By now all of us who are going back to school are now officially back at school. Ah, yes. Autumn. Catch up on the Syllabus-ness series here and check out some awesome syllabi. And we leave you with a few more because education is important.
Gaming and Feminism
via The New Inquiry
The last couple weeks have seen a frenzy of organized misogynist harassment of female and feminist game producers, critics and commentators by self-identified “gamers.” Women in all fields face constant harassment just for having the audacity to appear online, let alone doing so to critique white supremacist patriarchy, and we do not want to imply in any way that game critics are alone in this. But because of the particular concentration and visibility of this current misogynist campaign, we wanted to highlight, in solidarity with feminist critics and thinkers everywhere, some of the wonderful, complicated and powerful work that has been done against, outside and in spite of gaming’s heteropatriarchal structures. The simplest, easiest thing we can do in the face of these attacks is to spread the work that has sent these gaming man-children into an apoplectic rage. Many of the thinkers and designers on this list disagree, even vociferously, with one another; this list is not meant to represent a singular viewpoint, nor to imply that feminism is in any way univocal. Nor is this by any means an exhaustive or comprehensive list. It is instead meant as a useful and evolving resource. If we’ve missed a game, blog or piece you love, please send them to Willie [at] TheNewInquiry.com. And thanks to everyone who helped compile this list–please see the bottom of the syllabus for a list of contributors.
Check out the list here. Thanks to Megan Milks for bringing this article to our attention.
Future Politics (Political Science 300)
Overview:
How can imagining the future help us understand the present? How does considering the future help us think critically about politics today? In this course we will read social science and political philosophy together with science fiction in an attempt to enhance the political, social and economic imagination of the social sciences. The future hopes and imaginings of past political thinkers do not include either enough detail or enough information about our rapidly changing technological, social, political, and economic landscape to provide us with enough practice to confidently confront the future as citizens as it happens to us. Science fiction allows us a much more detailed view of life in alternative futures, and the writers that we choose to read here tend to think seriously and logically about how current cutting edge technology might have social and political ramifications | however, science fiction authors are also mostly working on a narrative and thus may skim over core concepts that ought to organize our thinking about politics and society. Thus, we read both together in order to practice a kind of theoretically informed futurism (which is not the same as prediction or forecasting, but is more like the practice of confronting the unexpected).
Check out the entire syllabus here. And thanks to Christopher Higgs for bringing this one to our attention.
World Literature Course: The 1960s
Course Description:
This course covers selected revolutions, thought, and cultural phenomena from the 1960s. Its perspective is global and historical. It does not attempt to be comprehensive. Revolutionary transformation and liberation are the course’s main themes. Students are expected to be thoughtfully, imaginatively, and actively engaged with reading, lectures, film-viewing, music, performance activities, and discussion.
Check out the entire syllabus here. And thanks to Will Vincent for bringing this one to our attention.
