This spring semester at Hartwick College, I’m teaching two classes, ENGL 213 Introduction to Creative Writing, as usual, and a brand new course, ENGL 352 Critical Game Studies. I’m especially excited about the latter, as this was a course I developed at the University of Pittsburgh in AY 2015-16 with the aid of a course development grant but that I have not had a chance to teach until now.
The syllabi:
This unconventional fall, I’m revisiting two creative writing courses I’ve frequently taught at Hartwick College, though in a hybrid face to face/online mode. The syllabi:
Black Lives Matter
Ishmael Reed, “America’s Criminal Justice System and Me.”
Anthony Bogues, “Black Lives Matter and the Moment of the Now.”
Colin Dayan, “Police Power and Can’t Breathe.”
Dwight Garner, “Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste Is an ‘Instant American Classic’ about Our Abiding Sin.”
Jane Hu, “The Second Act of Social-Media Activism.”
Jonathan Levinson and Conrad Wilson, “Federal Law Enforcement Use Unmarked Vehicles to Grab Protesters off Portland Streets.”
Shane Harris, “DHS Compiled ‘Intelligence Reports’ on Journalists Who Published Leaked Documents.”
Ken Klippenstein, “The Border Patrol Was Responsible for an Arrest in Portland.”
Katie Shepherd and Mark Berman, “‘It Was Like Being Preyed upon’: Portland Protesters Say Federal Officers in Unmarked Vans Are Detaining Them.”
Charlie Warzel, “50 Nights of Unrest in Portland.”
Conrad Wilson, Dirk Vanderhart, and Suzanne Nuyen, “Oregon Sues Federal Agencies for Grabbing up Protesters off the Streets.”
Gillian Flaccus, “Judge Blocks US Agents from Arresting Observers in Portland.”
Richard Read, “Out of Portland Tear Gas, an Apparition Emerges, Capturing the Imagination of Protesters.”
I originally intended in late May 2020, when the spring semester was finally over and I had some time to finish “Spring 2020 Links (Pre-COVID-19),” to post one big link dump for coronavirus-related things. But the hyperarchival barrage of news over the past three months, including everything that has happened in the United States the past three weeks (combined with how little time I still have . . .), has made it clear that it would be better to divide posts into smaller, more manageable bits. So here is everything I came across from March 11-April 15, 2020. More to come soon.
Sheri Fink and Mike Baker, “‘It’s Just Everywhere Already’: How Delays in Testing Set Back the US Coronavirus Response.”
The New York Times, “Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak,” “Coronavirus in the US: Latest Map and Case Count” and “Coronavirus Tips, Advice and Answers to Your New Questions.”
IHME, “COVID-19 Projections.”
Katie Zezima, Joel Achenbach, Tim Craig, and Lena H. Sun, “Coronavirus Is Shutting Down American Life as States Try to Battle Outbreak.”
Coronavirus Think Pieces (General)
Laurie Penny, “This Is Not the Apocalypse You Were Looking For.”
Naomi Klein, “Coronavirus Capitalism–and How to Beat It.”
Frank Pasquale, “Two Timelines of COVID Crisis.”
Ian Bogost, “Now Is the Time to Overreact.”
Arundhati Roy, “The Pandemic Is a Portal.”
Anne Applebaum, “The Coronavirus Called America’s Bluff.”
Dan Kois, “America Is a Sham.”
I’ve moved select syllabi from the blog to my Academia.edu account. So if you’re looking for an old syllabus and can’t find it, look there or get in touch with me.
With the aid of a Course Development Grant from the Office of Undergraduate Studies, this past year I had the chance to develop a new course at the University of Pittsburgh, ENGLIT 1002 Critical Game Studies. As I may not likely get to teach this course anytime soon, I thought I would share the syllabus.
The course’s reading includes Tom Bissel’s Extra Lives (2010), Alexander R. Galloway’s Gaming (2006), Jesper Juul’s The Art of Failure (2013), McKenzie Wark’s Gamer Theory (2007), and many interesting critical essays on play, narratology v. ludology, gender, empire, countergaming, and other related concerns. The majority of games on the syllabus are quite recent, and indie games in particular dominate, including (but not limited to): Between (2008), Braid (2008), Depression Quest (2013), Goat Simulator (2014), Papers, Please (2014), Sunset (2015), and The Stanley Parable (2013).
Environmental
“Did the Anthropocene Begin with the Nuclear Age?”
Lyn Ringenberg, “A Dramatic Doomsday Warning to the World.” The Doomsday clock has been moved closer to midnight.
Hyperarchival
Jill Lepore, “The Cobweb: Can the Internet Be Archived?”
Alexander R. Galloway, “Network Pessimism.”
Environment and Apocalypse
Hamilton Nolan, “Doom Draws Nearer.”
Daniel Cech, “How the Apocalypse Would Happen if Heaven Were a Small Nonprofit.”
Robert O. Self, “Cataclysm in Suburbia: The Dark, Twisted History of America’s Oil-Addicted Middle Class.”
Emma Hansen, “From Nuclear Bombs to Killer Robots: How Amoral Technologies Become Immoral Weapons.”
The Hyperarchival Parallax 