Abstract
- This Point of Departure introduces the concept of playful criticality as a disruption of the “thoughtless university” and its tendency toward hyper-compliance and the confinement of possibilities for imagining otherwise. In particular, we offer an orientation towards play and playfulness as a strategy for combating the commodification and cooptation of critical concepts in the academy. Playful criticality encourages educators to dream beyond the boundaries of the known and shift attention beyond merely the deconstructive possibilities of critique. In this short-form piece, we offer vignettes of meta-discourse (“table talk”) that accompanied a year-long experiment with the fantasy role-playing game Dungeon & Dragons, in order to document our emerging commitment to the radical possibilities of play, as well as grappling with the demands and risks that accompany such a venture. The piece concludes with a series of provocations for fellow educators looking to engage in playful resistance.