Play Studies seeks to understand not only how the form of literary texts can be read as ludic, but also how scenes of characters playing (child’s play, acting, gambling, war games, love games) or the experience of reading can be described as playful and the implications of this for our interpretation of texts.

Exploring the role of play in literature is an emerging field encompassing media studies, philosophy, history, material cultures and gender studies. This workshop seeks to build on work by Patricia Simpson and others in material culture studies, as well as philosophical theories of play (Huizinga, Nietzsche, Schiller, Gadamer); educational theories of play (Basedow, Pestalozzi, Fröbel), anthropology (Victor Turner), and psychoanalytic perspectives (Freud, Winnicott) to understand the role of play in literature as reflective of broader themes, such as narratives of self-development (Bildung) and the agency of the subject. 

This workshop seeks to bring together academics from across disciplines to discursively engage with the topic of ‘play’ in German-language literary texts from 1750 to the present. Whilst discourse on the nature of play can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle, this workshop is especially interested in the legacy of post-Enlightenment thought in the long nineteenth century and early twentieth century for contemporary ideas of the ludic.

Together, we seek to examine the following questions: what rules do textual narratives set out, and to what extent do characters obey them? What are the consequences of defiance of these rules? How do characters escape from oppressive social structures, or otherwise daydream, create new frameworks for themselves, and develop? Can we read play as a quintessential human quality in opposition to narratives about machines or the nonhuman, and how does this help us to understand our relationship with AI and large language models today? Especially, can play be read as a subversive act or site of epistemic resistance (Colvin, 2025)?

We invite submissions of abstracts for 20-minute academic papers, shorter provocations, as well as artistic or performative responses.

Papers could address the above questions, as well as one or more of the following topics:

• Play as theoretical concept in literature and philosophy

• Scenes of play in literary texts and their broader structural importance

• The reception of play theories in literature

• Play as act of resistance

• Theatre (Schauspiel) as play

• Intertextuality and parody as play

The conference will take place in person only on the 11th and 12th of September at the University of Cambridge, UK. 

For submission, please share an abstract (no more than 300 words) accompanied by a short biography (max. 150 words) by midnight on 15 January 2026.

Please use this registration form to share your abstract with us. If you have any questions, please contact Elizabeth Ramsey (eher2@cam.ac.uk).

Organisers: Elizabeth Ramsey (University of Cambridge), Dîlan Canan Çakir (University of Cambridge) and Joseph Prestwich (University of London).

Contact Information
Dr Elizabeth Ramsey, eher2@cam.ac.uk 
Dr Dîlan Canan Çakir, dc945@cam.ac.uk 
Dr Joseph Prestwich, Joseph.Prestwich@cssd.ac.uk