Playing Utopia

Media narratives inform our ideas of the future - and Games are currently making a significant contribution to this medial reservoir. On the one hand, Games demonstrate a particular propensity for fantastic and futuristic scenarios. On the other hand, they often serve as an experimental field for the latest media technologies. However, while dystopias are part of the standard gaming repertoire, Games feature utopias much less frequently. Why? This anthology examines playful utopias from two perspectives. It investigates utopias in digital Games as well as utopias of the digital game; that is, the role of ludic elements in scenarios of the future.

This volume presents new philosophical essays on a topic that's been neglected in most recent philosophy: games, sports, and play. Some contributions address conceptual questions about what games and sports have in common and that distinguishes them from other activities; here many take their start from Bernard Suits's celebrated analysis of game-playing in his book The Grasshopper and either elaborate it or propose an alternative to it. Other essays discuss normative issues that arise within games and sports, such as about fairness, for example in the treatment of male and female athletes. Yet others consider broader evaluative questions about the value of games and sports, which some see as enabling the display of distinctive excellences. Games, Sports, and Play includes a posthumous essay by Suits defending his claim, in The Grasshopper, that life in utopia would consist primarily in playing games. The volume's chapters approach the topic of games, sports, and play from different angles but always in the belief that there is rich terrain here for philosophical investigation.

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTUREstarring Robert Duvall and Lucas BlackThis book is about influence and inspiration and a deeper, more profound way of looking at life. The story is based on thousands of athletes who author and performance psychologist Dr. David Cook has counseled, and the great mentors and teachers from whom he has learned. Told through the lives of two characters—an eccentric rancher with a passion for teaching truth, and a young golf professional at the end of his rope looking to escape the pressures of the game—they represent each one of us in our various stages of growth. And through them we are reminded that, in life, we must be willing to coach and be coached.Life is never the same once you’ve been to Utopia.“Read it. Devour it. Keep it as a reference book. You’ll be glad you did. Golf’s Sacred Journey is a remarkable and encouraging story with an entirely different approach on how to succeed in your golf game.”—Zig Ziglar, leading motivational expert and bestselling author“This book is full of wisdom that will enhance your game and I believe it just may change your life.”—David Robinson, NBA MVP, 1992 Olympic Gold Medalist, Two Time World Champion

Written for an interdisciplinary audience, Just Playing offers a panoramic tour through a range of new and disturbing insights that game theory brings to anthropology, biology, economics, philosophy, and psychology.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The hotly anticipated new novel from the internationally bestselling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas. Utopia Avenue may be the most extraordinary British band you've never heard of. Emerging from London's psychedelic scene in 1967 and fronted by folksinger Elf Holloway, guitar demigod Jasper de Zoet and blues bassist Dean Moss, Utopia Avenue released only two LPs during its brief blazing journey from the clubs of Soho and draughty ballrooms to Top of the Pops and the Top 10; to Amsterdam, Rome and a fateful American fortnight in the autumn of 1968. David Mitchell's new novel is the story of Utopia Avenue and its age; of riots in the street and revolutions in the head; of drugs and thugs, schizophrenia, love, sex, grief, art; of the families we choose and the ones we don't; of fame's Faustian pact and stardom's wobbly ladder. Do we change the world or does the world change us? Utopia means 'nowhere' but might it be somewhere, if only we knew how to look?

In the mid twentieth century the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein famously asserted that games are indefinable; there are no common threads that link them all. "Nonsense," says the sensible Bernard Suits: "playing a game is a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles." The short book Suits wrote demonstrating precisely that is as playful as it is insightful, as stimulating as it is delightful. Suits not only argues that games can be meaningfully defined; he also suggests that playing games is a central part of the ideal of human existence, so games belong at the heart of any vision of Utopia. Originally published in 1978, The Grasshopper is now re-issued with a new introduction by Thomas Hurka and with additional material (much of it previously unpublished) by the author, in which he expands on the ideas put forward in The Grasshopper and answers some questions that have been raised by critics.

An accessible and comprehensive guide to the philosophy of sport Each chapter is framed by a question that explores the main issues, ideas and literature in the field ranging from questions about the nature and value of sport, the sporting body, aesthetics and ethics. Students are given the opportunity to consider significant debates in the philosophy of sport and each chapter is supplemented by independent study questions. Each section also contains short insightful interviews with eminent scholars in order to give a broader understanding of the history and development of the subject. The main themes covered within this text include: the nature of sport; sport and the body; aesthetics and the aesthetic value of sport; a consideration of fair play, rules and the ethos of sport; the nature of competition; the application and effect of technology on sport and introductions to contemporary ethical issues such as doping, violence, disability, patriotism, elitism and sexual equality, as well as a broader reflection on the connection between sport and moral development.

"This is a powerful, richly nuanced, evocative work; a stunning and brilliantly innovative pedagogical intervention. It provides ground zero-the starting place for the next generation of theorists who study the self, narrative theory, and the place of games and sport in everyday life. A stunning accomplishment by one of America's major social theorists." Norman K. Denzin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Games of many kinds have been played in all cultures throughout human history. This wide-ranging book explores the social and psychological processes involved in the playing of games. One player (or team) seeks to outwit another by undertaking various physical and communicative moves-not unlike conversations. Games have well-formed "narrative" structures, analogous to myths, that are enacted by each participant to give play to his/her self and its attendant emotions. These plays of the self enable each agent to seek adventures and heroic moments. Going beyond the mythmaking and catharsis that may be achieved by individuals, the author shows how games have been devised and played in particular societies and eras as means of promoting specific ideologies of a society, even social ideals such as utopias.