Personality is one of the courses that I have been most looking forward to taking this year and I must say it has not disappointed. The class has quite a lot of reading but it is completely worth it. The material is fascinating, fun, and thought provoking. Not to mention Tomi-Ann Roberts is a wonderful …
From Stage to Screen: A Musical Transformation
I sat in the Packard Lobby on a surprisingly comfortable blue couch that wasn't really a couch because it lacked certain aspects of a couch such as arm-rests and a backrest, but I digress. The reason I sat upon this not-a-couch was because we, the students, had been tasked to go and find a place to sit …
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Videogames, Aesthetics, and Culture In Review
As an aspiring Film and New Media Studies major, I did not expect to become so enthralled with the concept of new media or media studies. I begrudgingly accepted that I would have to take classes like Intro to Media Studies and Videogames in order to ascertain the title of “Film Major.” I showed up …
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Super Super Mario Bros.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1nhMHeIvH8&feature=BFa&list=HL1331104447&lf=mh_lolz For our latest project, two classmates and I collaborated on a creative project that combined game theory with Super Mario Bros. One aspect of videogames that I have found particularly interesting in class is the arbitrary world that the game-makers create. In this video we try to demonstrate the irrational goals and boundaries of …
Videogames, Aesthetics, Culture/Violence by Design
For the first half of class on Thursday, our class merged with the class down the hall, Violence by Design, to partake in a discussion that I found truly productive and enlightening about violence and culture. Overtly, the two classes could not be more different in the application of violence to class material. Even though …
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Not so different after all
On Friday after a shortened class of Videogames: culture and aesthetics, I stuck around Cornerstone 301 with a couple people from my class. From 10:30 to noon I had one of the most productive conversations about videogames of the block thus far. The discussion challenged my former assumptions of medium, especially the culture that surrounds …
Tot Terror!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1hzhHXiHdc Assignments so far, for those of you who want to read up on some gamer theory or try to beat our high scores! Readings: "Homo Ludens" by Johan Huizinga, "Man, Play, and Games" by Roger Callois, "the Origin of Species by Stephen Poole, and three chapters of half-real by Jesper Juul The Videoames: Space Invaders, …
The 4th Week: Retrospect
As my Islam class enters into fourth week, a lot of us are looking back trying to wrestle with all the information that we gained in this class. I would say this is true for a lot of students at the end of the block, but for us, it seems to be more so. I …
Locative and Utopian: The Peter Triangle
An important concept that has come up every single day of class is that of the Locative vs. Utopian worldviews. The locative worldview is something like, “I am in the place in society that I need to be and that is the way it needs to be. I can’t change it.” The utopian worldview, on …
The Sacred and Secular Histories
One of the questions that I find myself asking most in class is "Is this the secular or the sacred history?" This question is really, "Did this actually happen or is this what the members of the faith tradition believe?" However, this has become a very important topic as Islam has progressed through week two …
