Featured Courses

Course Information

• French - Special Topics: "French Theatre Atelier"
• MWF — 2:00 p.m. - 2:50 p.m.
• FREN 57003-001 (graduate level)
• JBHT 255
• Dr. Maria Comsa (mcomsa@uark.edu)

Course Description

This course will be taught exclusively in French—all readings, instruction and course activities will be in French. No prerequisites, but fluency in French is a must. 

Course Information

• WLLC 30303: Game Design (I)
• WLLC 303H3: Honors Game Design (I)
• MW 3:05-4:20 p.m.
• JBHT 255
• Dr. David Fredrick (dfredric@uark.edu), Michael Hall (mh150@uark.edu) 

Course Description

Learn the basics behind how games are made, how their stories are crafted, and how they affect players psychologically and emotionally. Students will engage with a variety of game engines (TableTop Simulator, RPG Maker, Godot) as well as creating physical board games to learn the basics of interaction design, game design, game narrative, worldbuilding, UI design, and how to make 2D and 3D game art assets.

This course does not presume any prior knowledge of game design software or coding. It is an interdisciplinary gateway course to interactive design, narrative, and visualization.

Course Information

• GREK 20103: Intermediate Ancient Greek
• CLST 30003: Special Topics in Classical Studies
• MW 4:35 p.m. - 5:50 p.m.
• JBHT 255
• Dr. David Fredrick (dfredric@uark.edu)

Course Description

Explore the world of Renaissance Venice with Erasmus while playing the historical video game Pentiment. Students will be immersed in the world of Renaissance Venice and gain hands-on experience in medieval manuscript creation.

Setting: A priceless Greek manuscript of the Gospels has gone missing! You must help track it down...

This course counts toward the concentration in Classical Studies, Digital Humanities, and Game Design. Students of Ancient Greek should enroll in GREK 20103 section, while students interested in Digital Humanities, Game Design, History, Classical Studies, and/or Medieval and Renaissance Studies should enroll in the CLST 30003 section.

Course Information

• WLLC 30703: Special Topics in Digital Humanities
• WLLC 5150V 003: Special Topics in Digital Humanities
• TTH 3:30 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.
• JBHT 255
• Dr. David Fredrick (dfredric@uark.edu)

Course Description

The course explores the construction of body, agency, and identity in a (very) select set of independent video games. How do you, as a player, come to feel "embodied" in these games, given a sense that you can do things... and are responsible for those actions? How does this player-body come to have gender and sexual identity (only 1?) through game narrative and mechanics--and is this sex/gender positioning open to question? How is a sense of a stable body-world relationship challenged? It turns out that these issues are closely connected with memory and the perception of causality. Finally, is there an ethical point to this? Contrary to the (dated) stereotype of video games as driven by violence and committed to a male, white, western player, these indie games construct a fluid, multiple, and (often) contradictory player-self-body. This class will address how this intersects with contemporary issues of environmental justice, inclusion, equality, and human rights, arguing for the increasingly important political voice of indie video games.