Coursera is offering a new free online course entitled “Online Games: Literature, New Media, and Narrative” to be taught by Professor of English, Jay Clayton of Vanderbilt University. I received several emails about this in a short time so I think this deserves a mention on the blog.
Interesting enough topic as it is but it does have even more relevance to our audience as part of the class will be focusing on LOTRO! Part of the assignments will include in-game interactive assignments. The whole thing sounds fascinating to me and I think it’s worth a look for any of you interested.
Course Syllabus
Week 1: Game on! LOTRO vs. WoW, or the history and theory of MMOs
Week 2: Tolkien and the romance tradition
Week 3: Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Ring trilogy
Week 4: Pwning Spenser’s Faerie Queene
Week 5: Space and time in virtual narratives
Week 6: Culture Guilds: Coleridge, Keats, and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
Week 7: The Holy Grail: A good end game
The course is scheduled for this July 2013 and will be 7 weeks long with expected workload of 4-6 hours per week. The course is free for you to sign up and participate in.
I’ve never taken a course from Coursera before (in fact I admit I’d never heard of them until I started getting emails from our listeners) but we are told is worth joining.
Hectoros Surefoot of Nimrodel sent us:
I warmly recommend Coursera in general to anybody who is interested in some fun, low intensity, and enriching opportunities to expand their knowledge. From Greek myths to multivariable calculus and sustainability to equine dietary planning, they’ve got it all FOR FREE from the best in the business.
So take a look, mark your calendars and maybe give this a course a try!
December 6, 2012 at 9:48 am
I need to see it. Maybe it could be interesting.
December 6, 2012 at 10:10 am
i joind and cant wait till it starts ^^
June 5, 2013 at 12:11 pm
Ive done quite a few courses with coursera and am signed up for this one
they want people to create f2p accounts on lotro ! noidea whihc server yet . Going to be interesting as I was for my sins an alpha tester on eq1 and have played mmorpg’s ever since .
December 6, 2012 at 12:35 pm
I did a couple of courses with Coursera and they’re great.
Also worth mentioning that there’s nothing to stop you signing up and just watching the videos you’re interested in or doing a subset of the assignments which take your fancy. Leastwise not on the ones I saw.
Sounds fascinating so I’ll probably at least get the videos even if I don’t have time to do it properly.
December 6, 2012 at 8:46 pm
Big Thank You for this! This seems extremely interesting! I signed up
December 7, 2012 at 12:12 pm
Looks like three of us are signed up. I know I did!
December 7, 2012 at 6:29 pm
Signed up here too!
December 8, 2012 at 4:46 pm
Add another to the signed-up list!
May 29, 2013 at 5:55 pm
Does anyone knows which game server will be used for in-game activities?