Wednesday, 15 May 2019 at 4:00 pm – Wednesday, 15 May 2019 at 6:00 pm
Games and Philosophy
Organised by the Manchester Game Studies Network (MSGN) at Manchester Met
Date: Wednesday 15th May 2019
Time: 4pm - 6pm
Location: Room 302, Geoffrey Manton Building, Manchester Metropolitan University
Tickets: Free - Just turn up!
In this seminar Dr Chloé Germaine Buckley will explore the philosophy of games and the potential of play to disrupt players’ common-sense perspective of the world. Various “turns” in modern philosophy, including materialist and speculative philosophies, suggest that humans need to think beyond an anthropocentric perspective. Instead of seeing matter and nature as passive resources for human conception, we need to recognise nonhuman vitality and agency.
Various analogue forms of gaming, especially live-action roleplaying games, produce experiences for players that accord with this ethical task. LARP might be a form of training, one which requires a willingness to “play the fool”, that chastens the destructive human will to mastery. In this seminar, Dr Germaine Buckley will challenge accounts of play that characterise it as a humanist mode, that place human agency front and centre: humans construct and deconstruct the world through play. In contrast, this seminar will suggest that LARP asks its players to account for the unhuman nature of reality, to consider that fact that it is the world that makes us.
This event is organised by the the Manchester Game Studies Network and the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies and ties directly to their work.
Dr Chloé Germaine Buckley is Senior Lecturer in English and Film at Manchester Metropolitan University, where she teaches courses on Gothic Cinema, Children's and Young Adult literature and supervise PhD research projects in various aspects of Gothic literature, film and popular culture. Chloé has diverse research interests within Gothic Studies. Her first book explores 21st century children's Gothic literature and film, but she has also written on Zombies, Weird Fiction, Postcolonial Gothic, and Witches. Chloé is a member of the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies and the Manchester Game Studies Network.
Manchester Metropolitan University is committed to disability equality. If you have any access requirements, please let us know via 0161 247 6740 or email us at lucy.simpson@mmu.ac.uk before you arrive to help us to make sure that your visit to the event is as enjoyable as possible.