Playthings in Early Modernity: Party Games, Word Games, Mind Games collects 15 interdisciplinary essays addressing play “not merely as a pastime, a leisurely pursuit, but as a pivotal part of daily life, a strategic psychosocial endeavor.” Published earlier this year by Medieval Institute Publications, the volume includes such chapters as:

  • “Mixt” and Matched: Dance Games in Late Sixteenth- and Early Seventeenth-Century Europe by Emily F. Winerock
  • Ludic Intermingling/Ludic Discrimination: Women’s Card Playing and Visual Proscriptions in Early Modern Europe by Antonella Fenech Kroke
  • Letter Games: Machiavelli and Guicciardini in Carnivalesque Correspondence by Sergius Kodera
  • “Sportes and Pastimes, done by Number”: Mathematical Games in Early Modern England by Jessica Marie Otis
  • Trading and Trick Taking in the Dutch Republic: Pasquin’s Wind Cards and the South Sea Bubble by Joyce Goggin
  • The Problem of Excessive Play: Renaissance Strategies of Ludic Governmentality by Andreas Hermann Fischer