The aim of this course is to consider the role of games and play in society, taking in (amongst other ideas) anthropological perspectives, technological interventions, and theories of self and other. We will look at game-like structures within drama and consider how game theory, gameful design, and gamification might inform performance, and how performance informed by games and play might prove to be revealing in terms of culture. The course is designed to be meta-educational, in that we will play games while investigating their structure and we will investigate strategies for learning though play whilst playing educative games. As such, half of our time in the first six weeks of the class will be spent playing a game from the Higher Education Role Immersion series, Reacting to the Past. Along with learning the culturally specific materials of the game, we will investigate the structure of the games, how and why we are intended to learn by playing and performing in role, and the ethics of performing other cultures for these purposes.