About the course

Storytelling is a way of understanding and relating to the world around us. It is a crucial means of communication and most of us do it all the time.

The aim of this course is for students to acquire knowledge about and understanding of storytelling in a mediatized culture, and how stories are produced and evolve in different media. Students also acquire skills in producing stories, in different media, and knowledge and understanding of how those media informs how stories are and can be told.

In this course we study how stories travel across different media and what happens to a story when it is adapted to a new medium. We also explore how whole storyworlds emerge and evolve. We do this through theory, the study of various cultural expressions and through students’ own creative productions.

We make use of contemporary theories to understand how stories are told and how stories adapt to a mediatized culture. We study theories concerning storytelling in a broad sense, and narrative theory tied to specific media, such as literature, film, graphic novels, audio and interactive media. We examine how different media express narrative structures differently and how a specific medium informs how the narrative is constructed.

During the course we study how different media play with and problematize narration. To understand stories, we also read, watch, engage with a number of stories in different media, and analyse them.

Students also produce their own stories, using material and technology appropriate for their story. Students are invited to work with a selection of media, which will vary, e.g. audio, video, comics, interactive storytelling and escape rooms.

Course content

Syllabus autumn 2024

Earlier syllabuses

Entry requirements and selection

Entry requirements

General entry requirements + English 6

Selection

Upper secondary grades 34%, University credits completed 32%, Swedish Scholastic Aptitude Test (SweSAT) 34%

Course literature

The First Module

• Abbott, Porter. The Cambridge lntroduction to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

• Adaptation Studies: New Challenges, New Directions. Eds. Jørgen Bruhn, Anne Gjelsvik, Eirik Frisvold Hanssen. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. ch 4-5

• Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. (any edition).

• Baker, Jo. Longbourn. London: Doubleday, 2013.

• Bordwell, David. Narration in the Fiction Film. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985 Ch 3-7

• Bourdieu, Pierre. ”The forms of Capital.” In Richardson, J., Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, Westport, CT: Greenwood. 1986. Ch 1.

• The Fan Fiction Studies Reader. Eds. Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse. Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, 2014. Ch 1,3,8

• Fernandez-Vara, Clara. “Game Spaces Speak Volumes.” 2011. http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/Game-Spaces-Speak-Volumes.pdf

• Fielding, Helen. Bridget Jones’s Diary. London: Picador, 2014. (any edition).

• Grahame-Smith, Seth. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: the Classic Regency Romance--Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2009.

• Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Adaptation. New York: Routledge 2006.

• Jane Austen in Hollywood. Eds. Linda Troost and Sayre Greenfield. Lexington: University Press of Centucky, 2001. Ch 2, 4, 5, 6.

• Kolbas, Dean. Critical Theory and the Literary Canon. Westview Press, 2001. Ch 2-3

• Pride and Prejudice. Dir Joe Wright. 2005

• Pride and Prejudice. Dir Simon Langton. 1995

• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Dir. Burr Steers. 2016

• Storyworlds across media. Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology. Eds. Marie-Laure Ryan and Jan-Noel Thon. Lincoln, London: Universtiy of Nebraska Press, 2014. Ch 1, 12.

• World Building. Transmedia, Fans, Industries. Ed. Marta Boni. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University press, 2017.

The Second Module

• Aarseth, Espen. “Narrative Theory of Games,” 2012. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2282365

• Cohen, Paula Marantz. What Alice Knew. A most Curious Tale of Henry James & Jack the Ripper. Illinois: Sourcebooks Landmark, 2010.

• Frasca, Gonzalo. “Ludology Meets Narratology: Similitude and difference between (video)games and narrative” 1999. http:www.ludology.org/articles/ludology.htm

• Greonsteen, Thierry Comics and Narration. Jackson, MS: UP of Mississippi, 2013.

• Jenkins, Henry. ”Game Design as Narrative Architecture.” First person. New media as story, performance, and game. Ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan. 2003. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2003.

• Lowndes, Marie Belloc. The Lodger. Any edition.

• Moore, Alan and Eddie Campbell. From Hell: Being a Melodrama in Sixteen Parts. London: Knockabout Comics, 2000.

• Rubenhold, Hallie. The Five. The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper. Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019

• Sugden, Philip. The Complete History of Jack the Ripper. London: Robinson, 1994.

Additional texts may be included in the course.

Course evaluation

The University provides students who participate in or who have completed a course with the opportunity to make known their experiences and viewpoints with regards to 

the course by completing a course evaluation administered by the University. The University will compile and summarize the results of course evaluations as well as informing participants of the results and any decisions relating to measures initiated in response to the course evaluations. The results will be made available to the students (HF 1:14).

Contact

For more information about the education:

K3student@mau.se

This education is provided by

Faculty of Culture and Society

At the Faculty of Culture and Society, research and education concerns many of the major issues of our time – for example those...

School of Arts and Communication

At the School of Arts and Communication (K3), we work with interdisciplinary education and research in media, culture and...