Overview
This advanced course examines hockey-centered erotic and romantic media as culturally situated texts and communities of interpretation. Drawing on queer theory, sports studies, affect theory, narrative theory, masculinity studies, fan studies, media industry analysis, and digital humanities, students analyze the relationships among competition, physical performance, intimacy, vulnerability, identity, and institutional power.
Topics include queer temporality, transnational hockey cultures, race and national identity, disability and embodiment, labor and celebrity, commercial romance publishing, fanfiction economies, platform governance, algorithmic visibility, censorship, and digital preservation. Students compare explicit and non-explicit representations through critical analysis without reproducing graphic material, attending to consent, negotiation, agency, and unequal power.
Research training addresses corpus design, close reading, discourse analysis, reception studies, digital methods, archival limitations, citation of pseudonymous creators, privacy, researcher safety, and ethical engagement with online communities. Major work develops an advanced research question, integrates complex theoretical frameworks, applies a justified method to a substantial corpus, and communicates findings in scholarly or public-facing formats.
Learning Outcomes
- Design an advanced research question concerning hockey-centered erotic and romantic media and its cultural contexts.
- Synthesize queer, sports, affect, narrative, masculinity, fan, and media-industry theories in sustained critical analysis.
- Select and justify appropriate qualitative, interpretive, archival, or digital research methods.
- Analyze a substantial corpus to identify formal, ideological, affective, and representational patterns.
- Evaluate how consent, negotiation, agency, embodiment, race, gender, sexuality, labor, and institutional power are constructed in selected works.
- Assess ethical limitations involving privacy, pseudonymous creators, online communities, archival gaps, platform governance, and researcher safety.
- Communicate original findings through a conference-style presentation and a capstone scholarly or digital critical project.
Timetable
| Type | Length | Frequency | Period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lecture | 2 hours | Weekly | All semester |
| Seminar | 1 hour | Weekly | All semester |
| Workshop | 2 hours | Fortnightly | All semester |
| Tutorial | 1 hour | Fortnightly | All semester |
Assessment Schedule
| Type | Description | Weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Assignment | Theoretical position paper | 15.00% |
| Deliverable | Annotated corpus and research protocol | 20.00% |
| Tutorial | Method workshop participation and exercises | 10.00% |
| Assignment | Conference-style presentation | 15.00% |
| Capstone | Capstone research article or digital critical project | 40.00% |
Prerequisites
- Requirement At least 30 points in 200-level arts or media studies courses
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.
