9781800089617
9781800089600
Distributed for UCL Press
Playthings and Playtimes
Play, Affect and Material Culture in the Ludic world
An exploration of the global language of play—and its local accents.
There is an inherent contradiction in play: it is universal, a basic part of human nature, but it also takes radically different forms, shaped by the design sense, technology, and values of its particular time and place. This volume explores this contradiction through a wealth of engaging examples that bring play, emotions, and the ludic into dialogue with material culture, affect theory, psychoanalysis, childhood studies, and other fields. Topics range from playground architecture, plastic toys, and children’s magazines to the complexities of children’s play in a post-digital world.
There is an inherent contradiction in play: it is universal, a basic part of human nature, but it also takes radically different forms, shaped by the design sense, technology, and values of its particular time and place. This volume explores this contradiction through a wealth of engaging examples that bring play, emotions, and the ludic into dialogue with material culture, affect theory, psychoanalysis, childhood studies, and other fields. Topics range from playground architecture, plastic toys, and children’s magazines to the complexities of children’s play in a post-digital world.
Table of Contents
List of figures
List of tables
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
Seth Giddings
2 The state of play: an extended review of play theory
Hannah Field and Ben Highmore
Part I: Spaces
3 Miniaturization and ‘adulteration’: from H. G. Wells to Mike Kelley via psychoanalysis
David Hopkins
4 The curious place of the child in the city: the shifting politics of play in three playground objects
Jon Winder
5 Children first: Kuwait’s Kindergarten Community Units
Wadha Almutawa
6 The apparatus of postdigital play: playgrounds, games and building blocks
Seth Giddings, Sara Grimes and Darshana Jayemanne
Part II: Things
7 Playful deception: how children’s magazines turned youth into magicians between 1850 and 1950
Eva Van de Wiele
8 Gaming life from 1790 to the 2000s: moving pieces through fraught pasts into imagined futures
Megan A. Norcia
9 Constructive play, avant-garde art and the utopian imagination in Latin America
Jordana Blejmar and Erika Teichert
10 In defence of the plastic toy Meredith A. Bak
11 Digitized fidget toys and visual tactility in children’s sensory play
Bjørn Nansen, Jessica Balanzategui and Luella Nansen
Part III: Conversations
12 Grounds for play: a conversation about playgrounds
Wendy Hoddinott
13 Playing in the museum: the making of Young V&A
Katy Canales and Holly Tatham
Index
List of tables
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
Seth Giddings
2 The state of play: an extended review of play theory
Hannah Field and Ben Highmore
Part I: Spaces
3 Miniaturization and ‘adulteration’: from H. G. Wells to Mike Kelley via psychoanalysis
David Hopkins
4 The curious place of the child in the city: the shifting politics of play in three playground objects
Jon Winder
5 Children first: Kuwait’s Kindergarten Community Units
Wadha Almutawa
6 The apparatus of postdigital play: playgrounds, games and building blocks
Seth Giddings, Sara Grimes and Darshana Jayemanne
Part II: Things
7 Playful deception: how children’s magazines turned youth into magicians between 1850 and 1950
Eva Van de Wiele
8 Gaming life from 1790 to the 2000s: moving pieces through fraught pasts into imagined futures
Megan A. Norcia
9 Constructive play, avant-garde art and the utopian imagination in Latin America
Jordana Blejmar and Erika Teichert
10 In defence of the plastic toy Meredith A. Bak
11 Digitized fidget toys and visual tactility in children’s sensory play
Bjørn Nansen, Jessica Balanzategui and Luella Nansen
Part III: Conversations
12 Grounds for play: a conversation about playgrounds
Wendy Hoddinott
13 Playing in the museum: the making of Young V&A
Katy Canales and Holly Tatham
Index