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Podcast: New Books in Popular Culture
Episode: Chad Randl and D. Medina Lasansky, "Playing Place: Board Games, Popular Culture, Space" (MIT Press, 2023)
Description: An essay collection exploring the board game's relationship to the built environment, revealing the unexpected ways that play reflects perceptions of space.Board games harness the creation of entirely new worlds. From the medieval warlord to the modern urban planner, players are permitted to inhabit a staggering variety of roles and are prompted to incorporate preexisting notions of placemaking into their decisions. To what extent do board games represent the social context of their production? How might they reinforce or subvert normative ideas of community and fulfillment? In Playing Place: Board Games, Popular Culture, Space (MIT Press, 2023), Ch...