, and for obtaining advantage over adversaries in all walks of life. In this course, we will survey a broad range of such amulets coming from the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Phoenician-Punic world, Greece and southern Italy, and inscribed on such varied materials as sheets of gold and silver, papyri, ostraca and gems, while scrutinizing their material aspects, their cultural context, and their shared and distinctive features.

RLST 23880 Villains: Evil in Philosophy, Religion, and Film: You don't really understand an antagonist," screenwriter John Rogers writes, "until you understand why he's a protagonist in his own version of the world." This principle holds true of movie villains, but also raises important questions about disagreement, dehumanization, and the diabolical in the real world. Are our enemies truly malicious, or just misunderstood? How does a person become a monster, and how does a person avoid it? Why are some villains so compelling, and what does this say about the good life? Do Hollywood movies enrich or distort how we imagine and respond to real-world evil? Did Thanos do anything wrong? This course combines readings from philosophical classics and religious traditions with comparative analyses of villains in films from 101 Dalmatians (1956) and Jaws (1975) to The Dark Knight (2008) and Black Panther (2018). Students will discuss antagonists' motivations, evaluate the visions of morality filmmakers are presupposing, and develop more nuanced understandings of ethics and moral psychology. No prior experience in religious studies or film criticism is required.

RLST 28405 Religion in Anime and Japanese Pop Culture: How does Spirited Away reflect teachings of Japanese Buddhism and Shinto? Or what about Neon Genesis Evangelion? What can pop culture tell us about religion? In this course, we will consider what Japanese religions are (and are not) by looking at their representations in popular cultural forms of past and present. Sources are drawn from a range of popular cultural forms including anime and manga, but also literature, artistic performances, visual arts, and live-action movies. The course covers foundational aspects of Japanese religious life through non-traditional sources like Bleach, The Tale of Genji, and Your Name. At the end of the course, students will be able to speak to the great diversity of religious practices and viewpoints in Japan, not only its centers but also its peripheries and minorities. Meanwhile, we will consider broader questions about the complex connections between religion and popular culture. No prior knowledge of Buddhism, Shinto, or Japanese history is expected.

The University of Chicago had so many geeky related classes and I didn't even pull a fraction of them. They were actually one of the schools with the most geeky related classes I have seen in over 20 years of education both as a student and as an higher ed worker.

University of Wisconsin-Madison

ENGL 143 The Graphic Novel: An introduction to graphic story-telling in English, including attention to its history and developing form in the present day.

LITTRANS/​FOLKLORE  327 The Vampire In Literature And Film: Explores the image of the vampire in literature and visual arts as a metaphor for Eastern Europe and the Slavic world. Begins with folklore and moves through literary texts to film and television.

University of Kentucky

GER 103 Fairy Tales In European Context: Introduction to major types of fairy tales in European historical and literary context, covering the period from the Renaissance to the present. 

MCL 135 Vampires- Evolution Of A Sexy Monster: This course answers the following questions: What is a vampire? Where do they come from? Why do we have an obsession with the walking dead, especially with fanged monsters? How do we get rid of them (or attract them)? The course will explore the origin of the vampire in Slavic folklore and trace the movement of the legend across Europe into literature and then finally into today's films and pulp fiction. We will learn about the legends, rituals and folk religious beliefs associated with the vampire phenomenon and how they have been interpreted over the centuries by various peoples. We will explore the myriad of approaches to the vampire from psychology, folkloristics, literature, physiology and anthropology.

MCL 343 Global Horror: Global Horror is an introduction to the horror film that traces the genre’s development from its origins in European literature to a global film phenomenon in the 21st century.

Resources:

University of Colorado Denver Catalog: https://catalog.ucdenver.edu/cu-denver/undergraduate/courses-a-z/

University of Colorado Boulder: https://catalog.colorado.edu/courses-a-z/

Metro State University: https://catalog.msudenver.edu/index.php

Colorado State University: https://catalog.colostate.edu/general-catalog/courses-az/

Adams State University: https://ssb.adams.edu/bannerweb/catalog/catalog_options/

Community College of Aurora: https://ccaurora.smartcatalogiq.com/en/2022-2023/catalog/courses/

University of Chicago: http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/thecollege/programsofstudy/

University of Wisconsin-Madison: https://guide.wisc.edu/courses/

University of Kentucky: https://mcl.as.uky.edu/courses/MCL/135