Archives

Fall 2020 Spring 2020

Board Game Design (GAMES-UT 352)

Board game design is a one-semester course for students who want to dig deeper into table-top games, from design to history to manufacturing. The first half of the course looks at the world of mass market games, which focus heavily on commercials, trends, plastics, licenses, low prices, and casual rules. The second half focuses on hobby games, designed for the dedicated game player, and the different styles of games in that world. The course is hands-on with at least one published game played in every class. There are multiple assignments where students bring these concepts to life through their own designs. Throughout the course, there is a focus on understanding players and designing games for a target audience.

Game Design (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2020)

GAMES-UT 352-000 (20568)09/02/2020 – 12/13/2020 Tue,Thu9:00 AM – 11:00 AM (Morning)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by

IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Media & Entertainment) Undergraduate
Spring 2020 Spring 2022

Games and Players (GAMES-UT 312)

Game and Players gives students an overview of player-focused approaches to understanding game play, from a variety of methodological and theoretical frameworks. The class combines readings and analysis with exercises that give students hands-on experience with the methods discussed.

Game Design (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2022)

GAMES-UT 312-000 (14777)01/24/2022 – 05/09/2022 Fri2:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Clark, Naomi

Undergraduate
Spring 2020 Spring 2022

Procedural Generation for Games (GAMES-UT 126)

“Procedural generation” describes the broad category of techniques by which elements of digital games that have traditionally been designed by hand (e.g. levels, characters, puzzles, and narrative) can be designed by automated processes. In recent years, these techniques have been a major topic of interest for computer science research as well as a core design component of many commercially successful games. The course teaches students to understand and implement these techniques and explore how to best combine procedural generation techniques with good design practice to produce interesting and novel experiences (rather than just using procedural generation techniques for technical curiosity). Emphasis is also placed on how procedural generation can uniquely harness the affordances of computers for designing games. The course is fundamentally practical. While students will study existing games and techniques, they will also produce games of their own across the three assignments.

Undergraduate

Class #
Section #
Meets

Class #: 15827
Section #: 001
Meets: MW 4:55-7:40p

Spring 2025 Spring 2027 Undergraduate
Fall 2020 Spring 2020

Introduction to Narrative Design (GAMES-UT 161)

Narrative Design is an advanced game design course where students learn a variety of strategies to bring together game design and storytelling, both in table-top and digital games. Every assignment covers a different challenge when it comes to integrating systems design with storytelling. Students also learn some of the basics of storytelling, such as character development, dramatic action, generating conflict, and world-building.

Undergraduate

Class #
Section #
Meets

Class #: 17376
Section #: 001
Meets: MW 11a-1:45p

Fall 2026 IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Media & Entertainment) Undergraduate
Fall 2020 Spring 2020 Spring 2022

Intermediate Game Design (GAMES-UT 151)

Intermediate Game Design is a hands-on studio class where we will be creating several game projects. The‬ main approach we take is‬‭ learning by doing,‬‭ where‬‭ we engage with ideas and each other through the act of‬ making. While we will be discussing all kinds of games, most of the actual design work will be in the analog‬ world – card and board games, social and physical games, and making presentations and documents. The‬ class addresses many core concepts relevant to any kind of creative production, including prototyping,‬ playtesting, and iterating; formal systems thinking; considering games as cultural and social phenomena; and‬ how to communicate and document ideas.

Undergraduate

Class #
Section #
Meets

Class #: 22102
Section #: 001
Meets: W 2-4:45p


Class #: 22106
Section #: 002
Meets: F 8-10:45a


Class #: 22107
Section #: 003
Meets: F 11a-1:45p


Class #: 22108
Section #: 004
Meets: F 2-4:45p


Class #: 22109
Section #: 005
Meets: F 4:55-7:40p

IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Media & Entertainment) Spring 2025 Spring 2027 Undergraduate
Fall 2020 Spring 2020 Spring 2022

Intro to Game Development (GAMES-UT 120)

Introduction to Game Development is a practical course that introduces students to the methods, tools and principles used in developing digital games. Over the course of the semester, students work alone to create a two digital prototypes or ‘sketches’, before building on them to produce a final polished game, using the lessons learned in the earlier prototypes. This is a hands­-on, primarily lab­-based course, and so the focus is on learning ­by ­doing rather than on reading and discussion.

Undergraduate

Class #
Section #
Meets

Class #: 17372
Section #: 002
Meets: MW 8-10:45a

Fall 2026 IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Media & Entertainment) Spring 2025 Spring 2027 Summer 2025 Summer 2026 Undergraduate
Spring 2020 Spring 2021 Spring 2022

Tackling Representation in Games (GAMES-UT 112)

Identity and representation are two of the most pressing and complex issues for contemporary video games, that without recognizing them an artist or critic would be missing a large part of how games are important in culture. With growing art and activist communities, video games are diversifying and grappling with a wide range of topics rarely seen before in the genre, and with it a greater need for informed perspectives on the topic of how marginalized people are depicted in media. This course discusses foundational theories of identity and encourages students to contribute their own ideas towards the design and interpretation of representation in games.

Game Design (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2022)

GAMES-UT 112-000 (14735)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by

IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Undergraduate
Fall 2020 Spring 2020 Spring 2022

Intermediate Game Development (GAMES-UT 121)

This course reflects the various skills and disciplines that are brought together in modern game development: game design, programming, asset creation, and critical analysis. Classroom lectures and lab time bring these different educational vectors together into a coherent whole; the workshop is organized around a single, long-term, hands-on, game creation project. At the completion of this course, the student is able to: 1) Describe typical work practice in game development. 2) Demonstrate competency through actual implementation of code and assets. 3) Work with a game engine, and understand the basics of how to build a game in the engine.

Undergraduate

Class #
Section #
Meets

Class #: 17358
Section #: 001
Meets: MW 11a-1:45p


Class #: 17359
Section #: 002
Meets: MW 2-4:45p


Class #: 17360
Section #: 003
Meets: MW 4:55-7:40p

Fall 2026 IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Media & Entertainment) Spring 2025 Spring 2027 Summer 2025 Summer 2026 Undergraduate
Spring 2020 Spring 2022

Game Design: Professional Practice (GAMES-UT 152)

Advanced Game Design focuses on the practical skills that working game designers need to get a job – and what they do at a company once they are there. Over the course of the semester, students work on two full project proposals – each proposal including design documentation, production and schedule planning, and a prototype specification. In addition, students take a handful of “game design tests” – based on actual game industry tests that are part of the hiring process. Along the way, we visit a few NYC-based game companies, as well discuss issues relevant to working game designers today. The goal of the course is to work on our communication, design, and planning skills, and get a sense for what it means to be a working game designer. Required: Intermediate Game Design.

Undergraduate

Class #
Section #
Meets

Class #: 15811
Section #: 001
Meets: M 4:55-7:40p

Spring 2025 Spring 2027 Undergraduate

Fame (MCC-UE 9346)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon

Fame, notoriety, renown – the desire to be recognized and immortalized — is the most enduring and perhaps most desirable form of power. Culture, commerce, politics, and religion all proffer promises of fame – whether for fifteen minutes or fifteen centuries. What is fame? Why do people want it? How do they get it? What can they do with it? Drawing on texts from history, ethnography, theory, literature, philosophy, and contemporary media, this course reflects on the ethics, erotics, pragmatics and pathologies of fame.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Fall 2025 Spring 2026 Undergraduate

Copyright, Commerce and Culture (MCC-UE 9405)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Tue

Examines the basic tenets and operative principles of the global copyright system. Considers the ways in which media industries, artists, and consumers interact with the copyright system and assesses how well it serves its stated purposes: to encourage art and creativity. Special emphasis on the social, cultural, legal, and political issues that have arisen in recent years as a reult of new communicative technologies.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Spring 2026 Undergraduate

Critical Video: Theory & Practice (MCC-UE 1142)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Tue

This course introduces students to critical video—the use of documentary, ethnographic, and research-based video to investigate and critique contemporary culture. Students gain a theoretical overview of documentary video, a set of conceptual tools to analyze video, and an introduction to the practice of video production for small and mobile screens. Students apply texts on video’s history, culture, and distribution, as well as the ethical challenges of video production, to their own, research-based video project. No prior experience required.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Fall 2025 IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Media & Entertainment) IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Spring 2026 Undergraduate
Spring 2020 Spring 2022

The Psychic Life of Media (MCC-UE 1105)

This seminar develops themes addressed in “MCC-UE 1009 Psychoanalysis: Desire and Culture.” The course expands and deepen understanding of core Freudian and post-Freudian concepts via texts by Melanie Klein, W.R. Bion, Jacques Lacan, Jean Laplanche, and others. These texts will be considered alongside a series of media-cultural artifacts selected for study by seminar participants.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2022)

MCC-UE 1105-000 (21640)01/24/2022 – 05/09/2022 Tue,Thu4:00 PM – 6:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Wolk, Shari

IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Undergraduate

Forensic Media (MCC-UE 1035)

What are the distinctions between facts, data, information, opinion, and understanding? Through what techniques of argumentation are these concepts discovered and/or achieved? Course introduces students to rhetoric—the art of persuasion. We explore techniques of rhetoric related to truth telling and opinion formation. We consider the significance of these activities to the city (polis) and matters held in common (res publica). Activities include participant observations of persuasion in courtroom settings. Optimal for students considering law careers.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2025)

MCC-UE 1035-000 (8119)09/02/2025 – 12/11/2025 Tue,Thu11:00 AM – 12:00 AM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by Moore, Kelli

Fall 2025 IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Undergraduate
Spring 2020 Spring 2022 Spring 2023

Crime, Violence and Media (MCC-UE 9012)

Debates about the role of crime in the media have been among the most sustained and divisive in the field of communications, and they are dependent on a foundation of equally divisive debates about “media influence.” This course will broaden this discussion to consider the culture of crime in relation to conventions of news and entertainment in the mass media, and its larger social and political context. Topics will include crime reporting, the role of place in crime stories, the aesthetics of crime, moral panics and fears, crime and consumer culture, and the social construction of different kinds of crimes and criminals.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2023)

MCC-UE 9012-000 (12446)01/26/2023 – 05/05/2023 Wed1:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Early afternoon)at NYU Paris (Global)Instructed by Wallace, Aurora

IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Undergraduate

Cultural Memory (MCC-UE 1413)

This course examines how cultural memory is enacted through visual culture in a comparative global context. It looks at the rise of a memory culture over the last few decades, in particular in the United States, Europe & Latin America, & how this engagement with memory demonstrates how the politics of memory can reveal aspects of nationalism & national identity, ethnic conflict & strife, the legacies of state terrorism, & the deployment of memory as a means for further continued conflict.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2025)

MCC-UE 1413-000 (8117)09/02/2025 – 12/11/2025 Mon,Wed12:00 AM – 1:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by De Silva, Weligama

Fall 2025 IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Undergraduate
Spring 2020

Hollywood Films and American Life (MCC-UE 1141)

This course examines the vast & rich myth-making power of Hollywood film narratives that influence dominant cultural views of American identity. Students view films that explore problems & promises of American culture & society such as equality, democracy, justice, class, gender, sexual orientation, & race/ethnicity. Students analyze films while considering the work of historians, sociologists, film critics, media studies scholars, anthropologists & journalists. Students will screen films outside of class. Assignments include creating a short film that explores the city where myths are both lived out & refuted on a daily basis.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2020)

MCC-UE 1141-000 (21565)01/27/2020 – 05/11/2020 Wed9:00 AM – 1:00 PM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by Gary, Brett · Demissie, Yemane

Undergraduate

Social Media Practicum (MCC-UE 1032)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed

In this workshop-based course, students will become well versed in contemporary debates on social media and its impact on self and society, share their own experiences and observations in this area, design an original research project (using methods such as discourse analysis, virtual ethnography, and interviewing), and write a long-form analysis paper.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Fall 2025 IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Spring 2026 Undergraduate

Fashion and Power (MCC-UE 9345)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon
Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon

This course examines fashion both from its diffusion in a globalized society, and as a form of communication and culture. We will examine how fashion has been valued through social sciences – history and sociology on the one hand, and economy on the other hand, from its production to its consumption. The course will address fashion in terms of issues of consumerism and sustainability in a post-industrialized society.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Spring 2026 Undergraduate

Disability, Technology and media (MCC-UE 1026)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon

This course examines the significance of technology to the definition and experience of disability; the relationship between disability and new media; the politics of representation; and debates between disability studies and media studies. Topics include biomedical technology; “assistive technology”; cyborgs and prostheses as fact and metaphor; inclusive architecture and design; visual rhetorics of disability in film and photography; staring and other practices of looking; medical and counter-medical performance; media advocacy, tactical media, and direct action.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Spring 2026 Undergraduate