To introduce students to the work of key queer theorists concerning games. To develop students' understandings of the ways in which games, rule sets and digital systems relate and contribute to broader culture. To broaden students' ideas of the kind of games it is possible to make. T o support students' ability to create work that challenges discrimination and marginalisation.

(LO1) Students should be able to explain the relationship between queerness and play.

(LO2) Students should be able to identify the key themes of queer theory relating to games, including representation, community, failure, appropriation and power.

(LO3) Students should be able to analyse game design tropes and clichés and their role in reinforcing cultural norms.

(LO4) Students should be able to relate their own creative ideas to social norms and expectations.

(LO5) Students should be emboldened to challenge repressive and oppressive systems through the design of play experiences.

(S1) Students will develop their skills in thinking critically about societal assumptions and unspoken conventions.

(S2) Students will enhance their ability to present theoretical material through creative and descriptive expression.

(S3) Students will develop confidence in considering previously unfamiliar ideas and approaches.

(S4) Students will develop their ability to concisely convey the relevant details of a project or proposal.

(S5) Students will enhance their ability to take seriously the views of others of different and marginalised identities.

(S6) Students will develop the ability to recognise and understand the implicit meanings of cultural artefacts and media.

(S7) Students will learn to contextualise artistic features within aesthetic and cultural theory.

(S8) Students will develop their ability to work independently.

(S9) Students will develop their ability to identify and isolate relevant details of complex media works.

'Queerness' as an academic field includes much more than just LGBT studies. All topics on this module will be applicable to a variety of differences or marginalisations. Topics to be covered include: - Representation and utopia: what does a just world, or a world that is comfortable for those who are currently marginalised, look like? - Failure: dominant cultures often understand queerness as a failure to conform. Queerness, in response, celebrates this 'failure' as self- or community-assertion. - Queer readings: how marginalised people make up for a lack of access to the infrastructure of mass-culture (e.g. Hollywood, AAA budgets etc.) by reappropriating dominant narratives and iconography. - Fun, indulgence and consent: oppression is often a violation of one person or group's boundaries for the pleasure of another; how might consent and negotiation protect against this? - Growth and futures: personal growth requires passing through queer states in which ex isting understandings and norms are overturned; queering the design of experiences, especially those of art, can support this process. Each topic will be supported by one or more design exercises as well as set readings.

Teaching Method 1 - Lecture
Description: Introductory lecture about what 'queer' means and the terms of reference for the module.
Attendance Recorded: Yes

Teaching Method 2 - Small Group Learning
Description: 2-hour design workshops in which students will discuss some assigned reading and then, in groups, respond to a design prompt or similar creative challenge.
Attendance Recorded: Yes