The Icon: in New Media and Video Games: Course Overview
Requirements & Texts
Requirements:
Short essays which will be
posted online (these will include at least one close study of an icon,
and at least one book review on a current book on new media), active
seminar participation, and a final paper/project of publishable length
and quality, which will be part of a larger class webproject on
icons.
Tentative Schedule
Although we will not be proceeding strictly chronologically, a likely scenario of how we might proceed is:
- Week 1:
- Week 2: Presentation on Icon: The Trash Can/Recycle Bin
- Week 3: Presentation on Icon: The Folder
- Week 4: Presentation on Icon: The Hand
- Week 5: Presentation on Icon: Letters as Icons: E for Internet
Explorer, MSN Butterfly, Firefox globe, AOL Triangle, QuickTime Q
- Week 6: Presentation on Icon: Speaker for Volume Control
- Week 7: Presentation on Icon: Health in Video Games (Meters,
Damage Modifiers on Appearance, Bruising in Beatdown and Blood in many
games; God Mode in DOOM-face; )
- Week 8: Presentation on Icon: Maps as Position-Icons in Video Games
- Week 9: Presentation on Icon: Solitaire Cards; Other Card Icons
- Week 10: Presentation on Icon: Zipped Icons
- Week 11: Presentation on Icon: Customizing Icons
- Week 12: Presentation on Icon: Shields for Viruses
- Week 13: Presentation on Icon: Emoticons/l337/text as image
- Week 14: Presentation on Icon: Helpers--Paperclip, dog, and in video games Navi
- Week 15: Presentation on Icon:
- Week 16: