Overview
This course examines the representation of hockey across novels, short fiction, film, television, comics, web fiction, social media, promotional materials, and fan communities. It considers hockey as a setting, metaphor, industry, and identity system, with attention to romantic, erotic, queer, and fan-created narratives.
Students analyze athletic mythology, team and locker-room narratives, rivalry, collaboration, celebrity, authenticity, masculinity, queer visibility, race, class, nationality, disability, gender expression, labor, commercialization, and institutional sports culture. The course develops comparative methods for analyzing characterization, dialogue, visual framing, adaptation, serialization, audience address, and platform-specific storytelling. It also addresses real-person fiction, parasociality, copyright, moderation, archival instability, creator rights, and ethical approaches to explicit or sensitive material.
Learning Outcomes
- Analyze hockey narratives across literary, audiovisual, digital, and fan-created media using precise primary evidence.
- Compare narrative, visual, adaptive, and platform-specific techniques across multiple representations of hockey.
- Interpret popular texts in relation to historical, industrial, social, and cultural contexts.
- Evaluate representations of inclusion, exclusion, identity, labor, commercialization, and institutional power.
- Apply theories of genre, adaptation, fandom, audience, and popular culture to sustained critical arguments.
- Assess fan production and community practices with attention to ethics, consent, copyright, moderation, and archival conditions.
- Synthesize primary texts and scholarly research in a coherent, properly documented research project.
- Present nuanced comparative arguments in written, oral, and multimodal formats.
Timetable
| Type | Length | Frequency | Period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lecture | 2 hours | Weekly | All semester |
| Tutorial | 1 hour | Weekly | All semester |
| Workshop | 2 hours | Fortnightly | First term |
| Workshop | 2 hours | Fortnightly | Second term |
Assessment Schedule
| Type | Description | Weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Assignment | Multimodal close reading | 15.00% |
| Assignment | Adaptation analysis | 15.00% |
| Deliverable | Fandom ethnography proposal | 10.00% |
| Assignment | Critical review | 15.00% |
| Capstone | Research-based final project | 30.00% |
| Attendance | Participation in tutorials and workshops | 5.00% |
| Test | Comparative media analysis test | 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.
