ENGL 385 B1: Issues in Popular Culture: Video Game Analysis

J. Cohn


Video Game Analysis:
How can you formally analyze, or "close read" a video game and why might you want to? This course will address these questions by exploring the various formal aspects of this medium and strategies for analyzing them. It will provide you with the basic conceptual tools and vocabulary of video game aesthetics and criticism. Each week we will focus on a different aesthetic aspect (including mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, sound, interface, controls, etc.) and play experimental, artistic, and historically important games that use these elements in interesting ways. The weirder the better!