The histories of race and games in the 20th century have long been siloed. Popular histories of games often render invisible the race of the white men that they celebrate, thus inviting readers to take for granted the somewhat homogenous demographics of the games industry. Far from being coincidental, I argue that race has been central to the history of games. I will present historical research in this talk that shows how the early leaders of the game industry were able to thrive due to their community ties. I term these white communities “networks of privilege” and offer evidence for how these networks developed of the course of the 20th century and used dog whistles to keep BIPOC people out. Thus, in this talk I will foreground how the invisible politics of whiteness have shaped the history of games itself.

Aaron Trammell is an Assistant Professor of Informatics at UC Irvine. He is interested in how tabletop games further values of white privilege and hegemonic masculinity in geek culture. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Analog Game Studies and co-editor for the Tabletop Gaming series at the University of Michigan Press. He is the author of two recent books: Repairing Play (MIT Press, 2023) is a theory of play that centers BIPOC people, and The Privilege of Play (NYU Press, 2023) is a history of games and race in the 20th century.

Thursday, May 11 @ 1PM – Wireframe Studio (Music 1410)