Overview
This course examines how boy-love narratives are transformed across literature, comics, webcomics, animation, television, film, audio, games, and digital platforms. It treats adaptation as an intermedial process shaped by medium-specific affordances, industrial constraints, censorship, translation, localization, performance, audience expectations, and commercial strategy.
Students engage with theories of adaptation, intermediality, seriality, platform studies, and reception. Topics include visual and audiovisual storytelling, casting and embodied performance, soundtrack and affect, pacing, algorithms, streaming and global distribution, subtitling and dubbing, remakes, cross-cultural relocation, fan edits, transformative works, marketing, audience segmentation, and the politics of visibility.
Through comparative textual, visual, and industrial analysis, students evaluate how adaptation choices expand, constrain, sanitize, or reframe representations of gender and sexuality. Case studies encompass diverse regions, historical periods, genres, and production contexts, with attention to the distinction between fictional conventions and real-world identities and experiences. Students conduct evidence-based research and produce analytical and creative work supported by critical rationale.
Learning Outcomes
- Apply adaptation, intermediality, platform, and reception theories to boy-love media across multiple forms.
- Analyze medium-specific changes in narrative structure, characterization, pacing, visual design, sound, and performance.
- Evaluate the production, distribution, marketing, and reception contexts shaping adaptations.
- Interpret the effects of subtitling, dubbing, translation, localization, and cross-cultural relocation on meaning and representation.
- Assess ethical and representational consequences of adaptation choices concerning gender, sexuality, identity, visibility, and audience address.
- Synthesize credible scholarly, industrial, and reception evidence in comparative media research.
- Create a critical adaptation or analytical presentation that articulates formal, cultural, and industrial decisions.
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 | Comparative adaptation analysis | 25.00% |
| Assignment | Translation and localization exercise | 15.00% |
| Tutorial | Seminar presentation | 15.00% |
| Assignment | Research essay | 30.00% |
| Exam | Final examination | 15.00% |
Prerequisites
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.