Embedded Files
Course Schedule
Course Events
Course Zine
Student Evaluations
Course Description
Course Description
Games interest philosophers, educators, and theatre practitioners alike. Plato writes that all education should be organised as play; Nguyen argues that games are the artistic medium of agential fluidity; and Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed devises methods of theatrical play for the purpose of liberation. We will discuss the value of games and examine the ethics of play: what ethical demands surround play, and what must be done to uphold them? In addition to analysing and discussing works on games and play by Plato, Zhuangzi, Nguyen, Trammell, and Boal, you will also immerse yourself in a semester-long tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) campaign. Through this combination of discussion sections and game days, we will learn how narrative play, character immersion, and game mechanics create a play-structure for examining our identities, values, and choices. As such, our course will have a 50-50 split between:
Sections, where typically one reading is assigned and we will discuss it in detail. Time will occasionally be set aside for each party to share and reflect on what’s going on in their respective games (see Game Days).
Game Days, the practical portion of the course where you will be playing a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) campaign with your party. Your party will meet with your Game Master (GM) in one of the group study rooms on campus.
In-Class TTRPG Campaign
In-Class TTRPG Campaign
The weekly tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) section of the course will begin with a briefing about TTRPGs and safety tools by our game designer. This will be followed by a character proposal and character creation process where students are grouped into parties of six based on character and player affinities. Then, the class will break out into different gaming spaces across the Yale-NUS Library to meet with their GMs for their respective Session Zeros. The week after, campaigns will begin and students will be thrust into roleplaying as characters in a modern-day Singapore setting... with a surprise magical twist.
While each table's storyline will necessarily diverge because of differences in player character choices and party dynamics, there are several planned philosophical encounters that all parties will hit at specific moments in the semester. The philosophical puzzles and dilemmas themselves will be a surprise, and it will be up to the students in each party to determine how their characters will react to them. We will also have regularly scheduled periods of "downtime", or time when your characters are not actively solving philosophical puzzles but are instead interacting with their friend groups, communities, and families. Philosophy, after all, is a way of life. Our belief systems do not stop being tested the moment that we aren't actively engaged in philosophical thinking, and are in many ways shaped by and influenced by our real-world circumstances.
Many of you will be new to role-playing games and to improvisation. Do not fret! This is not so different from our usual discussion sections. You will be presented with scenarios and thought experiments, and you should feel free to respond to them as spontaneously as you would do in real life. As for the role-playing aspect of the game, think of this as you and your peers gathering once a week to tell a semester-long story about these characters you've created. Our game masters and I will do our best to immerse you in the narrative, and there will be in-character reflection assignments that you will complete after each philosophical encounter to help you to get in tune with your character.
Grading Breakdown
Grading Breakdown
Pre-Seminar Comments (5%)
All readings for the course exist on a shared Google Folder. At 6pm on the day before class, you must leave one comment on the assigned reading for that section. This comment can be as simple as highlighting a section of the reading and commenting that you do not understand it or would like it to be discussed in class, and as complex as drawing connections to other ideas or developing an objection to the reading. You should aim to do this eight times over the semester, so do make sure you keep track of how many comments you’ve made over the semester.
In-Class Participation (15%)
Philosophy is at its heart something we do with others. It is rarely about magically having the best and most well-formed idea. We learn the most from communicating our ideas, actively listening to others, and coming to refine our ideas through this engagement. To this effect, in-class participation will make up 15% of your grade for the course. This will be determined by:
Attendance. Do attend as much class as you are able to, be as conversationally engaged as you can manage to be, and be communicative about absences. Email me as soon as you know that you need to skip class. Please skip class if you’re experiencing covid or flu symptoms, if you’re in more physical or mental pain than is standard or manageable for you, etc. I also understand that situations may unexpectedly arise and chronic illness might necessitate you skipping more sections than is ideal. If that happens do reach out to me and your Associate Dean and we’ll figure out a plan to keep you up to speed.
Meaningful Contribution. You will be graded on the quality of your contribution to sections. You will not be graded highly or lowly based on the duration or number of times you talk or comment, but rather on how you demonstrate understanding of and respond to the claims and arguments in the assigned readings and the contributions of your peers in section. For some guidance on what meaningful participation in a philosophical discussion looks like, please see this helpful guide made by Olivia Bailey for more information.
Campaign Reflections (20%)
You will write two reflections during the course of the campaign. Each will be worth 10% of your overall grade in the course. The format and perspective you take for these reflections is entirely up to you. Though you can write them in your own voice, my recommendation is to write them from the point of view of your player character. In your reflection, you should reflect on your character’s inner monologue, their dynamics with the rest of the party, and their current relationship with and interpretation of their philosophical archetype.
Some creative options that you might use to influence in-game events outside of Game Days: writing an in-character letter or email to another PC or NPC, which you would send to the person playing that character; writing an in-character blog, twitter thread, instagram post, tiktok video, etc. that your character posted in-world after the events of the previous game session; narrate an additional scene that happened to your character in between games; collaborate with a party member to write a dialogue or text exchange that occurred between your PCs after the events of the previous game session; and so on and so forth. Do note that these campaign reflections will be shared with the Game Master of your party.
Recommended word count: 600-1000.
Essay (30%)
You will write a philosophical essay on a topic of your choosing (2000-3000 words). This topic must draw on at least one reading from the first half of our course. I am open to comparative and interdisciplinary work, but do note that such undertakings tend to result in lengthier essays and plan your time accordingly.
Unessay (30%)
You will undertake a project of your choosing, on a topic of your choosing, in any medium of your choosing. This could be a standard essay if you’re a philosopher who is planning on graduate school and really want to hone your academic writing skills, but it could as easily be a video essay, short film, artwork, literary piece, game design, etc. This unessay should be influenced by or informed by at least one of the readings from the course. You may work as a pair or trio if you find others in the class who are keen to collaborate with you on the same unessay. During our final class for the semester, we will have a symposium where you will share your unessay with the rest of the class.
Your final submission should include an Artist/Writer/Designer’s Statement (roughly 500 words) where you explain the philosophical concept that you are exploring in your work and describe how you have conveyed it through said work. (It is possible that this might merely be an edited version of your initial proposal.) I will read this statement after looking at the unessay, and I will only use that as a reference for understanding what your aims were and whether they were successfully conveyed.
At the end of the course, I will be compiling all unessays into a class zine that will be distributed to all students in the course and the wider Yale-NUS community.
Google Sites
Report abuse