Gender, Sexuality, and Popular Culture (371-0-20)

Topic

Playing With Gender: RPGs, Transformative Play(s),

Instructors

Emry Sottile

Meeting Info

Frances Searle Building 2378: Mon, Wed 3:30PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

Playing With Gender: RPGs, Transformative Play(s), and Queer and Trans Practice intends to provide students with a survey of queer and trans theoretical foundations and their applications to critical analysis of pop culture artifacts, focusing on digital and analog game practices as well as plays about role-playing. The course will lay the foundations via key queer theoretical scholars such as Bey, Halberstam, and Stryker, to present the lineages of quees and trans analysis and highlight how they can beapplied to the interpretation and understanding of games and play. These concepts will be paired with physically playing analog and digital games (such as For The Queen, one night, hot spring, and indie PBtA systems) and reflecting on one's engagement with these topics and their own gender journey.

By reading about and playing short-form tabletop role-playing games and video games with opportunities for trans play and representation, class discussion will engage with intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary discourses to examine how trans theory is mobilized in ludic spaces. Course readings will introduce students to an abbreviated canon of queer and trans games and potential weekly topics include themes such as trans representation in games, queer and trans embodiment in tabletop role-playing games, and trans dramaturgies and temporalities.

Learning Objectives

- Apply queer and trans theory to pop culture artifacts to analyze both the artifacts and how one engages with them
- Engage in forms of play via board games, tabletop games, performance, etc. in and outside of the classroom setting to interact with class themes
- Read foundational selections of queer and trans theory and develop a familiarity with interdisciplinary games' studies
- Better analyze and self-reflect on their experiences with gender as fostered through collaborative role-play

Teaching Method

Class participation, guest speakers (hopefully), participant observation, simulation/role play, writing assignments, readings, discussion

Evaluation Method

Lab / Class Attendance, Class Participation, Final Project (3 options, written essay & two more creative options), Simulation/Role Play, Writing Assignments

Class Materials (Suggested)

A set of multiple 6-sided dice (If you prefer real dice to online rollers)

Class Attributes

Social & Behavioral Sciences Distro Area

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Pre-registration is reserved for Gender & Sexuality Studies students