Archival Play

This article offers a critical and personal reflection on the role of curiosity, fragments, and play in creating meaningful encounters with archives in the college classroom. Drawing on play theory, poetics, media studies, and pedagogical theory, the essay reimagines archival collections as formal and material playgrounds open to spontaneous experimentation. Through reflections on the finding aid, logistical media, Curious George, and other subjects, the essay finds in the archive an elemental play that can be harnessed to create a radically spontaneous pedagogy organized around student curiosity. By cultivating the curiosity inherent to archival play, teachers can actively shape the playful dividend that arrives when students enter the archive and begin to search, find, and discover meaningful patterns in the fragments of history.

Play Elements as Mechanisms in Intergenerational Arts Activities to Support Community Engagement with End-of-Life Issues

Talking about dying, death, and loss may be difficult. Arts offer alternative ways of engaging with end-of-life (EoL) issues, but little is known about the means through which this occurs. In this article, we aim to explore mechanisms in arts activities that support community engagement with EoL issues, based on the community-based participatory action research project Studio DöBra. Studio DöBra was developed to support community engagement with EoL issues through intergenerational arts workshops involving community partners, children, and older adults. Initial analysis with community partners indicated the importance of play elements in arts activities. Continued analysis was therefore abductive, using play theory and qualitative data from Studio DöBra arts activities. Through iterative examination of theory and data, we modified play theory as we identified mechanisms supporting community engagement with EoL issues in arts activities. Findings can contribute to theory-building that can inform arts activities supporting community engagement with EoL issues.

Imagination in Autism: A Chance to Improve Early Language Therapy

Children with autism often have difficulties in imaginative play, Theory of Mind, and playing out different scenarios in their minds. Research shows that the root of these problems may be the voluntary imagination network that involves the lateral prefrontal cortex and its long frontoposterior connections to the temporal-parietal-occipital area. Previously disconnected visuospatial issues (stimulus overselectivity and tunnel vision) and language issues (lack of comprehension of spatial prepositions and complex recursive sentences) may be explained by the same voluntary imagination deficit. This review highlights the new insights into the mechanism of voluntary imagination, its difference from involuntary imagination, and its unusually strong critical period. Clearer developmental terminology and a better understanding of voluntary imagination have the potential to facilitate communication between therapists and parents, and improve therapy outcomes in children.

Hanging, blowing, slamming and playing: Erotic control and overflow in a digital chemsex scene

Based on participant observation, this article details the use of methamphetamine (crystal meth) in a social scene mediated by a video conferencing service similar to Zoom. Taking an affective-materialist approach and applying concepts from play theory, it describes the visual erotic culture that emerges in the 100 simultaneous videos of drug-using people, mostly men. It details the scene’s modulation of temporality, how drug use is performed in relationship to numerous screens and the way ceremonialization counters the platformed deintensification. Finally, it discusses how digital chemsex encounters might overflow categories of gender and sexuality, and how the article may enrich the study of drugged sexual play.