Registration is now open for the 12th Annual “Reacting to the Past” Institute at Barnard College. We look forward to reconnecting with colleagues and to welcoming new faculty and administrators to the RTTP network. | Click here to register now.
As is our custom, the program will feature two cycles of game workshops that allow participants to experience two different games over the course of the institute. In addition to six titles from the published series, offerings include five games in development and two new chapter-length science games. | Learn more about the Featured Games.
We also invite proposals for concurrent sessions that explore a wide range of issues related to role-playing pedagogy, course design, game management, and faculty recruitment. The deadline for proposals is March 15, 2012. | View the Call for Proposals.
For further information on registration rates, travel, and lodging on campus, please visit the institute page.
“Reacting to the Past” is a series of historical role-playing simulations, published by Pearson in the form of student resource books that provide detailed background for the historical case and the various actors, as well the rules and issues to be debated. The instructor’s manual for each game is available directly from RTTP.
“Reacting to the Past” (RTTP) consists of elaborate games, set in the past, in which students are assigned roles informed by classic texts in the history of ideas. Class sessions are run entirely by students; instructors advise and guide students and grade their oral and written work. It seeks to draw students into the past, promote engagement with big ideas, and improve intellectual and academic skills.
Pioneered in the late 1990s by Mark C. Carnes, Professor of History at Barnard College, RTTP has undergone considerable development and expansion. In addition to the eight games currently published by Pearson Education, another twelve games are being developed by teams of faculty from across the nation.
All of the games are set in the past, and thus might be regarded as history, but each game also explores multiple additional disciplines. Part of the intellectual appeal of RTTP is that it transcends disciplinary structures…
The published games currently address:
- Charles Darwin, the Copley Medal and the Rise of Naturalism, 1861-64
- Confucianism and the Succession Crisis of the Wanli Emperor, 1587
- Defining a Nation: India on the Eve of Independence, 1945
- Henry VIII & the Reformation Parliament
- Patriots, Loyalists & Revolution in New York City, 1775-76
- Rousseau, Burke, and Revolution in France, 1791
- The Threshold of Democracy: Athens in 403 B.C.
- Trial of Anne Hutchinson: Liberty, Law, and Intolerance in Puritan New England
- Trial of Galileo: Aristotelianism, the “New Cosmology,” and the Catholic Church, 1616-33
While a number of other games are currently in development:
- Acid Rain and the European Environment, 1979-89
- America’s Founding: The Constitutional Convention
- Beware the Ides of March: Rome, 44 BCE
- The Collapse of Apartheid and Dawn of Democracy in South Africa, 1993
- Constantine and the Council of Nicaea
- Defining the Mind: The APA in the 1970s
- Forest Diplomacy: War and Peace on the Colonial Frontier, 1756-57
- Frederick Douglass, Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Constitution: 1845
- Greenwich Village, 1913: Suffrage, Labor, and the New Woman
- The Josianic Reform: Deuteronomy, Prophecy, and Israelite Religion
- Kansas, 1999: Evolution and Creation Science
- Kentucky, 1861: A Nation in the Balance
- King or Commonwealth? The English Civil War, 1647–1652
- Korea at the Crossroads of Civilizations: Confucianism, Westernization, and the 1894 Kabo Reforms
- London, 1688: Revolution, Coup, or Royal Renegotiation?
- Marlowe and Shakespeare, 1592
- Modernism vs. Traditionalism: Art in Paris, 1888-89
- Petrograd, 1917
- Rage Against the Machine: Technology, Rebellion, and the Industrial Revolution
- Red Clay, 1835: Cherokee Removal and the Meaning of Sovereignty
- The Second Crusade: The War Council of Acre, 1148
- The Struggle for Civil Rights: Birmingham to Memphis, 1963-66
- The Struggle for Palestine, 1936