If only we devoured all of our required reading like we devoured The Hunger Games. We’re super jealous of the students at American University in Washington, D.C., because our literary dreams are their reality—The Hunger Games: Class, Politics and Marketing is being offered as a class at American this fall semester!
The course will be led by Stef Woods, a professor from the department of history who has previously taught courses on Fifty Shades of Grey (that’s a whole ‘nother can of… whips?) When Woods read Suzanne Collins’s breakout trilogy, she realized its themes—“from food justice to reality TV”—were ideal for the classroom, according to Teen Vogue.
Instead of analyzing The Hunger Games as literature (you know, “What does the arena symbolize?” kind of thing), Woods and her pupils will use the novels as springboards for topics of discussion including feminism, marketing strategies related to readership and Lionsgate's decision to try to stop Oxfam's Hunger Is Not a Game campaign.
Along with The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay, the class will read 40 other books, from texts on political theory to the feminist magazine Ms.
Although it doesn’t sound like an easy A, it does sound fascinating. We hope that other universities follow suit and start offering Katniss-themed courses as well, because we’d be happy to burn the midnight oil studying the gender roles of The Hunger Games (and, let’s face it, the relative merits of Peeta vs. Gale).
Would you take this class, collegiettes? Tell us in the comments!
