Online Games: Literature, New Media, and Narrative

About this course: Designed for curious video game newcomers and experienced players who want to reflect their passion, this course will explore what happens to stories, paintings and movies as they become the basis of massively multiplayer online games. The Lord of the Rings trilogy – novels, movies and video games – are our central example of how “restoration” transforms family stories as they move through the media.

The course is designed as a class of English literature at university level: a multi-genre, a multimedia tour of literature, film and games in the fundamental human activity of narration. Our courses allow us to learn something about narrative theory, to present some key topics in media studies and to cover part of the history and theory of video games. This will also lead to certain benchmarks of romantic literature, the endless story behind most fantastic games: Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, a little queen of Edmund Spenser’s fairies, and poems by Keats, Tennyson, Browning and others.

Building on centuries of romantic narrative conventions, the 21st century gaming industry has become a creative and economic force. Its activity is the talent of some of our writers, artists, composers, software engineers, game theory, professional video marketing producers and, in 2012, generating some 64 billion dollars in revenue. Anyone interested in the current culture should know the ways in which this new form alters our understanding of stories. Join me in the intellectual adventure, search to discover the cultural heritage of online games.