Skyrim course to be offered by Rice University

The Department of English at Rice University can help you get your Fus Ro Degree! (pause for groans) with their new course, "Scandinavian Fantasy Worlds: Old Norse Sagas and Skyrim," spotted by  Eurogamer. This seems to be part of a trend in offering courses based on pop culture franchises, for obvious, enrollment-based reasons.

"This course has two goals," the course description  reads. "First, it introduces students to fantasy as both psychological concept and driving force in gamer culture; and second, using these paradigms, it considers how and why medieval Scandinavia serves as a locus of modern Anglo-American fantasy. To these ends, students will read selections from Old Norse and Old Icelandic sagas (in translation) as they play different quests within Skyrim."

Now if only they'd offered a major in Thu'um back when I was applying...

Contributor

Len Hafer is a freelancer and lifelong PC gamer with a specialty in strategy, RPGs, horror, and survival games. A chance encounter with Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness changed her life forever. Today, her favorites include the grand strategy games from Paradox Interactive like Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis, and thought-provoking, story-rich RPGs like Persona 5 and Disco Elysium. She also loves history, hiking in the mountains of Colorado, and heavy metal music.

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