Game-making as critical method workshop
Max Haiven (Lakehead University)
Where: University of Bath (in person only)
When: 19 December at 1.15pm
How to attend: please contact Aurelien Mondon (a.mondon@bath.ac.uk)
This workshopis hosted by the Reactionary Politics Research Group at the University of Bath.
In this workshop, we will explore how to use game-making as a method for critical inquiry. As a form of creative and convivial expression, games, uniquely, revolve around discovering the scope of action within a given structure and, as such, are excellent tools for researchers asking difficult questions about society. We will use simple tools to create expressive games, not primarily in the hopes of making a viable game prototype, but as an critical imaginative exercise. No experience is necessary, but it helps to bring a vexing research question that we can gamify.
Attendance to this workshop is limited and priority will be given to PGR candidates.
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Billionaires & Guillotines – Game demonstration!
The workshop will be followed by the billionaire simulator you and your friends have been waiting for! In the board game Billionaires & Guillotines, 2-5 players will take on the roles of rival plutocrats, competing to accumulate the wealth of the world before their actions trigger a revolution and they all lose… a lot more than their assets.
Will you play the media baron or the property speculator? The aristocrat or the tech overlord? Whoever you play, the aim is to acquire five extravagant assets prized by the super-rich (a mega yacht, a celebrity spouse, art masterpieces and more!) and prevent your opponents from achieving their dreams.
But watch out! As you gobble up ever more resources, crises cascade out of control: wildfires and floods, pandemics and doomsday cults… Will you collaborate to put down the rebellions, or escape into your luxury bunker?
More information on the game:
https://maxhaiven.com/billionaires-and-guillotines/
Where: Somewhere in Bath (in person only)
When: 19 December at 16.30 onwards
How to attend: please contact Aurelien Mondon (a.mondon@bath.ac.uk)
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Biography
Max Haiven is a writer and teacher and Canada Research Chair in the Radical Imagination. He is a member of the RPRN.
His most recent books are Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire (2022), Revenge Capitalism: The Ghosts of Empire, the Demons of Capital, and the Settling of Unpayable Debts (2020) and Art after Money, Money after Art: Creative Strategies Against Financialization (2018).
He is currently working on a book for MIT Press tentatively titled The Player and the Played: Gamification, Financialization and (anti-)Fascism and a board game, Billionaires and Guillotines. He led a team that recently published The World After Amazon: Stories from Amazon Workers (2024).
Haiven is editor of VAGABONDS, a series of short, radical books from Pluto Press. He teaches at Lakehead University, where he directs the ReImagining Value Action Lab (RiVAL). As part of Sense & Solidarity, he offers strategy and communications workshops for social movements.