ERC Project Locus ludi and the Swiss Museum of Games would like to invite you to the international conference ‘Play and Games in Antiquity. Definition – Transmission – Reception’. It takes place on 17-19 September 2018 in La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland.
This international conference is part of the ERC project Locus Ludi. The Cultural Fabric of Play and Games in Classical Antiquity, based at the University of Fribourg (PI Véronique Dasen). It is organised in collaboration with the Swiss Museum of Games in La Tour-de-Peilz (Ulrich Schädler) and the University of Lausanne (Michel Fuchs).
Play and games provide a privileged access to past societal norms, values, identities, and collective imaginary. People play all over the world and throughout history, but they do not play the same games, nor do they attribute the same meaning and function to play. The aim of this pluridisciplinary conference is to investigate how this past patrimony can be methodologically reconstructed.
Three sessions will address first how the Ancients defined play and games by analysing their vocabulary in order to reconstruct an emic definition. Beyond the common association of child and play (in Greek, paidia, ‘game’, pais, the child, and paideia, ‘education’, share the same root, in Latin ludus means ‘play’, ‘school’ and ‘rethorical games’), the views are more complex and nuanced. Identifiying ludic material and practices archaeologically as well as in iconography is also a debatable issue. The second session concerns the sources available and their bias associated with literary genre, such as oniromancy, proverbs and the lexicon of Pollux. A major challenge is the reconstruction of a mostly oral patrimony, of lost children’s lore and agency. The third session examines the transmission process of these practices from one generation to the next, addressing crucial issues about continuities and discontinuities, as well as about the definition of a “traditional” game.
Here below the final program of the three-day conference:
Monday 17th September
10:15 OPENING – Véronique Dasen, Michel Fuchs, Ulrich Schädler
In Search of Ancient Games and Play
DEFINITION
10:30 Mark Golden, Winnipeg
Play, Dance, Sport, War: Ancient Greek Bodies in Motion
11:15 Stephen Kidd, Brown University (by skype)
Is play an Emotion? An Inquiry into Greek Paidia
11:45 Christian Laes, Antwerp
Ludus and Education
12:30 Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui, Madrid
Early Christian Attitudes to Child Playing
13:15 Brunch
14:15 Anton Bierl, Basel
Choral Dance as a Play: paizein in Greek Drama
15:00 Karin Schlapbach, Fribourg
Ludus as Dance and Bodily Movement
15:45 Break
BEGINNINGS AND ENDS
16:15 Marco Vespa, Fribourg
L’origine du jeu: récits grecs sur l’invention des pratiques ludiques entre Palamède,
Prométhée et Theuth
17:00 Cleo Gougouli, Patras
The Search for Cultural Continuity in Studies of Modern Greek Children’s Games:
Some Methodological Questions
17:45 Break
18:15 Francesca Berti, Tübingen
Meanings of tradition in the Context of Play
EVENING LECTURE
19h15 Katarzyna Marciniak, Warsaw (ERC Our Mythical Childhood)
Du Rubicon à la chambre d’enfants ou à la réception de l’expression Alea iacta est dans
la culture des jeunes / From Rubicon to the Children’s Room, or the Reception of the
Alea iacta est Motif in Youth Culture
Tuesday 18th September
MATERIAL DEFINITION
09:00 Regine Fellmann, Kantonsarchäologie Aargau, Brugg
Games and Toys From Vindonissa – An Overview
Barbara Pfäffli, Augusta Raurica
Augusta Raurica – Play in the Town
10:00 Break
10:15 Chiara Bianchi, Milano
“Alexandrian Counters”: Finds in Archaeological Contexts
11:00 Clare Rowan, Warwick (ERC Token Communities in the Ancient Mediterranean)
Sorting Fun From Fiction: Were “tesserae” Gaming Pieces?
11:45 Charles Doyen, Louvain
Osselets ou poids ?
12:30 Brunch
ICONOGRAPHIC DEFINITION
13:30 Vicky Sabetai, Athènes
Playing at the Festival: aiora, a Swinging Ritual
14:15 Michel Fuchs, Lausanne
Jeux d’Eros et jeux d’enfants : la corde, le dé et l’osselet en messagers du temps
15:00 Break
15:15 Nikolina Kei, Paris
Ancient Drawing, Fictive Play
16:00 Arnaud Zucker, Nice
Les proverbes relatifs aux jeux chez Pollux et les parémiographes
16:45 Visit of the Swiss Museum of Games
18:00 Event Festival Images : Official opening of the artwork by Saype in the
context of the Festival Images Vevey
EVENING LECTURE
19:15 Michel Manson, Toulouse
Un érudit inattendu : Louis Becq de Fouquières, le premier historien des jeux et jouets
de l’Antiquité
Discutant : Louis-Aimé de Fouquières
Wednesday 19th September
RECEPTION
9:00 Simone Beta, Siena
Studiare la lingua e la letteratura greca divertendosi: gli indovinelli greci nelle scuole
di Bisanzio/ Etudier la langue et la littérature en s’amusant: les devinettes grecques
dans les écoles de Byzance
09:45 Renzo Tosi, Bologna
Pollux et les noms des jeux
10:30 Andromache Karanika, Irvine
Midas and the “Pot” Game: Intertextual Insights into an Ancient Game
11:15 Break
11:30 Salvatore Costanza, Fribourg
Pollux témoin des jeux : continuité, survie et réception dans la culture ludique
néogrecque
12:15 Barbara Carè, Athens
Appropriating the Past: New Perspectives on Game Studies. The Ancient and Modern
Game of Astragals
13:00 Lunch
Final discussion – conclusions
Avenue: Swiss Museum of Games, Rue du Château 11 -1814 La Tour-de-Peilz