Campus Workshop for Virginia Commonwealth University

Join your fellow VCU faculty to learn how Reacting to the Past can invigorate your classes with high-impact simulations that engage students more deeply with their coursework, with one another, and with themselves as learners.

This full-day workshop, funded by the Honors College, will guide you through a RTTP module set during the early days of the French Revolution,  and provide guidance on how simulations like RTTP give students relevant experiences to apply their knowledge and skills.

THE GAME

Rousseau, Burke, and Revolution in France plunges you into the intellectual, political, and ideological currents that surged through revolutionary Paris in the summer of 1791. As leaders of major factions within the National Assembly (and in the streets outside), players struggle to create a constitution amidst internal chaos and threats of foreign invasion. Will the king retain power? Will the priests of the Catholic Church obey the “general will” of the National Assembly or the dictates of the pope in Rome? Do traditional institutions and values constitute restraints on freedom and individual dignity or are they its essential bulwarks? Are slaves, women, and Jews entitled to the “rights of man”? Is violence a legitimate means of changing society or of purging it of dangerous enemies? In wrestling with these issues, students consult Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract and Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, among other texts.

THE SCHEDULE (subject to shifts)

Friday, Sep 30, 2022

6:00-7:30  Reception and an Introduction to Reacting

Saturday, Oct 1, 2022

8:30-9:00 Check-in,  light breakfast, Welcoming remarks

9:00-10:30 Game Set-up: Historical Background, Major Texts, Game Elements, and Faction meetings

10:30-12:00 Game Session 1

12:00-1:00 Lunch

1:00-2:30 Game Session 2

2:30-4:00 Game Session 3: Endgame and Post-Mortem

4:00-5:00 Q&A with Veteran Faculty and Students

THE GAME MASTER

Linda Mayhew is Assistant Director of the Humanities Honors Program at The University of Texas at Austin. She has been teaching Reacting since 2009 for the Liberal Arts Honors program and served on the Reacting Consortium Board from 2012–2015. Her Reacting game Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Literary Journals in St. Petersburg, 1877 will be published in Fall 2023. Research interests include nineteenth century Russian literature, the history of St. Petersburg, literary journals, and censorship. In her free time, Linda enjoys horseback riding and watching Austin FC soccer games.

THE FINE PRINT

There are a limited number of seats available to VCU faculty for this workshop, offered on a first-come, first-served basis. For questions related to on-site issues (location, parking, etc), please contact Scott Breuninger, Dean of the VCU Honors College. For questions about the Reacting pedagogy or the Reacting Consortium, please contact Jennifer Worth, Administrative Director, RC.