History of Toys and Play

Gardeła L. (2012) What the Vikings did for fun? Sports and pastimes in medieval northern Europe, World Archaeology 44(2), 234-247.

by Leszek Gardela

STOY, SUSTAINABLE TOY

by eduardo roig

Co-author with STOY reserchers

STOY [Sustainable Toy] is a research group at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. This publication is a resume of its... more STOY [Sustainable Toy] is a research group at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. This publication is a resume of its activity through pedagogical methodologies. It focuses industrial design and architectural environment. Social derives and public space is in the base of its proposals.

Puppen, Tiere und der Ernst des Lebens. Zum kulturhistorischen Aussagewert von Puppen und Tierfiguren aus spätantiker und frühchristlicher Zeit

by Claudia-Maria Behling

published in: Mitteilungen zur frühchristlichen Archäologie 17, 2011, 91–104.

Psychological Damage or Resistance? Re-Evaluating the Clark Doll Tests through the Lens of Performance Studies

by Robin Bernstein

This talk derives from my book, Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights (New York University Press, 2011)

In the mid-twentieth century, psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark conducted their famous "doll test" in... more In the mid-twentieth century, psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark conducted their famous "doll test" in which they asked African American children whether they preferred black or white dolls. Most children identified white dolls as "nice" and black dolls as "bad"-proof, the Clarks argued, that segregation damaged black children psychologically. These findings figured pivotally in Brown v. Board of Education. Bernstein defamiliarizes the "doll test" by locating it not in the history of Civil Rights but instead in the history of representational play involving racialized dolls. Bernstein argues that a black child's rejection of a black doll might indeed reveal internalized racism; but it could also constitute a rejection of violently racist practices of play that had, for a century, been coordinated through black dolls. Thus Bernstein offers a new understanding of the Clarks' child-subjects not as passive internalizers of racism instead as agents who resisted inherited traditions of performance.

Du jouet au jeu vidéo et réciproquement

by Vincent Berry

Vincent Berry, "Du jouet au jeu vidéo et réciproquement", in D. Charles et B Girveau, éditions de la RMN-Grand Palais, Paris, 2011

Loin d’être un pur objet « technologique », le jeu vidéo s’inscrit dans une histoire du jeu, des objets, du matériel... more Loin d’être un pur objet « technologique », le jeu vidéo s’inscrit dans une histoire du jeu, des objets, du matériel et de la culture ludique et enfantine, bien plus ancienne que l’informatique ou l’électronique. L’analyse de ces relations ne signifie pas nécessairement une conservation ou une réplication à l’identique. Au contraire, une telle entreprise met en évidence la présence de ressources matérielles, culturelles, symboliques, et sociales partagées qui circulent sur différents objets qui, à leur tour, contribuent à transformer la culture ludique contemporaine

Artistic Sobriety and the Philosophical Trivialization of Play

by Gunalan Nadarajan

Inventing the "All-American Boy":

by Marcus Weaver-Hightower

published in Men and Masculinities, 2008

In the United States and internationally in recent years, a great deal of attention, particularly within popular... more In the United States and internationally in recent years, a great deal of attention, particularly within popular publications, has been paid to boys, their rearing, and their education. While much of this concern has clearly had conservative aims or at least conservative overtones, even the more progressive elements of the concern over boys have been "pulled into" the conservative camp. Indeed, the entire advocacy position for boys has often been (discursively, at least) relegated to conservatism. This article examines why this happens and, more important, shows how this occurs on a small scale. The author focuses here on how conservatives "pull in" rather than how the Left "pushes out." Using frameworks laid out by Apple, Bernstein, Bourdieu, and others, the author shows how an unlikely artifact—a toy catalog—might serve as a case study for the methods conservative groups use to pull the debate, as well as those teachers and parents who are intimately affected by its outcomes, under the "umbrella" of conservative modernization. These techniques include mobilizing general similarities to the boys debate, appealing to the tastes of particular class fractions, using recontextualizing processes, appealing through visual forms, accounting for dissonances, creating the constitutive outside, and perhaps most important, providing a possible solution to the "problem" of boys. I discuss implications of these techniques and advocate a reclaiming of the debates by progressive forces.