Join CENES on March 27 at 5:00pm for the final in-person Ziegler Lecture of 2024-25. Focusing on the theme of ‘dissent’, CENES welcomes Dr. Greg Loring-Albright. This event is co-sponsored by CENES and the Popular Media for Social Change Cluster.
Title: “Critical board game modification: changing board games to change the world”
Abstract: Working board game designer and scholar Greg Loring-Albright, PhD will present a talk about changing board games to incite social change. Hobby board gaming, as theorized by scholars like Paul Booth (2018) and Stewart Woods (2012) has been and continues to be a growing subculture, fandom, and market. Games like Catan (Teuber, 1995), Ticket to Ride (Moon, 2004), and Wingspan (Hargrave, 2019) are the result of design interventions by inspired designers. However, board games lag behind other entertainment media like film, TV, and video games when it comes to depicting social change and representing marginalized groups.
Greg works to change this, both by designing and publishing new games (e.g. Bloc by Bloc: Uprising, 2022, co-designed with T.L. Simons; Keep the Faith, 2024) and by creating frameworks for modifying existing games (e.g. First Nations of Catan, 2015). This talk will address a general audience, briefly describing the world of hobby board gaming, showcasing some of its problematic dynamics (drawing upon Flanagan and Jakobsson, 2023, among others), and offering paths for other designers and interested amateurs to create their own interventions in the space by modifying the board games that they already play. In addition, Greg will propose a theory of how board games incite social change, developed from close observation of hundreds of board gaming sessions, both in a research context and while playtesting games for publication. Many approaches to games optimistically presuppose a level of impact on the player that may not be justified. Yet board games can change their players, primarily via the discursive opportunities that they afford around the table.
About the Speaker
Greg Loring-Albright is Assistant Professor of Games, Media, and Culture at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology. His dissertation analyzed analog games and their digital adaptations, and his research areas include analog games, fandom, and game design for social change. In addition to teaching and researching, he designs board games including Ahoy (2022), Bloc by Bloc: Uprising (with T.L. Simons, 2022), Keep the Faith (2024), and the official board game adaptation of The Peoples History of the United States (with Jason Perez, forthcoming). Find him at gloringalbright.com.
How to Attend
This hybrid lecture will be hosted on March 27, 2025, at 5:00pm in the Dodson Room (302) of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. If you are joining online, please register here. Please note that this lecture will be recorded.
