Playthings in Early Modernity: Party Games, Word Games, Mind Games (original) (raw)
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The ERC Locus Ludi investigates the history and the dynamics of ancient ludic culture. Play and games provide a privileged access to past societal norms, values, identities, and the collective imaginary. People play all over the world and have done so throughout history, but they do not play the same games, nor do they assign the same meaning and function to play. Our modern western concepts of “play” and “game” differ in several respects from the Greek and Roman ones that this chapter attempts to define. . https://locusludi.ch/team-publications/
Sacred, Serious, Subversive. Literary Games and Poetic Competitions in Medieval Sociability General Introduction: “All the world’s a stage…” Conceptualising New Approaches to Play and Games in Medieval Society Part 1: Oral Transmissions and Cultural Transformations 1.1. Literary Games in the Carolingian Community: Generating a Group Spirit, Witty Wordplay on the Wondrous, and Understanding the Sacred Scriptures, ca. 700–850 1.2. Ludic Law: Transgressing and Strengthening Order, ca. 1100–1350 1.3. Mary, Queen of the Puy Play Community: Urban Poetic Competitions as Devotional Literary Games, ca. 1150–1350 Part Two: Codifying Rules and Norms 2.1. Of Kings and Queens: Literary Games Between Sociability and Education, ca. 1300–1400 2.2. Educative Games: Performance of Dialogues in Literary Games, ca. 1350–1400 2.3. Ludification and Normification: Towards a Social and Moral Didactic of Games, ca. 1300–1450 Part Three: Players and Institutionalised Play Communities 3.1. Literary Orders and Political Puy at the Paris Court: A Socio-Political Interpretation, ca. 1400–1450 3.2. Literary Games in Courtly Sociability and the Body Politic: A Cultural Interpretation, ca. 1400–1450 3.3. Urban Puys Between Distinction, Economy, and Spectacle: Literary, Visual, and Material Culture in Ludic Confraternities, ca. 1400–1700 General Conclusion: Game Over?
INTRODUCTION: Ludics-Play as Humanistic Inquiry
Ludics: Play as Humanistic Inquiry, 2021
This book establishes play as a mode of humanistic inquiry with a profound effect on art, culture and society. Play is treated as a dynamic and relational modality where relationships of all kinds are forged and inquisitive interdisciplinary engagement is embraced. Play cultivates reflection, connection, and creativity, offering new epistemological directions for the humanities. With examples from a range of disciplines including poetry, history, science, religion and media, this book treats play as an object of inquiry, but also as a mode of inquiry. The chapters, each focusing on a specific cultural phenomenon, do not simply put culture on display, they put culture in play, providing a playful lens through which to see the world. The reader is encouraged to read the chapters in this book out of order, allowing constructive collision between ideas, moments in history, and theoretical perspectives. The act of reading this book, like the project of the humanities itself, should be emergent, generative, and playful.
2021
299 10. A playful coroplast? A new look at the terracotta group of the early Roman board-game players NAM 4200 and related finds Maria Chidiroglou 323 11. Catacomb games: reused game boards or funerary inscriptions? Ulrich Schädler 349 12. Une tabula lusoria ou « triple enceinte » et l'inscription funéraire de Agate filia comites Gattilanis à Milan Francesco Muscolino III. Between literary fiction and divination 367 13. Plato plays Polis
Homo Ludens Ludens. Locating Play in Contemporary culture and society. 2008
2008
HOMO LUDENS LUDENS is an international exhibition and conference examining play as a principal element of today’ s world, and highlighting its necessity for our contemporary societies. HOMO LUDENS LUDENS sets the setting that embraces these data and looks into the notion of play in a wider spectrum, presenting how it has evolved in our digital times. Projects of a different character and orientation reflect play’s various expressions and roles: Play is being reformed and reversed; it embodies social and political acts and issues; it becomes a tool for activism; it mingles the virtual and the real; it revitalizes other disciplines; play can be misused and exploited; while stereotypes are challenged, questions are raised and different understandings are offered. So, what is play today and what about the player? The exhibition and conference can be understood as an examination of play as a vital element in our everyday life and as a speculation on the emergence of a Homo Ludens Ludens – the contemporary player of games. Artists: John Paul Bichard, France Cadet, Derivart, Devart, Ge Jin, Vladan Joler, Radwan Kasmiya, John Klima, La Fiambrera Obrera & Mar de Niebla, Danny Ledonne, Valeriano López, Ludic Society, Brian Mackern, Larry Miller, Drew Harry & Dietmar Offenhuber (MIT Lab), Molleindustria, Volker Morawe & Tilman Reiff, Julian Oliver, Hannah Perner-Wilson & Mika Satomi, Personal Cinema & the Erasers Martin Pichlmair & Fares Kayali, Orna Portugaly & Daphna Talithman & Sharon Younger, Marcin Ramocki & Justin Strawhand, Rolando Sánchez, Alex Sanjurjo, Gordan Savicic, Silver & True, Axel Stockburger, Román Torre, David Valentine & MediaShed y William Wegman.
1 Play at work: questions of historical interpretation
2005
This paper discusses the historical background of the use of ludic (play) technologies in managerial practice. It is an exercise in what Reinhart Koselleck called ‘the practice of conceptual history’. Contemporary organisations use play in multiple fashions. The paper revolves around several questions: is play a simple form of extended exploitation, work intensification, oppression? Or is it a manifestation of an emancipatory process? Is this kind of deployment of play in management ideologies new? Is it universal, or is it particular to a certain cultural and historical context? To try to interpret ‘play ’ is a guaranteed day-trip onto shifting sands. Play is a universal phenomenon but with no universal definition. There are games and humour, irony and sarcasm, gambling and tempting chance, poetry and theatre, role playing and masks, ritual and festival, carnival, dance, and trance, music and figurative arts, and so many other forms of playful imagination and expression. But none m...