Ludic Cultures, 1100-1700

  • Ludic Cultures treats medieval and early modern play in all its innumerable eccentricities. Building on the work of Johan Huizinga, as well as that of Roger Caillois and Bernard Suits, these monographs and essay collections conceive of play as a phenomenon that extends well beyond leisure activities and child's play, finding expression in virtually every facet of cultural production.

  • A sixteenth-century painting of a group of well-dressed men and women, seated around a table, playing cards and gambling with gold coins.

    "The Card Players," after Lucas van Leyden, c. 1550/1599, Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.27. Public domain.

The series promotes the documentation of complex cultural practices that have thus far eluded traditional disciplinary models. These interdisciplinary works make visible varieties of thought and action that until recently seemed impossible to trace, while contributing to growing interest in what Huizinga once rightly called “the play element of culture.”

Keywords: Ludic, cultural history, social history, history of games and play, board games studies, cultural production, medieval and early modern games.

Geographical Scope: Western Europe and the Americas

Chronological Scope: 1100-1700

The series welcomes the submission of both monographs and essay collections that view cultures in Europe and the Americas between 1100 and 1700 through the lens of play.

Submissions

Proposals or completed manuscripts to be considered for publication by Medieval Institute Publications should be sent to Emily Winkler, the acquisitions editor for the series.

Publications

Cover of Playthings in Early Modernity: Party Games, Word Games, Mind Games: an early modern image of a woman and two men playing a card game.

Playthings in Early Modernity: Party Games, Word Games, Mind Games

By Allison Levy

An innovative volume of fifteen interdisciplinary essays at the nexus of material culture, performance studies, and game theory, Playthings in Early Modernity emphasizes the rules of the game(s) as well as the breaking of those rules. Thus, the titular "plaything" is understood as both an object and a person, and play, in the early modern world, is treated not merely as a pastime, a leisurely pursuit, but as a pivotal part of daily life, a strategic psychosocial endeavor.

LC Monograph 1, ISBN 978-1-58044-260-2 (clothbound), 978-1-58044-261-9 (PDF) © 2017

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