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.