Search

What is art's relationship to play? Those interested in this question tend to look to modern philosophy for answers, but, as this book shows, the question was already debated in antiquity by luminaries like Plato and Aristotle. Over the course of eight chapters, this book contextualizes those debates, and demonstrates their significance for theoretical problems today. Topics include the ancient child psychology at the root of the ancient Greek word for'play'(paidia), the numerous toys that have survived from antiquity, and the meaning of play's conceptual opposite, the'serious'(spoudaios). What emerges is a concept of play markedly different from the one we have inherited from modernity. Play is not a certain set of activities which unleashes a certain feeling of pleasure; it is rather a certain feeling of pleasure that unleashes the activities we think of as'play'. As such, it offers a new set of theoretical challenges.

Informed by the analytical practices of the interdisciplinary'material turn'and social historical studies of childhood, Childhood By Design: Toys and the Material Culture of Childhood offers new approaches to the material world of childhood and design culture for children. This volume situates toys and design culture for children within broader narratives on history, art, design and the decorative arts, where toy design has traditionally been viewed as an aberration from more serious pursuits. The essays included treat toys not merely as unproblematic reflections of socio-cultural constructions of childhood but consider how design culture actively shaped, commodified and materialized shifting discursive constellations surrounding childhood and children. Focusing on the new array of material objects designed in response to the modern'invention'of childhood-what we might refer to as objects for a childhood by design-Childhood by Design explores dynamic tensions between theory and practice, discursive constructions and lived experience as embodied in the material culture of childhood. Contributions from and between a variety of disciplinary perspectives (including history, art history, material cultural studies, decorative arts, design history, and childhood studies) are represented – critically linking historical discourses of childhood with close study of material objects and design culture.Chronologically, the volume spans the 18th century, which witnessed the invention of the toy as an educational plaything and a proliferation of new material artifacts designed expressly for children's use; through the 19th-century expansion of factory-based methods of toy production facilitating accuracy in miniaturization and a new vocabulary of design objects coinciding with the recognition of childhood innocence and physical separation within the household; towards the intersection of early 20th-century child-centered pedagogy and modernist approaches to nursery and furniture design; through the changing consumption and sales practices of the postwar period marketing directly to children through television, film and other digital media; and into the present, where the line between the material culture of childhood and adulthood is increasingly blurred.

This book addresses the nature of play and its relationships with the world, as well as the relationships between people and objects. It begins with an account of ethnographic fieldwork among chess and card players in Edinburgh and Orkney and moves on to consider the findings in the light of archaeological sources. The work carried out amongst chess and card players led towards a more cognitive appreciation of these activities: how can the relationships between player and pieces be understood? It is suggested here that they are an example of ‘active externalism', where cognition is not contained within the person but distributed in the immediate environment. The consideration of the role of gaming pieces leads towards an examination of the ways in which the manipulation of objects during play brings new and unexpected discoveries to the participants. The discussion addresses this theme in terms of bricolage and considers the placement of things singly and in sets. The archaeological review focusses for the most part on the first millennium AD in Atlantic Scotland. The nature of the evidence, and of our expectations of where play should be found, is examined critically. This study represents a reappraisal of the relationship between play — an activity which is most often understood in terms of something ‘set apart'— and everyday life; it leads towards the conclusion that play is not in fact so separate as is often assumed.

Should we take the idea of play seriously? Since the publication of Huizinga's Homo Ludens in 1938, a provocative literature has developed in philosophy and social science that does. Combs argues that we should understand play both as a generic concept with considerable power to explain human activity, and as a contemporary procept that demystifies some of the puzzling trends and innovations emerging in the quickly developing new social world of the 21st century.Combs explores the thesis that play has a central role in our understanding of human activity and social and political organization in the new millennium. He argues that the human desire for play is strong and given the continuation of certain major historical innovations now shaping the world, it may well be that 21st-century people will increasingly exercise their desire for play and that the world will increasingly be organized around the principle and practice of play. It may now seem a truism that people prefer to have fun, but that has not always been the case. If, as Combs argues, the preference for fun is becoming central to human activity, we need to explore why that preference is becoming dominant and what kind of social organization and consequences such a change entails. A provocative look at social change in the 20th century that will be of interest to scholars, students, and researchers of sociology and anthropology.