Stuart Moulthrop – Fall 2015
Thursdays, 3:30-6:10 PM, Curtin 118
moulthro@uwm.edu
English 887: Understanding Participatory Media
Katamari Damacy cosplayers
COURSE PREVIEW
This seminar explores critical approaches to types of media, typically described as
interactive, ergodic, or participatory – practices that complicate or circumvent singularity:
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of expression (as in cybertext or computational literature);
of authorship (as in social media, remix art, meme culture);
of medium itself (as in trans-media or remediated productions).
Because the term participatory media stretches so widely, we will concentrate largely on
one sub-type, computer games, a focus of considerable popular, cultural, and scholarly
attention. However, we will use games as departure point for various forays into other
media forms and ideas, including performed identity, speculative realism, trans-mediation,
and radical mediation theory. Papers on any of these or other related topics will be
welcome.
The reading list includes titles by Ian Bogost, McKenzie Wark, Gordon Calleja, Steven
Shaviro, Sarah Kember and Johana Zylinska, and Fox Harrell, supplemented by excerpts
from other relevant texts. Some of these writers treat games specifically, while others
address the broader cultural context of contemporary media.
Writing requirements include a traditional seminar paper of 20-25 pages, as well as a
shorter response to a media piece. The subject could be some game or set of games
(computational or otherwise), or some aspect of game- or play-related theory.
Alternatively, the paper may focus on another participatory medium other than games
(e.g., fan practices, social media). The paper will be presented to the seminar for
discussion. The seminar paper will be revised after presentation and should become the
basis of a submission for publication to an appropriate journal or collection.
The main focus of each week's class will be theoretical readings and (after the first two
weeks) the seminar paper. As time permits each week, we will also discuss an example of
participatory media-work, often but not always a game.
Required Texts:
Bogost, Ian. Alien Phenomenology. U. Minnesota Press, 2011. About $15 new.
Calleja, Gordon. In Game. MIT Press, 2011. About $20 new.
Wark, McKenzie. Gamer Theory. Harvard UP, 2007. Used copies around $10.
Shaviro, Steven. Post-Cinematic Affect. Zero Books, about $16 new.
Kember, Sarah and Johana Zylinska. Life After New Media. MIT Press, 2012, about $47
(sorry about that).
Harrell, Fox. Phantasmal Media: An Approach to Imagination, Computation, and
Expression. MIT Press, 2013. About $35 new; hardback only so far.
For questions and further information, contact Stuart Moulthrop, moulthro@uwm.edu.