“The King’s Docile Body?” Wednesday, May 5, 2021

This illustrated talk by Dr. Ting Chang of Nottingham University, UK, investigates the role of maps, games and globes in princely education in France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Scrutiny of the educational games and other instruments designed for Louis XIV, aged four when he succeeded to the throne in 1643, suggests early modern gamification, defined by Sebastian Deterding and others as the use of game design elements in non-game contexts to motivate through the pleasurable experience of play certain desired behaviors and outcomes. Dr. Chang proposes that maps, games, and globes acted upon the king’s body as much as on his mind. Like the ideal figure of the soldier described by Michel Foucault, even the king’s body was manipulated, shaped, and trained in the early modern period, albeit with board games and playing cards.

Sponsored by the Dept. of World Languages and Cultures, the Institute for the Humanities, and the Medieval and Early Modern Studies Seminar