DFI Speaker Series—The Privilege of Play

TITLE: The Privilege of Play: Connecting Games and Race in the 20th Century
ABOUT THE TALK:
The histories of race and games in the 20th century have long been siloed. Popular histories of games often render invisible the race of the white men that they celebrate, thus inviting readers to take for granted the somewhat homogenous demographics of the games industry. Far from being coincidental, Dr. Aaron Trammell argues that race has been central to the history of games. He will present historical research in this talk that shows how the early leaders of the game industry were able to thrive due to their community ties. Dr. Trammell terms these white communities "networks of privilege" and offers evidence for how these networks developed during the course of the 20th century and used dog whistles to keep BIPOC people out. Thus, in this talk, he will foreground how the invisible politics of whiteness have shaped the history of games itself.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Aaron Trammell is an Associate Professor of Informatics at UC Irvine. He is interested in how tabletop games further values of white privilege and hegemonic masculinity in geek culture. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Analog Game Studies, Multimedia Editor at Sounding Out! and the co-editor for the Tabletop Gaming series at University of Michigan Press. He has two books Repairing Play (2023 MIT Press) is a theory of play that centers BIPOC people and The Privilege of Play (2023 NYU Press) is a history of games and race in the 20th Century. His third book is called Designing Dragons: Quantifying Fantasy in Dungeons & Dragons, it will be available late 2025 on Duke University Press.

Host or Publisher Digital Futures Institute