SYLLABUS FOR

RELIGION AT PLAY (last taught 2023)

DAY 1.

Please read “The Nature of Play” by Thomas Henricks, American Journal of Play, Fall 2008. Try to answer the question implied in his title: What is the nature of play? Can you see some connections with religion, religious life, or things that are "like" religion in his description of play? (Optional: Read this short interview with Eric Zimmerman about play.)

DAY 2.

For this class, we will think about the origins of games and about their ancient relationship with religion. Here is a short reading about the origins of Go: “A Short Introduction to the World’s Oldest, Simplest, and Most Complex Game.” from Go! More Than a Game, by Peter Shotwell (x-xii, 1-6). We will try to play Go in class.  

Skim/do your best with this piece about the origins of board games: Flanagan, Mary. “Board Games” from Critical Play: Radical Game Design, 2009 (63-116). Long read.

There is also this short piece that I wrote about religion and play: Wagner, Rachel. “The Importance of Playing in Earnest.” In Playing with Religion in Digital Games. Heidi Campbell and Greg Grieve, eds. 2014.  

And there is this introduction to religion and board games: Bado-Fralick, Nikki and Rebecca Sachs Norris. “Let the Games Begin.” In Toying with God: The World of Religious Games and Dolls. Baylor University Press, 2010.

DAY 3.

For this class, we will think about definitions—not so we can pin down religion and games, but so we know more about what is at stake in trying to do so. Read a selection from Thomas Tweed’s book Religion: A Very Short Introduction, 1-31. Also read the brief exploration, from gamer studies scholars Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, about defining games in Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals (71-83). And finally, there is a short piece about “dark play” from The Future of Ritual by Richard Schechner (24-44).

DAY 4.

Read “The Stories We Play” from my book Godwired: Religion, Ritual and Virtual Reality. Also work through what you can of an excerpt from Ian Bogost's Persuasive Games (preface and chapter 1 on “procedural rhetoric,” which is a tool you will need to be able to apply in analysis). When you have finished, try out The Bible Retold (an interactive fiction game about the life of Jesus). Write a paragraph or two about the "game" and its relationship to biblical narrative (or choose one of the examples below and talk about that considering the material from Godwired and Bogost's notion of “procedural rhetoric”). 

If you have time and interest, I recommend looking at this piece about interactive fiction, based on a reading of Dante's Inferno. It's an academic piece talking about how interactive fiction works. Really useful. It's called "All Hope Abandon: Biblical Text and Interactive Fiction" by Eric Eve. 

Here's a list of religious IF games put together by a user (and writer) named Brian Rushton. For example: Cana According to Micah; Queer in Public; Hunger Daemon; Ironheart; Gris et Jaune; Vespers; Bellclap; Tenth Plague.

DAY 5.

Read “The Games We Pray” from Godwired: Religion, Ritual and Virtual Reality. Also read “Narrative, Interactivity, Play and Games: Four Naughty Concepts in Need of Discipline” by Eric Zimmerman from First Person : New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. 2004. Read chapter 1: “The Nature and Significance of Play as a Cultural Phenomenon” by Johan Huizinga, in Homo Ludens. This is the classic starting place for contemporary gaming studies. First published in 1938!). Skim it, dip in, try to find the places where he talks about religion and play. Why do you think the book has staying power despite its age?

Here's the game board for The Wandering Jew. Look up information about this offensive legend and the game associated with it. Steam has a game based on the Ramayana. Take a look at the previews.

What is a ritual-game-story thing? Why do these three things show up so often together? 

DAY 6.

ESSAY. Please write a brief (minimum two page) introduction about the relationship between games and religion, focusing on the history of games, drawing on other material from our reading as you see fit. Please include a few choice quotes, but place these in the context of your own introduction. Imagine you are explaining to the average person why thinking about games and religion together is not so strange after all. 

DAY 7:

WARNING: This week we are turning to a consideration of violence, both real and representational. We will return to this in our discussion of ritual later on. Please take care of yourselves if this is especially sensitive for you, and it is likely to be sensitive for all of us. 

Today we switch gears abruptly to think about what happens when games are not fun and were not meant to be fun. I will bring in my copy of the documentary Playing Columbine and we will watch it (so no need to try to find it online, and I'm not even sure if you still can).

What you can do in preparation is watch another documentary about video gaming like Video Games: The Movie (2014) or Indie Game: The Movie (2012, on Amazon), or Not a Game (2020, on Netflix) or High Score (2020, also on Netflix). If you choose High Score, it is a short series, so watch all four episodes!

Then spend some time learning about the controversy around Danny LeDonne's film (Playing Columbine) and game (Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, i.e. SCMRPG!) from online sources. We will be able to see the game in-play during class, but you can also find videos of it being played on YouTube. Another game that has sparked concerns about violence is Modern Warfare 2. Here is an article about the controversy.

Another documentary that has raised difficult questions is Spencer Halpin's Moral Kombat (2009, apparently no longer available). However, you can learn something about it from this discussion by Henry Jenkins.

When you have finished, reflect on what any of this might have to do with religion. Also, then, reflect on what or where "play" exists in violent video games.

DAY 8.

Before class today, please read these two chapters from Cowboy Apocalypse: Religion and the Myth of the Vigilante Messiah: “Eat Leaden Death, Demon!” and “The NRA in the Game.”

What does violence have to do with play? Where is the religion here? And what the heck are humans up to? Why do we make these things? Why are these the experiences we want? I will introduce Violence and the Sacred by Rene Girard as a way of thinking about virtual violence, and we will talk about whether or not it makes sense to see virtual violence (mimetic violence) as preventative of real violence.

If you have time and can find it online in emulated form, you might play a little of Wolfenstein 3D and/or Doom. Here is an article where one Christian wonders if Christians should be playing Doom. Note: There is a very disturbing Doom mod (video about it) about the Christchurch mosque shootings. Watch with care and be ready to analyze.

DAY 9.

We turn now to more concrete consideration of the "magic circle" (and next week, to its affiliate concepts, liminality and ritual). Please return to Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens again (see Day 5, above). Skim, dip, and find the spots where he talks about places “set apart.” Also read:

· Plate, S.B. “Religion is Playing Games: Playing Video Gods, Playing to Play.” Religious Studies and Theology. 29:2. 2010. 215-230.

· Stenros, Jaako. “In Defence of a Magic Circle: The Social and Mental Boundaries of Play.” Proceedings of DiGRA Nordic 2012 Conference: Local and Global – Games in Culture and Society.

When you have finished, see if you can tell why this concept is so important in thinking about games and in thinking about religion, but also in thinking about BOTH TOGETHER. Do religious events have a magic circle around them? We seem comfortable enough looking at games as rituals, but can (should?) we look at religion as game-like? Under what conditions? 

In class we can try Deisim, a VR game where the player controls a whole created world from the position of a godhead. 

DAY 10.

We continue with the magic circle today. 

  • Salen, K., & Zimmerman, E. (2005). "Game Design and Meaningful Play." In J. Raessens & J. Goldstein (Eds.), Handbook of computer game studies (pp. 59-79). MIT Press. This piece talks about Huizinga in the context of contemporary gamer theory. 

  • Zimmerman, Eric. "Jerked Around by the Magic Circle - Clearing the Air Ten Years Later." Game Developer. This short piece cracks me up. Zimmerman explains why the concept is useful, even it if it not perfect (and anyway, theory is not about forcing things into categories but using tools to help us think better). 

Read the basic intro to the magic circle from Salen and Zimmerman's Rules of Play. 

Below are several other pieces that are part of this contentious conversation.

  • "Critical Potential on the Brink of the Magic Circle” by Cindy Poremba (one of my all time favorites) 

  • "There Is No Magic Circle” by Mia Consalvo (she complains about the concept, but in a very scholarly way)

  • "Shooting Aliens in Cathedrals" by Rachel Wagner from Understanding Religion and Popular Culture (Routledge, 2012). I look at the example of shooting aliens in Manchester Cathedral in the videogame Resistance: Fall of Man and the hubbub it caused. This is a good example of the magic circle problem, and I'll likely refer to it in class, if not this week then next. 

When you have finished, ask yourself if this fuller exploration of the magic circle impacts your view about SCMRPG! We will check out another shooting game in class, based on Wolfenstein 3D.  (Super 3d Noah’s Ark, which was based on the Wolfenstein engine)

DAY 11.

Essay Day: Please write a brief (2-3 page) essay about play as a foundational idea in the study of religion and play. Incorporate other ideas as these are helpful to you, such as: interactivity; ritual and/as play; narrativity; and procedural rhetoric. Please include a few choice quotes, but place these in the context of your own assertions. Imagine you are explaining to the average person what play is, and how it is essential in making sense of religion/play/games. Incorporate details from at least a few of the games you have played as examples of the concepts you cover. 

DAY 12.

Play Monument Valley (Part 1, 2014). This game is available on Google Play and as an app on the Apple Store ($3.99). You can play it on your smartphone or on a tablet. (recommended)

When you have finished, describe what is "religious" (if anything) about this game. 

DAY 13.

Today we are thinking about sacred space and ritual. Please read the first chapter from Mircea Eliade's The Sacred and the Profane. (You may want to look over the second chapter on myth and ritual also, if it interests you). Do pay attention to key terms that Eliade uses, like hierophany, imago mundi, axis mundi, sacred and profane. 

Here is a piece by ritual theorist Jonathan Z. Smith in (imaginary) conversation with Eliade, called “The Wobbling Pivot” by Jonathan Z. Smith. The Journal of Religion, Apr., 1972, Vol. 52, No. 2. (134-149).

Write about how sacred space is reflected (or not) in virtual reality.

For some examples of these concepts, consider:

DAY 14.

Here is another ritual theorist, Ronald Grimes, in (imaginary) conversation with Jonathan Z. Smith about his (imaginary) conversation with Eliade, called "Putting Space In Its Place," a chapter in Rite Out of Place: Ritual, Media, and the Arts, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2006.

  • Grimes refers to an important short ritual piece by Jonathan Z. Smith, “The Bare Facts of Ritual,” in Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), pp. 53-65, 143-5 (notes).

  • “The Ritual Form” by Roy Rappaport, one of my favorite ritual theorists when thinking about videogames. In Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity, Cambridge University Press, 1999.

  • “This Is Not a Game: Violent Video Games, Sacred Space, and Ritual” by Rachel Wagner. Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 15, Issue 1, 2014.

We will look at and try out some VR sacred spaces (like this recommended game/virtual visit: The Holy City VR). Please write about what you think Eliade, Grimes, and Jonathan Z. Smith are arguing with each other about. Or, if you prefer, apply some of these theories about sacred space to a videogame of your choosing.  Here is a link to a video demo of The Holy City VR.

DAY 15.

  • “Can There be Play in Ritual? Reflections on the Nature of Ritual.” By Johannes Bronkhorst in: Religions in Play. Games, Rituals and Virtual Worlds. Ed. Philippe Bornet & Maya. 2012. 161-175.

  • “The Obvious Aspects of Ritual” by Roy Rappaport in Readings in Ritual Studies, ed. Ronald Grimes.

  • “A Performative Approach to Ritual” by Stanley Tambiah, in Readings in Ritual Studies, ed. Ronald Grimes.

The goal is to consider what do we learn, if anything, by using ritual to think about video games? What questions does doing so enable us to ask? What features or qualities of games does ritual theory invite us to consider?

DAY 16.

We will read excerpts from Reality Is Broken by Jane McGonigal. Also read “Creating Critical Play” by Mary Flanagan.

When you have finished, see if you think they are saying similar things or quite different things. Is reality broken? What is "critical play?" (Was McGonigal too optimistic about what game play can do?)

Other things worth looking at, given what is happening in Israel-Palestine. Trigger warning for all.

I'm wondering if videogames (and the scenarios they propose, and the structures those scenarios allow) play a role in shaping how real people think about real war. 

We are sliding into “real-life” games now. Is this still “play?”

DAY 17.

  • Read chapter 1, “Living in the Imagination” by Michael Saler, from his book As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary PreHistory of Virtual Reality.

  • Read “Worlds within the World” by Mark J.P. Wolf from Building Imaginary Worlds (this is quite long).

Few scholars yet apply the emerging field of worldbuilding studies to video games. I think they should. What do you think? (Interestingly, Mark J.P. Wolf is a well-known scholar of videogames). 

DAY 18. ESSAY.

Salen and Zimmerman say in their essay "Game Design and Meaningful Play" that: "Meaningful play emerges from the interaction between players and the system of the game, as well as from the context in which the game is played. Understanding this interaction helps us to see just what is going on when a game is played" (60). Please write a short essay in which you explore the notion of meaningful play (especially as it has to do with religion) considering at least one game we have studied and including at least three theorists. I'd hope to see reference to the magic circle; ritual theory; sacred space; and play (as a theoretical concept). What makes play meaningful? Essays should be 2-3 pages (longer is OK). 

DAY 19. Satanic Panic. Role-play and religion.

  • “A Real Little Game” by Jane McGonigal.

  • “Introduction: Fantasy and Reality” in Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic Over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds. Joseph P. Laycock.

  • “Designing Social Expansion” by Markus Montola, Jaakko Stenros, and Annika Waern. In Pervasive Games, 2009 (117-129).

When you are done, ask yourself about the relationship between immersion and belief. Are these the same thing? Related things? Completely different things? 

DAY 20. Please read:

When you have finished, ask yourself in what ways religion is (or acts like) a pervasive game. Is this a dangerous proposition?

DAY 21.

Today, we will play Dungeons and Dragons. If you want, watch a video about how to play. If you haven't yet read the material from last week about Dungeons and Dragons, read it now.

For writing, respond AFTER class and tell me what Satanic panic is. Then reflect on your playing (or DMing) experience through the eyes of someone afraid of its Satanic influence. What can you say about this fear using our tools (magic circle, Gary Alan Fine's frames, procedural rhetoric, pervasive play, immersion, worldbuilding, belief, make-belief and make-believe, props, sacred/profane, secondary and primary worlds, etc.)?

DAY 22.

Please read another chapter from Joseph Laycock's Dangerous Games, “Dungeons and Dragons as Religious Phenomenon.” U. of California Press, 2015.

Is Dungeons and Dragons a religious phenomenon? What does it mean to call it one? What did you learn, if anything, from playing D & D in the context of this class on Tuesday? 

DAY 23.

Please read these articles about larping and religion, outlining some of the key intersections:

What questions come up when thinking about larping and religion together, according to these authors?

DAY 24. Look at this creepy larp: “Speak Through Me.”

What are some of the dangers of larping? How do these dangers intersect with religion?

Here's more about the larp Totem. 

DAY 25.

I'd like you to review/reread the materials from last week. There is plenty to talk about!

Here are a few more things about “bleed:”

Write about the significance of “bleed” for religious larping. 

DAY 26.

  • Read “Rhetorics and Mechanics of Player Safety” by Michal Mochocki. Rhetorics and Mechanics of Player Safety in the Nordic-American Larp Discourse. December 2020. Homo Ludens 1(13):179-202.

  • Also read “Prosopopeia—Playing on the Edge of Reality,” about a deeply immersive pervasive larp. 

If you want to explore more, below are some free books about larping. Dip in, scan, see what you find that helps us with our consideration of what the dangers of larping are as a mode of playing religion. For today, write your initial thoughts on that. You can write whatever comes up for you on the relation between religion and larping. Here are some books about larping and developing theory:

DAY 27.

ESSAY. Please use the tools we have been developing to analyze the table-top role-play game Dungeons and Dragons as a form of play with religious implications. What are those implications? Does it depend on who is considering the question?

Use the basic theoretical tools we have considered (magic circle, Gary Alan Fine's frames, procedural rhetoric, pervasive play, immersion, worldbuilding, belief, make-belief and make-believe, props, sacred/profane, secondary and primary worlds, TINAG, props, etc.) to analyze how and why some people see Dungeons and Dragons as a real threat and others do not. What is going on? How can understanding the intersections between religion and play help us explain it?

Yes, you can refer to your own experience playing the game and write a conversational style essay. But you must also have sufficient quotes and resources to explain and/or back up your claims! If your group looked at a Christian role-play game, also talk about that! If you looked at authors terrified of D & D, also use those sources (quote them)! Imagine you've been asked by The Atlantic to write an essay for them about Dungeons and Dragons along these lines, and write for that generalized, smart audience. Tell them what they need to understand. And have an informed opinion.  

DAY 28.

For these last two weeks, we explore the relationship between religion, play, and artificial intelligence. AI (as manifested in chatbots and robots) can be considered part role-play, and it also can be read as a form of human play by those who create the bots. There is also play involved in interaction with the bots, including religious ones (check out Twitch Jesus here.

 For reading, please look at this interview with author and scholar Erik Davis (and google him to learn more about him). I'm thinking about the relationship between Davis's notion of the "weird" and the idea of play. I invite you to do so also. (recommended)

Read it, watch Twitch Jesus, and write about if Davis helps you understand anything about the phenomenon of Twitch Jesus. 

DAY 29.

Erik Davis has a few more short pieces I'd like you to read: "'AI EEEEEEE!!! Something Weirdo this Way Comes" and "The Weird and the Banal" and “The Poison Processor: Machine Learning, Oracles, and Pharmako-AI.”

 Also look at this piece from PBS (and explore some of the links): "Robots are Performing Hindu Rituals"

 And look at excerpts from this short, free e-book by academics: "Thinking Tools on AI, Religion, and Culture."  It's a recent collection of very short essays by scholars. I recommend reading the "Introduction" by Heidi Campbell & Pauline Hope Cheong; "How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Question the Apocalyptic AI" by Beth Singler; and the conclusion, "Breathing Frontiers at AI Complexities: Thinking Deeply about AI, Religion & Culture" also by Heidi Campbell and Pauline Hope Cheong.

What concerns do people (including yourself) have about AI in its affiliation with religion? 

DAY 30.

For this essay, you have a lot of freedom to key in on what you think is important in thinking about the relationship between religion and larping, I wrote my own short guide about this relationship (available via email). As you compose your essays, you may want to keep in mind some key terms we discussed in class regarding play, and think about how these (or some of these) terms intersect with a consideration of religion and larping: the magic circle; props; bleed; safety; immersion; race play; trauma; and the relationship between player/character/identity/self and the dangers of essentializing identities. 

Here are some questions that might help you get started, but you do not have to use them:

Why might larping be a more controversial (religiously-speaking) mode of play than say, board games or table-top role-play games?

What role does embodiment play in making sense of larping in a religious sense?

What makes larping potentially traumatic? What does religion have to do with this concern?

Is religion a form of larping? Is larping a form of religion? 

DAY 31.

Please listen to this podcast. (or read the transcript). It's an interview with C. Thi Nguyen, a philosopher who works on games and human meaning-making. 

Also, read this recent article by Nguyen about what makes play (and games) meaningful. I think it will help us figure out how A.I. play is more of a limit for religious experience than a help. It also suggests that artificial intelligence (at least so far and despite playing games) has no mechanism for play, at least not play in the ways that human engage in it. Can you write about the difference after you read these?

If you are interested, you could also listen to this podcast (or read the transcript); it's another interview with Nguyen.

DAY 32. OPEN GAME PLAY DAY.

DAY 33.

ESSAY DAY. As we discussed in class, I would like you to reflect on why play matters: in understanding humanity, in understanding religion, in living a full life, in making sense of the world. What do scholars have to say about how artificial intelligence plays games? Consider the remarks of Melanie Mitchell, from Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans (160-174). How is this kind of play different from the kinds of human-centered play that we have considered in this class? I would include videogames as human-centered play since the human has agency. Given the differences in how A.I. plays and how humans play, why is the human ability to play so important to human flourishing (i.e. living a good life, and/or to religion)? 

That's a lot. I just want you to think/write about why human play is important, and hopefully how it relates to religious experience. I suspect that religion and play are both getting at the notion of how the world could be otherwise, as both ignite the imagination to put yourself in other ways of being, other places, hopes beyond what we normally experience. And I also suspect that A.I. does not dream in this way, and that it cannot play or imagine or dream or believe. And so I also think that human play is critical to living well (and human religion, as a form of play, is also important, I think). I'm hoping you can experiment with these ideas, using the authors from this unit to help you, and tell me what you think about play/religion/A.I.

If that is still unclear or does not capture your writing spirit, let me know. 

FINAL.

For the final "essay" (#7) you will simply be assembling all of your previous essays together into one document, and adding an introduction and a conclusion, so you end up with a long essay, divided into parts, that is about religion and/at play. 

The introduction need not be long. Anywhere from one long paragraph to 2 pages will work, depending on your style. The conclusion also could be anywhere from one long paragraph to several pages. 

You should also edit your previous essays, using the comments I've given you on returned essays as a guide. 

That's it! This assembly and editing is worth 10% of your final grade. 

More Games:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1198970/I_Am_Jesus_Christ/ (releasing soon, for VR).

Everything (Nintendo Switch) - narration by Alan Watts. Here’s a review. (recommended)