Why is winter coming? Why does Jon Snow know nothing? And why is Littlefinger called Littlefinger?

为什么凛冬将至？为什么琼恩·雪诺什么都不知道？为什么小指头被叫做小指头？

If you're completely obsessed¹ with all things Game of Thrones then this might just be the course for you, although you may not find the answers to all the questions above.

The University of British Columbia in Canada has launched a new course for students which will examine George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire books and the hit HBO series.

'Our Modern Medieval: The Song of Ice and Fire as contemporary Medievalism' is one of the modules² English literature students can choose from at the university.

Students will be encouraged to "examine the role of the medieval in the popular consciousness of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries" as part of the course.

"Throughout the history of western culture, the medieval has been continually reimagined to reflect, as in a mirror darkly, the fears and desires of the contemporary moment," the website explains.

"For the writers of the Renaissance³, the medieval was the abject⁴ other from which the rebirth of classical learning had liberated⁵ them, while the Victorians found in the Middle Ages archetypical structures of Empire and class-orientated chivalry⁶."

Anyone looking to enrol⁷ on the course must have read the five books of the series so far and also be fully⁸ up-to-date with the TV series.