EAN: 9780262047838

PLAYING PLACE - CHAD RANDL GEBUNDEN

An essay collection exploring the board game’s relationship to the built environment  revealing
the unexpected ways that play reflects perceptions of space. Board games harness the creation
of entirely new worlds. From the medieval warlord to the modern urban planner  players are
permitted to inhabit a staggering variety of roles  and are prompted to incorporate preexisting
notions of placemaking into their decisions. To what extent do board games represent the social
context of their production? How might they reinforce or subvert normative ideas of community
and fulfillment? In Playing Place  Chad Randl and D. Medina Lasansky have curated a collection
of 37 fascinating essays  supplemented by a rich trove of photo illustrations  that unpack
these questions with breadth and care. Although board games are often recreational objects 
their mythologies and infrastructure do not exist in a vacuum—rather  they echo and reproduce
prevalent cultural landscapes. This thesis forms the throughline of pieces reflecting on
subjects as diverse as the rigidly gendered fantasies of classic mass-market games  the
imperial convictions embedded in games that position player-protagonists as conquerors
establishing dominion over their discoveries”  and even the uncanny prescience of games that
have players responding to a global pandemic. Representing a thrilling convergence of
historiography  architectural history  and media studies scholarship  Playing Place suggests
not only that tabletop games should be taken seriously but also that the medium itself is
uniquely capable of facilitating our critical consideration of structures that are often taken
for granted.

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