Time Schedule:
Terrence E Schenold
CHID 496
Seattle Campus
Credit/no credit only.
Class description
"[Play] adorns life, amplifies it, and is to that extent a necessity both for the individual - as life function - and for society by reason of the meaning it contains, its significance, its expressive value, its spiritual and social associations, in short, as a cultural function. The expression of it satisfies all kinds of communal ideals" - Johan Huizinga
In 1938 Johan Huizinga advanced an argument about the cultural work of games that placed the human activity of play at the center of civilization itself, stating -perhaps hyperbolically- that "civilization arises and unfolds in and as play." Today digital games enjoy tremendous popularity in America as a form of entertainment. As of July 24th, 2007 the Blizzard Entertainment reported that its massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft surpassed 9 million subscribers worldwide, and that its new expansion to the game sold more than 2.4 million copies in 24 hours – more than any computer game in history has sold in its first month of availability. Computer games like World of Warcraft are becoming an undeniable part of culture with influence spanning from the fascination of specialized online game communities to the critical analysis of academic departments interested in understanding how these games can contribute to our understanding of sociality, narrative, ideology, virtual economies, and mediated communication, to note only a few fields of interest. However, the increasing visibility and significance of games like World of Warcraft is confronted with a commonsense view of games in culture that is almost antithetical to that of Huizinga's above: the playing of games is often marked as either an escapist pastime or active corruption of civilization. Within this uncritical approach games are viewed at best as tangential to the serious business of civil life, and at worst an impediment to or perversion of civilization. This situation has no doubt contributed to the lack of academic focus on them in the curriculum, or on the MMORPG as a particularly important game form in general.
This focus group will be an initial engagement with the question of the cultural value of "play" in the specific context of the MMORPG World of Warcraft. Grounded in a collective class experience of the game itself, the goals of the group are to reflect critically on the actual experience of gameplay, develop productive lines of inquiry out of those reflections, and to produce an online resource that will serve as a basis for further course design in the critical study of MMORPGs. The course will meet once a week for 2 hours to engage in guided discussion of game experiences, as well as online where we will collectively develop interests informed by critical readings.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
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Class assignments and grading
