Playing with the Past
Playing with the Past
Playing with the Past
By Patrick Rael
October 13, 2021
Summary
Can such games offer new ways to engage history in the college classroom? Thinking of games as representations of history may provide the key.
Board games offer a range of additional benefits to students of history.
On the most basic level, playing games enhances students' fluency with historical basics-the who, what, where, and when of a particular history.
Where, if anywhere, do students see themselves or their histories represented in the game in question? How might this representation of slavery's history inform today's discussions of race and marginality? What concerns should we bring to bear in examining popular culture's depiction of the past? Such questions remind us that while playing historically themed games is likely to teach students something about what happened and why, there may be even more pedagogical value in analyzing them as representations of the past bound by the constraints of their medium and its conventions.
The game's defenders argue that Puerto Rico's plantation theme is "Pasted on" to a game that never claims to faithfully simulate the history of Caribbean slavery.
At the same time, in punishing the use of slavery, the games mirror the moral perspective of the abolitionists themselves, who argued that their successful diffusion of new values swelled "The torrent which swept away the slave trade." In discussions after we play, students identify tensions in our own popular understandings of this history.
From Puerto Rico, which depends on slave-grown crops but never mentions slavery, to Freedom, which lets players fight against it, these titles illustrate a range of ways board games can engage the history of slavery
Reference
Rael, P. (2021, October 13). Playing with the past: Teaching slavery with board games. Retrieved December 02, 2021, from https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/november-2021/playing-with-the-past-teaching-slavery-with-board-games