September 2026 Modules

Join Dr. Irina Manea on an amazing journey through Ancient Scandinavia, a true "laboratory" for investigating the development of human societies from the melting of the ice sheets to the dawn of the medieval world.

In this module, we'll explore together how a barren land, freshly exposed by retreating glaciers around 13,000 BC, was pioneered by resilient hunter-gatherers and eventually transformed into the seat of powerful Norse kingdoms. We begin with the Late Paleolithic foragers and hunters who settled the Norwegian coast by boat with remarkable speed, covering over 2,000 km in just a few centuries. We walk the road to farming, leading to a landscape defined by tens of thousands of megalithic tombs and the mastery of polished flint technology. Reaching the shining Nordic Bronze Age, we discover a period of expansive dynamism where an elite warrior class funded a spectacular culture of gold and bronze by monopolising the international amber trade and financing long-distance sea voyages. From the Tollense Valley battlefield to the ritual weapon sacrifices found in Danish bogs, we witness the formation of "central places" like Uppåkra and Gudme in the Iron Age, multifunctional hubs where powerful rulers controlled trade, religion, and the military centuries before the first true towns appeared.

Although best known for its Viking Age, Scandinavia boasts an enormously rich prehistory well worth investigating.

Week 1: Deep prehistory
Week 2: The first farmers: Neolithic Scandinavia
Week 3: Of art and war: the Nordic Bronze Age
Week 4: Secrets of the Iron Age

We will meet to blend learning, discussion, and playing games with reading, appreciating, and commenting on one another’s work as it is submitted for peer review. Writers are encouraged—but never required—to submit new pieces in any state of draftiness or readiness up to 2,000 words each week for peer reading and feedback. Our Collaborative Feedback method, developed here at Signum University, asks us to comment at the author's comfort level through a structured reader (not editor) response. We gather to encourage the story that the author wants to tell. Our philosophy of kindness first might just turn around your previous experience of writing groups.

Note: For more information about the Collaborative Feedback Method in SPACE, please check out our video here.

Unlock the secrets of medieval buildings—real and imagined! Step into a world of soaring cathedrals, fortified castles, sacred wells, and the fantastical architecture of Chaucer’s imagination.

In this course, we’ll explore how medieval structures were built, used, and imagined, learning to “read” their stories, symbolism, and hidden messages. From dramatic sieges to miraculous springs, from intricate stained glass to impossible fictional spaces, you’ll gain the tools to explore medieval architecture on your own, uncovering the stories that these remarkable buildings have been telling for centuries.

Course Outline:

Week One
• Session 1: The Temple of Solomon and Heavenly Jerusalem
• Session 2: A church for Saint James in the Field of Stars
Week Two
• Session 3: Under Siege
• Session 4: Chaucer’s murals and the Italian Trecento: Chaucer's The Knight’s Tale
Week Three
• Session 5: Chaucer’s The House of Fame
• Session 6: Reading Stained Glass at Chartres
Week Four
• Session 7: Sacred Wells and their Shrines
• Session 8: Reading St. Mary’s Church in Iffley, Oxfordshire
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This module explores the fourth book in the series: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020).

Series Outline:

What lessons do the Capitol and Districts have to teach us? What warnings should we heed? What road leads from here to Panem? Over the course of five months, participants in these SPACE modules will read and discuss a modern classic of dystopian storytelling, The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins.

In this hybrid series, each week will include one lecture and one live discussion. The lectures will examine the inspirations behind, allusions in, and questions posed by that month's novel. In live discussions, participants will share their insights on, interpretations of, and reactions to the story. Together we will consider why this series has spoken to so many readers and explore how its messages remain relevant today.

Students will be asked to read one book over the course of each month in whatever format they choose. All of these novels are available in print, ebook, and audio format.

(Warning: The Hunger Games series include descriptions - for a young-adult audience - of substance abuse, physical abuse, violence, and death.)

Series Outline:

• Module 1: The Hunger Games (2008)

• Module 2: Catching Fire (2009)

• Module 3: Mockingjay (2010)

• Module 4: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020)

• Module 5: Sunrise on the Reaping (2025)

This module dives into K-Pop Demon Hunters as both a pop culture phenomenon and rich site of critical inquiry. Blending fandom, performance, media industries, K-Pop culture, aesthetics, and myth, the course asks: what does it mean when idol culture meets demon lore? How do K-pop’s global circuits of production and fandom intersect with anime conventions, East Asian mythologies, and transnational media flows? Students will study the series as text, brand, and cultural event—moving beyond hype to examine the structures, production practices, and myths that make it compelling.

The module combines accessible theory and film analysis with lively discussion, close reading, and collaborative analysis. Guest scholars in East Asian Studies and Anime Studies will offer focused perspectives on mythology, media mix strategies, and cross-cultural adaptation.

This class is rigorous but playful—an experiment in taking fun seriously, and there's no need for any experience in any of these areas to take this course.

*Note: Please make sure you watch the film before this module starts.

Fairy Tales enchant us; they remind us to take a fresh view on daily life; and while many Andersen's tales are filled with sorrow, their beautiful and vivid imagery never ceases to amaze us. We will examine the works of Hans Christian Andersen from the perspective of creative writers, learning from this timeless storyteller. In one meeting, Pilar Barrera will lift up Andersen’s tales which demonstrate different themes or specifics of his craft. Then students work on their own stories, learning by experimenting with Andersen’s techniques. In the following meeting, Sparrow Alden will facilitate a workshop-style discussion of our original tale-telling work; we'll encourage one another as writers and appreciate one another as readers, then the cycle repeats. Our goal is to complete the month with a deeper appreciation for the tales we all love and a folder with one to four good drafts of original tales.

Course Outline:

Week One
• Session 1: Intro to Andersen’s Classic Tales
• Session 2: Writers’ Workshop
Week Two
• Session 3: Andersen’s Tales of Personification
• Session 4: Writers’ Workshop
Week Three
• Session 5: Andersen’s Larger than Life Themes
• Session 6: Writers’ Workshop
Week Four
• Session 7: Andersen’s Darker Side
• Session 8: Writers’ Workshop
*Note: For more information about the supportive Collaborative Feedback Method in SPACE Creative Writing, please check out our video here: Collaborative Feedback Method .
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“And there abide the ghosts of those that may not rest; and there wander the dwarfs and the mountain-dwellers, the dealers in marvels, the givers of gifts that destroy Houses…”

Over two months, let’s read The Roots of the Mountains by William Morris!

Ensconced at the roots of the mountains, the peaceful Dalemen are craftspeople, woodsmen and shepherds. Only the restless Face-of-God dares to roam beyond the safe confines of his village. In the wilds, he soon discovers his world is far from safe, as the Huns are poised to invade Dale and cast its people into slavery.

Taking up his sword alongside the beautiful Sun-Beam, Face-of-God vows to protect his folk at any cost. Only by bringing together the disparate tribes of the Dale do they have any hope of victory.

William Morris returns to the world of wights and shield maidens. An epic of bravery and sacrifice, imbued with a deep love of Norse myth, Morris revives the medieval romance tradition where true love endures against terrible foes.

Although they were never completed in his lifetime, JRR Tolkien wrote what he considered his three "Great Tales" of the Elder Days and intended them to be a significant part of his wider Silmarillion. These Tales are The Tale of Beren and Lúthien, The Children of Húrin, and The Fall of Gondolin. Some parts of these Tales can be found within the published version of The Silmarillion, but the more recently available individual books provide additional and extensive details for each story.

In this course, we will have a ‘read-along’ discussion of The Fall of Gondolin. Each session we will consider our close reading of a section of the story, examining Tolkien’s use of language and narrative structure, as well as exploring ideas about what each Tale tells us about Tolkien’s secondary world.

Access to a copy of The Fall of Gondolin will be necessary, and you may find having a copy of The Silmarillion very useful.