Challenge for a Uni-Twin e-lab: Figures Of Play

Link towards the virtual meeting room of the e-team

ECCE e-team Figures Of Play virtual meeting room

Playing is a relationship

Our challenge is to experiment the following hypothesis:

* The imaginary and symbolical location of playing defined as a complex system is the in-between.
* In-between of the ago-antagonistic relationships in playing;
* In-between where the emerging phenomena generated by and while playing would be coming from;
* In-between as signs of division, ambivalence, ambiguity, hybridity in the representation of playing figures;

Where “figures” are defined as:

* Representations of gods, heros or characters whose attributes or gestures are symbols of playing;
* Anthropomorphic or zoomorphic representations on cards, board games, role-playing and sports accessories and emblems;
* Representations of players, played-with, played or played-for persons, of spectators and commentators.

The hypothesis would be validated if the in-between proved to be an essential characteristic of the representations, interactions and effects of the figures of playing after description and analysis in an occidental, possibly enlarged corpus, to wonder whether this element has cultural aspects or proves to be universal.

The domain in which the hypothesis of how the "in-between two figures defined playing" is a complex system, is the domain of Humanities, uniting Human and Social Sciences to Literature and Arts. The members of the e-lab are pluri-disciplinary researchers, specialists in History, Comparative Literature, Sciences of Education, Psychology, Law, and Philosophy. They aim at contributing to a “ludosophy” and at providing it with the descriptive and analytic tools of a “ludocriticism”.

Axes of research

Research will be organized into three axes:

Axis 1: Forms, sounds and images in the playing figures representations

Will examine the aesthetic and inter-medial dimensions of playful characters, their appearance, clothing and accessories, their attributes, staging and movement, whether in painting, sculpture, film, board games, video games or texts. It will examine and analyse the artefacts and material elements of games and playing;

Axis 2: Of Gods and games

We shall look at the divinities associated with games, playing and gambling in different mythologies, as well as the place of games in the process of divinisation, or at least the heroisation of a figure, as occurs in Greek tragedy or in the phenomena of 'starification' of famous players, for example, and finally look at the anthropological relationship between games and prediction of the future, divinatory practices based on card games or other types of games;

Axis 3: Payers, played-with, played-for and played-ones

Will study dentification and imitation phenomena, transfer relationships, great artistic, board games or sports players or played with, great played-for persons, winners and defeated persons, representation of beautiful or bad losers, of professional or amateurs, of free or addicted players.

A PHD and Research seminary will be held every two months. It will be registered and released on the Ludocorpus with the agreement of the speakers.

It will be asked to the participants a list of key-words and of the meaning they give them in an empiric, not normative, definition. These lists and definitions will be assembled so as to constitute a ludo-criticism vocabulary.

Communication, dissemination and promotion of research

A doctoral and research seminar will be held every two months, in person and simultaneously by videoconference. It will be recorded and put online with the agreement of the participants.

Each participant will be asked to provide e-lab members with a list of keywords and the meaning they give to these terms, as part of an empirical, non-normative definition process. These lists and definitions will be brought together to form a ludo-critical vocabulary.

Seminars on games were held in 2013-2014: "Le jeu dans tous ses états" and in 2020-2022 "séminaire doctoral pluridisciplinaire pour l'élaboration d'une ludocritique" as part of the GIS "Jeux et sociétés" at Campus Condorcet.

Two GIS “Jeux et sociétés” seminaries have already taken place in 2023-2024 and 2020-2022 in the Campus Condorcet.

The 2026-2026 edition will deal with the problematics of the ethics and regulation of playing, ie. of the existence, and relationships with, an inner or social protective, regulatory, liberating and creative instance of the homo ludens.

It will be opened to researchers, students and professional audience. Any interested person may join us after having contacted us and registered.

The seminar sessions will give rise to two collective works, once the papers have been reworked for publication and submitted for peer review. They will be published in French and in English if we manage to obtain subsidiaries for translation and publication.

The communication, diffusion and valorisation of the researches will be found on the Ludocorpus (https://ludocorpus.org) website and on the UniTwin e.labs website.

Scientific Advisory Board

The Scientific Advisory Board is composed of:

* Cooner, Donna, Pr, Université de Denver, sciences de l’éducation, écrivain, USA
* Kalezić Radonjić , Svetlana, MCF, Université du Monténégro, littérature de jeunesse, littérature et musique, Monténégro.
* Turcot, Laurent, Pr, Université Trois-Rivières, histoire, histoire des jeux, Canada.

Members of the e-team

The members of the e-team, by alphabetical order of their family name are:

Belmas, Elisabeth, Pr, Histoire, Histoire des jeux, Histoire de la Santé, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, France

Bloud-Rey, Céline, MCF, Droit civil) (Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, France

Chandès, Gérard, PR, Médiéviste, sémioticien, Université de Limoges, France

Collet, Pierre, Pr, Sciences informatiques, Université Andrés Bello de Vina Del Mar, Chili

Muxart, Virginie, Post-doc, littérature générale et comparée, éco-critique, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, France

Noyet, Boris, Masters en design digital et en sciences de l’éducation, Responsable de l’administration et de la valorisation de la recherche du GIS « Jeux et sociétés », France

Vion-Dury, Juliette, Pr, Littérature générale et comparée, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, France

The PHD students whose thesis are linked with the researches of the lab are:

Boudrioua Sarah, about « Les représentations symboliques des jeux olympiques », Architecture, littérature comparée et géographie, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord

Thomas Lauriane, about « Le joueur et son double », Littérature comparée et psychologie clinique, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord

Solon Yohan, about « le jeu et l’éducation », sciences informatiques, Université de Strasbourg.