Teaching with Games. Formative Gaming in Religion, Philosophy and Ethics. Introduction to the Special Issue

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.48783/gameviron.v19i19.243

Keywords:

Formative Games, Education, Religious Games, Philosophy, gamevironments

Abstract

This special issue explores the power of games to shape worldviews, share perspectives, develop religious identities and provoke ethical reflection. Contributors bring together ideas from classrooms of philosophy and religious studies with case studies from religious communities and companies engaged in game design, and reflect on their own experiences as makers, players, teachers and critics of games. This introduction proposes a concept of formative gaming to explain this multidisciplinary, multi-context approach. The issue includes four articles, two reports and an interview, and this introduction briefly summarises each contribution before identifying the key themes and shared questions that emerge across the collection.

Author Biography

  • Tim Hutchings, University of Nottingham

    Tim Hutchings is Associate Professor of Religious Ethics in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Nottingham (UK). He received his PhD from Durham University in 2010. He is a sociologist of digital religion, and his research interests include online worship, death and grief online and religious games. His research also focuses on the teaching of Religious Education in primary and secondary schools, and he serves on a number of committees and collaborative projects dedicated to improving research and teaching links between Religious Studies experts in schools and universities. His publications include Creating Church Online: Ritual, Community and New Media (Routledge 2017), Materiality and the Study of Religion (Routledge 2016, edited with Joanne McKenzie) and Digital Humanities and Christianity (De Gruyter 2021, edited with Claire Clivaz). He was the founding editor of the journal Religion, Media and Digital Culture and served as its editor-in-chief from 2012 to 2022.

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Published

2023-12-21