2010 Summer Conference: Reacting to the Past
 
Mary Jo Small Fellowships | Upcoming Meeting | Past Meetings
 
”Reacting” seeks to replicate the historical context of a particular past, with all its causal forces:  economic, sociological, political, and otherwise. But it also provides students with the opportunity to explore counterfactual issues of individual agency: Would a different constellation of leaders in ancient Athens have effectively resisted the rise of Athenian democracy? Would a different set of arguments have prevented Galileo from being convicted by the Inquisition? To assert that human agency matters is to say that what actually happened need not have happened. Historical forces do not foreordain human affairs. History is not predetermined. It is contingent on multiple factors, including the vagaries of human individuality.
 
To illuminate the element of agency in human affairs, "Reacting" games differ from most games in that participants do not know all the rules at the outset. Things will happen that they may not anticipate and over which they have little or no control. The game will unfold in ways that are not predetermined: what participants do affects what will happen.
Each “Reacting” game is based on the game designers’ sense of the period. What happened in the past will not necessarily repeat itself in this game, but the “real” history may provide some sense of the likely issues that will emerge and of the designers’ understanding of historical causation. If game players study the historical context carefully, they will have a better chance of understanding what will likely happen in the future. That, too, is true in life as well.
 
Participants can improve their prospects for success in several ways: by forming effective and cooperative teams; by studying the world they inhabit; by making plans for the unexpected; and by working hard to win others over to their views. If you have preregistered, you will receive game materials, accompanying texts, and role assignments about two weeks in advance of the game.  You will play a somewhat abbreviated version of the game over four days--and you may play one or both games if you choose--one during the morning and one in the afternoon.
 
Follow this link for further information about gaming and particular games:
http://www.barnard.columbia.edu/reacting/curriculum/index.html
 
Reacting to the Past - Summer 2010
Coordinator: Dave Stewart dstewar2@csulb.edu
Reacting to the Past: Confucianism and the Succession of the Wanli Emperor, 1587
Game Master: Daniel K. Gardner is Professor of Chinese History at Smith College [Northampton, MA] and the author of many books and articles on the Confucian and Neo-Confucian tradition in China. His most recent book is Zhu Xi’s Reading of the Analects: Canon, Commentary, and the Classical Tradition (Columbia University Press, 2003).
This game introduces undergraduate students to the suppleness and power of Confucian thought as applied to issues of governance during the Ming dynasty. The game is set in the Hanlin Academy. Most students are members of the Grand Secretariat of the Hanlin Academy, the body of top-ranking graduates of the civil service examination who serve as advisers to the Wanli emperor. Some Grand Secretaries are Confucian “purists,” who hold that tradition obliges the emperor to name his first-born son as successor; others, in support of the most senior of the Grand Secretaries, maintain that it is within the emperor’s right to choose his successor; and still others, as they decide this matter among many issues confronting the empire, continue to scrutinize the teachings of Confucianism for guidance. The game unfolds amidst the secrecy and intrigue within the walls of the Forbidden City, as scholars struggle to apply Confucian precepts to a dynasty in peril.
 
Reacting to the Past: Acid Rain and the European Environment, 1979-89  
Game Masters: David E. Henderson is Professor of Chemistry at Trinity College and a founding member of the Environmental Science Program at Trinity. His research has included studies of acid precipitation and its effects on stream chemistry. He is also an expert on liquid chromatography and has published widely in the field. He has a wide range of interests including environmental protection and the history of religion. He is author of two other Reacting games, Evolution in Kansas and Constantine and the Council of Nicaea. Susan K. Henderson is Professor of Chemistry at Quinnipiac University. She has published research on food and environmental chemistry. She also has a wide range of interests including human health, nutrition, and yoga.
In Acid Rain in Europe, Students represent the European nations at a series of major international conferences, beginning in Geneva in 1979 and ending in Helsinki in 1989. The goal of these conferences, held under the auspices of the United Nations, is to negotiate the first major international treaty to address long range transport air pollution. If successful, these negotiations will provide a model for dealing with other international environmental issues such as ozone depleting chemicals and Global Warming. In 1972, the UN adopted a statement that held nations responsible for the effects of pollution that travels outside their borders, but, prior to 1979, no treaty has been negotiated to implement this statement of principle. The long range transport air pollution treaty is negotiated against the background of the formation of the European Union and the beginning of Détente between the Soviet client countries and the West. These changes and the political events in the individual countries provide changing pressures on the negotiators during the course of the ten year span of the game.

The time frame of the game provides a rich context for these discussions in which both the scientific and ethical understanding of the environment are evolving but on a solid footing. Research on the impact of acid precipitation in the environment was at its peak, yielding a large body of primary and secondary literature, much of which is accessible to non-science majors. Similarly, the debate over whether environmentalism is simply a utilitarian reaction to the damage done or is an example of deeper inherent rights of nature as a whole is in full swing. Finally, the debate juxtaposes market economics as a tool for environmentalism against command and control approaches common in Europe during this period.