"...it is not hard to find aspirations for liberation from the monotony of our domesticated existences, expressed in desires for ‘wilder’ leisure."

Wild Play workshop

Academic workshop with philosophical and interdisciplinary exploration of “wild play” in the broadest sense hosted by the POP! Network.

About this event

Many games, sports, and leisure activities take place in artificially constructed and safely controlled environments. However, it is not hard to find aspirations for liberation from the monotony of our domesticated existences, expressed in desires for ‘wilder’ leisure. From children’s activities promoted as wholesome muddy antidotes to screen time, to urban axe-throwing experiences marketed at pseudo-deviant stag night parties, sometimes we yearn to escape into what Jack Halberstam calls “unbounded and unpredictable spaces” that we believe (rightly or not) offer sources of opposition to “modernity's orderly impulses”. (2020)

Activities as diverse as climbing rugged mountains, exploring broken-down buildings, and building fantastical dens in woodlands may all be conceived of as different examples of wild play.

Invited speakers:

• Professor Quill R Kukla, Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University, "Power Play, Play Spaces, and the Edges of Sexual Consent"
• Karl Egerton, University of Nottingham, “The riddle of the forager”
• Sasha Garwood, University of Nottingham, “From athletocracy to wild swimming: love, sexuality, and Edwardian masculinity’?”

Plus further contributions.

The event will be primarily in person, but there may be limited options to attend online if there is a particular need.

Click here to book now.

If you have any questions please email us at PoP@nottingham.ac.uk.