How some students wish if the time they spent on their play stations would earn them some college credits! Yes, the wish happens to be granted by one of the finest schools in the country.
The English Department at the Rice University is introducing a course titled, "Scandinavian Fantasy Worlds: Old Norse Sagas and Skyrim," which aims at teaching the students, the psychological aspect of fantasy in gaming culture and uses the heavily popular 'Skyrim' in its attempt to draw the parallel.
The Elder Scrolls Series is an action role-playing open world video game developed by Bethesda, whose latest instalment 'Skyrim' was a huge critical and commercial success, shipping over 7 million copies to retailers within the first week of release.
The students enrolling in the course will also learn how the Scandinavian folklore is being used as a platform on which the modern Anglo-American game mythologies are built.
In addition, they will also read certain translated excerpts from Old Norse and Old Icelandic sagas while indulging in different quests within Skyrim. It will also enable the students to identify the moments of intersection between the universe of these sagas and that of skyrim, consisting challenging and unmerciful environments, supernatural figures, mythologies and so on.
The description on the course reads:
"The purpose of establishing these connections is to then consider how elements of medieval Scandinavian culture have been taken out of historical milieu and literary context, morphed into unfamiliar shape, and appropriated towards other fantastic pursuits."
The instructors of the course, Ellard and Donna Beth will consider the political saga of skyrim with special emphasis on Empire and rebellion to help students better understand the Scandinavian fantasy world and how they are in sync with modern Anglo-American gaming culture.
The course has very limited seats and the university has asked the interested students to approach the English department sooner so that not to lose out on the opportunity to do some dragon-slaying and venture into the wilderness of skyrim!
