Critical games
On play and seriousness in academia, literature and life
By Tim Beasley-Murray
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- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 328
- Price: £85.00
- Published Date: June 2025
Description
Critical Games is about the games we play (whether we know it or not), the ways we play them (for fun, but also to win, and to gain approval from others), and what happens when they get out of hand. The book interrogates the theory of play and gaming, with a particular focus on the games played by literary authors and literary critics. Drawing on (often self-critical) autobiography, as well as readings in texts across a range of languages, Tim Beasley-Murray plays with academic conventions to highlight what is at stake in them, turning to the Game of Literature, from Kafka to Carrère, to seek models and warnings of the outcomes of taking games too seriously, or not taking them seriously enough.
Contents
Introduction
Part I: The game of academia
1. 'The most glorious kind of play'
2. The Slovene art theorist and Abraham the Inuk
3. Learning to play critical games (an autobiographical sketch)
4. What is at stake
5. 'Back to life, back to reality'
Part II: The game of literature
6. Literary play
7. Fictional games that get out of hand
8. Pacts and power
9. How writing intervenes in life
Part III: End Game
10. Playing games with Emmanuel Carrère
Conclusion: final whistle
Index
Author
Tim Beasley-Murray is Associate Professor of European Thought and Culture at University College London