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College Course on Marvel Cinematic Universe

Marvel-Avengers

Ladies and gentlemen of the books, check your course listings, for instead of Chemistry you could be earning credit for studying the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Right now you have to be a student at the University of Baltimore, but if you are look for “Media Genres: Media Marvels” at registration, you and your fellow classmates will soon be exploring Marvel’s modern movie legacy together. The course is believed to be the first of its kind in the country.

According to the press release for the course, “you will scrutinize the intricately plotted world of Marvel films—the Iron Man, Thor and Captain America series, characters from the Avengers, and now the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, which is widely expected to be the highest grossing film of 2014 [and] examine how Marvel’s series of interconnected films and television shows, plus related media and comic book sources and Joseph Campbell’s monomyth of the “hero’s journey,” offer important insights into modern culture.”

“One thing we’ll do is dive into the impact of the Guardians of the Galaxy film, which proved two things: Mainstream movie audiences are not remotely tired of superhero movies; and Marvel Studios can now release a sci-fi adventure that actually features talking trees and raccoons,” said course instructor Arnold T. Blumberg, D.C.D. ’04, an adjunct faculty member in UB’s Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences. “It’s not that they’re getting away with it—they’ve created a universe in which fans completely accept these developments, and they’re ready for even more.”
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