The kaleidoscope, the stereoscope, and other nineteenth-century optical toys analyzed as “new media” of their era, provoking anxieties similar to our own about children and screens. In the nineteenth century, the kaleidoscope, the thaumatrope, the zoetrope, the stereoscope, and other optical toys were standard accessories of a middle-class childhood, used both at home and at school. In Playful Visions, Meredith Bak argues that the optical toys of the nineteenth century were the “new media” of their era, teaching children to be discerning consumers of media—and also provoking anxieties similar to contemporary worries about children's screen time. Bak shows that optical toys—which produced visual effects ranging from a moving image to the illusion of depth—established and reinforced a new understanding of vision as an interpretive process. At the same time, the expansion of the middle class as well as education and labor reforms contributed to a new notion of childhood as a time of innocence and play. Modern media culture and the emergence of modern Western childhood are thus deeply interconnected. Drawing on extensive archival research, Bak discusses, among other things, the circulation of optical toys, and the wide visibility gained by their appearance as printed templates and textual descriptions in periodicals; expanding conceptions of literacy, which came to include visual acuity; and how optical play allowed children to exercise a sense of visual mastery. She examines optical toys alongside related visual technologies including chromolithography—which inspired both chromatic delight and chromophobia. Finally, considering the contemporary use of optical toys in advertising, education, and art, Bak analyzes the endurance of nineteenth-century visual paradigms.

The kaleidoscope, the stereoscope, and other nineteenth-century optical toys analyzed as “new media” of their era, provoking anxieties similar to our own about children and screens. In the nineteenth century, the kaleidoscope, the thaumatrope, the zoetrope, the stereoscope, and other optical toys were standard accessories of a middle-class childhood, used both at home and at school. In Playful Visions, Meredith Bak argues that the optical toys of the nineteenth century were the “new media” of their era, teaching children to be discerning consumers of media—and also provoking anxieties similar to contemporary worries about children's screen time. Bak shows that optical toys—which produced visual effects ranging from a moving image to the illusion of depth—established and reinforced a new understanding of vision as an interpretive process. At the same time, the expansion of the middle class as well as education and labor reforms contributed to a new notion of childhood as a time of innocence and play. Modern media culture and the emergence of modern Western childhood are thus deeply interconnected. Drawing on extensive archival research, Bak discusses, among other things, the circulation of optical toys, and the wide visibility gained by their appearance as printed templates and textual descriptions in periodicals; expanding conceptions of literacy, which came to include visual acuity; and how optical play allowed children to exercise a sense of visual mastery. She examines optical toys alongside related visual technologies including chromolithography—which inspired both chromatic delight and chromophobia. Finally, considering the contemporary use of optical toys in advertising, education, and art, Bak analyzes the endurance of nineteenth-century visual paradigms.

A Playful Path, the new book by games guru and fun theorist Bernard De Koven, serves as a collection of ideas and tools to help us bring our playfulness back into the open. When we find ourselves forgetting the life of the game or the game of life, the joy of form or the content, the play of brain or mind, body or spirit, this book can help us return to that which our soul is heir.

Peek “behind the scenes” of the universe—and see math in brilliant color! For curious minds throughout history, math was truly an art. In Visions of the Universe, you can pick up right where Isaac Newton, Blaise Pascal, and other luminaries left off—by coloring 58 exquisite patterns inspired by great discoveries in math: Intricate geometric designs like those that grace the mosques of Mecca Felix Klein’s astounding diagram—drawn in 1897—of light reflecting between five mirrored spheres A mind-bending puzzle so beautiful it once hung outside a Japanese temple, and more! Plus, in the Creating chapter, you’ll help complete 10 additional images by following simple steps that give spectacular results. No math knowledge is required: Anyone can be an artist in Numberland!

This book introduces three new subjects to the context of literacy research—play, the imaginary, and improvisation—and proposes how to incorporate these important concepts into the field as research methods in order to engage people, materials, spaces, and imaginaries that are inherent in every research encounter. Grounded in cutting-edge theory, chapters are structured around lived narratives of research experiences, demonstrating key practices for unsettling and expanding the ways people interact, behave, and construct knowledge. Through an exploration of difference, play, and the imaginary, authors Medina, Perry, and Wohlwend present an active set of practices that acknowledges and attends to the global, fragmented, politicized contexts in literacy research. This book provides researchers and literacy education scholars with rich and clear theoretical foundations and practical tools to engage in literacy research in ethical, creative, and responsive ways. The authors invite readers to play by exploring the ways in which pedagogical, research, artistic, and other creative contexts can be sites to examine identity, plurality, and difference. Chapters feature innovative elements such as author dialogues that make visible how the authors engage with the ideas they present; guiding questions to prompt reflection and conversation; playful invitations to share possibilities of play in real-world contexts; and stories and practices to ground the conceptual and playful inquiry.

The volume addresses the matter of participatory media practices as playful appropriations within current digital media culture and artistic research. The aim is to explore and trace the shifting boundaries between media production and media use, and to develop concepts and methodologies that work within participatory media cultures. Therefore the articles explore and establish nuanced approaches to the oftentimes playful practices associated with the appropriation of technology.

This book asks how thinking, governing, performing, and producing the urban differently can assist in enabling the creation of alternative urban futures. It is a timely response to the ongoing crises and pressing challenges that inhabitants of cities, towns, and villages worldwide are faced with in the midst of what has been widely dubbed as ‘an urban age’. Starting from the premise that current urban development patterns are unsustainable in every sense of the word, the book explores how alternative patterns can be pursued by the wide variety of actors – from governments and international institutions to slum-dwellers and social movements – involved in the on-going production of our shared urban condition. The challenges addressed include exclusion and segregation; persisting poverty and increasing inequality; urban sprawl and changing land use patterns; and the spatial frames of urban policy. As such the book appeals to urban scholars, policy makers, activists, and others concerned with shaping the future of our cities and of urban life in general. Additionally, it is of interest to students in urban planning, architecture and design, human geography, urban sociology, and related fields.