We haven’t seen a book, or rather a series of books, that has captured the world’s imagination like the Hunger Games Trilogy, at least not in the recent past. Well, you could argue Game of Thrones is more captivating, but it’s arguable. Now, the American University is taking it a notch higher.
The University has added The Hunger Games as part of the study material in the pop culture class where students will examine themes of class, politics, and marketing.
“In my curriculum, we’ll use the book series as a case study to examine larger academic themes,” says Stef Woods, an AU history instructor. “We’ll explore politics and class for (one-third) of the course, issues related to race, gender, food justice and feminism in the second third, and publishing, marketing and writing in the remaining third.”
According to The Independent, the class discusses how the series became a multi-media franchise.
“This class is not about reading The Hunger Games trilogy and watching the movies. On the contrary, we are only using Suzanne Collins’ books as ‘stepping stones’ to further enhance our class discussions about politics, ethics, class and marketing,” says Caroline Moore, a junior at AU.
Woods blends lectures, discussions, group exercises and guest speakers in the classroom, and students are required to read all three books in the trilogy, as well as 48 other sources, including journal articles, marketing studies and online resources.
“In last week’s small group exercise, I tasked the student groups with developing a plan to educate young adults — the book’s original target demographic — about the political and social justice issues within the trilogy,” she says. “The groups came up with some interesting ideas on how to teach middle and high school students about privilege, governmental control, the horrors of war and empathy.”