Overview
This course examines narrative form, representational politics, and audience interpretation in boy-love texts and media across multiple cultural contexts. Students analyze novels, manga, manhwa, webcomics, television dramas, film, animation, fan fiction, games, and social media narratives.
The course addresses intimacy, desire, masculinity, femininity, gender fluidity, sexual identity, secrecy, disclosure, family, friendship, conflict, and belonging. Analytical topics include genre conventions, romance arcs, point of view, characterization, visual framing, dialogue, symbolism, melodrama, humor, adaptation, translation, market categories, and audience interpretation.
Using queer theory, narratology, feminist media studies, intersectionality, affect theory, audience studies, and transnational cultural analysis, students evaluate agency, power, idealization, stereotyping, racialization, class, disability, age, consent, censorship, and the relationship between fictional conventions and lived experience. Emphasis is placed on close reading, comparative analysis, scholarly research, and well-supported critical argument.
Learning Outcomes
- Analyze narrative and audiovisual techniques through detailed close readings of boy-love texts and media.
- Compare representational strategies across literary, visual, digital, and transnational media forms.
- Evaluate how narratives distribute agency, power, intimacy, and social belonging among characters.
- Apply queer, feminist, intersectional, narratological, affective, audience, and transnational frameworks accurately and critically.
- Assess the influence of production contexts, markets, translation practices, censorship, and audience communities on representation.
- Synthesize competing scholarly interpretations into coherent comparative arguments supported by appropriate evidence.
- Construct ethically informed analyses that distinguish fictional tropes from lived experiences and address consent, age, identity, disability, class, and racialization.
Timetable
| Type | Length | Frequency | Period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lecture | 2 hours | Weekly | All semester |
| Tutorial | 1 hour | Weekly | All semester |
| Workshop | 2 hours | Fortnightly | All semester |
Assessment Schedule
| Type | Description | Weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Assignment | Close-reading assignments (2 × 10%) | 20.00% |
| Assignment | Comparative media analysis | 20.00% |
| Attendance | Seminar participation and discussion preparation | 10.00% |
| Test | Practical audiovisual analysis test | 15.00% |
| Assignment | Research essay | 25.00% |
| Exam | Final examination | 10.00% |
Teaching Staff & Programs
This course is delivered jointly by faculty from the participating programs listed below. In line with the Douchewater Way, the University of Sexology tailors core instruction directly to each cohort's specific discipline — adapting curriculum to program needs rather than forcing students into a one-size-fits-all model. Learn more about our approach at The Douchewater Way.