Game of Thrones
The Iron Throne in Game Of Thrones HBO

Game of Thrones mania has reached University of Virginia!

The university is offering a summer course in the advance study of Joffrey, dragons, smoke babies, White Walkers, and the Lannisters.

The students will get college credits for studying HBO's hit series this summer, reported Vanityfair

Woolfork, an associate professor of English said, "One of the goals behind this class was to teach students how the skills that we use to study literature are very useful skills for reading literature and TV in conjunction."

Game of Thrones is popular, it's interesting, but it's also very serious. There are a lot of things in the series that are very weighty, and very meaningful, and can be illuminated through the skills of literary analysis," she added.

The students also take turns to lead classroom discussions, which touch on diverse topics including racialism, fan-fiction, gender roles and power, identity formation, incest, cultural allegory and, of course, good, evil and the grey area in between.

For their final assignment, students will create their own addition to the Game of Thrones saga.

"All of them have to connect in some way to how Game of Thrones has sustained itself as a cultural phenomenon," Woolfork said.

"Some are writing a prequel graphic novel; others are working on spoilers. Literarily speaking, it's a very diverse and rich text. It has lots of layers, lots of characters and it's very smart," she added.

Critics have called the book series "groundbreaking" and "genre-bending" because of its deeply layered themes of corruption, power, loyalty and honour as well as for its active international fan base.

The television series, which first aired in April 2011, has attracted a record number of HBO viewers, recently beating out The Sopranos for the all-time top spot in the cable channels ratings.

The show is rated 9.5 in IMDB ratings.

Unfortunately, this course is only available for University of Virginia students and, for the time being, only during the summer session.

Bet the students are saying, "Summer is Coming."