In the nineteenth century, Marx rejected the notion of homo sapiens,
offering instead homo faber to indicate how consciousness follows from
the primary activity of making. Against this, a certain ludic tradition
has imagined a homo ludens, humans defined through their relationship
with games and play. Cabinet 45 features Joshua Glenn on H.G. Wells'
"Floor Games"; D. Graham Burnett on games played by game theorists;
Barbara Levine and Jessica Helfand on dexterity games; James Trainor on
the lost world of "adventure" playgrounds; Dana Katz on Brian Eno and
Peter Schmidt's "Oblique Strategies"; an interview with Bertell Ollman,
inventor of the board game "Class Struggle"; and Jeff Dolven on poems as
games. Elsewhere in the issue: Helen Larsson on the history of applause;
Wayne Koestenbaum's legendary "Legend" column; Naomi Muller on eating
the zoo animals in Berlin during World War II; Jeremy Crichton on
"spite" houses; and much more.
