Last year the online course-offering site Coursera featured a class called Online Games: Literature, New Media and Narrative from Vanderbilt University that focused on JRR Tolkien’s books, Peter Jackson’s movies and Turbine’s LOTRO. This year the course is returning and will be running from July 14 through September 1.
From the course page:
The course is designed as a university-level English literature class—a multi-genre, multimedia tour of how literature, film, and games engage in the basic human activity of storytelling. Our journey will enable us to learn something about narrative theory, introduce us to some key topics in media studies and cover some of the history and theory of video games. It will also take us to some landmarks of romance literature, the neverending story that lies behind most fantasy games: J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, a bit of Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene, and poems by Keats, Tennyson, Browning, and others.
The course is designed for any one who is interested in the topic – whether they are experienced MMO players or have never played a computer game. The course is free for anyone interested in learning however if you would like to receive a certificate for your work there is a $49 USD fee.
According to those who took the class last year, it is a lot of fun and very educational. One person on the official LOTRO forums wrote:
I participated in last year’s course and had a ton of fun. I met several new people … both veteran players I’d never known before and new players who only jumped into LOTRO because of the course.
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I did the course last year and loved it in fact it opened a whole new world literally, as I started a new character on Landroval. We now have a thriving Kinship there , The Courserrim and we welcome newcomers taking the course this year.
On the subject of the certificate, unless it has changed, you are able to download it and print yourself for free.
Players on Landroval who are interested in this course have several options for communicating with other players taking this course…
We do, as Jestro points out, have an actual kinship (Courserrim), and we do welcome players interested in the course to join our kinship. But we also have a facebook page (www.facebook.com/pages/Online-Games-Coursera-Lotro-Landroval/595484307162126) and a Guildlaunch website (courserrim.guildlaunch.com/) that welcomes all players, regardless of kinship affiliation, who wish to keep abreast of events on Landroval that are related to the course.
There is also a user chat channel (coursera), that is not password-protected, and has chatter not only about our community functions, but also about course activity while the course is in session.
So any Landroval players who are already members of other kins are welcome to use that FB page, website and chat channel if they are interested in the course activities, or just interested in joining our wider, cross-kinship community. The website has an ‘apply to kinship’ link on the left side, which you are welcome to use to join the website, regardless of which LOTRO kinship you belong to!