2025 Annual Institute

Our 25th annual flagship event returns to Barnard College!  From June 4-8, 2025 we'll meet for pedagogy-packed days in New York, and we hope you'll join us.  

PROGRAMMING

The Reacting pedagogy is best understood by experiencing as students do, albeit in abbreviated versions. This game workshop provides a condensed gameplay experience over two days, broad context for the simulation and mechanics, and includes post-game guidance on how to use it in your own classroom.

Participants will be sent a gamebook for each game, outlining the topics and debates of a historical moment, as well as detailed role sheets for a historical actor in those debates. Participants prepare and engage as their assigned historical (re)actor, making arguments and forging alliances to achieve specific Victory Objectives. You need not be a specialist to play a Reacting game, but you should plan on doing some preparatory reading. We are pleased to offer nine different games this year:

THURSDAY-FRIDAY GAME WORKSHOPS
Full-length games played over four sessions

• Ashoka: Becoming the Dharma King
• Red Clay, 1835: Cherokee Removal and the Meaning of Sovereignty
• Charles Darwin, the Copley Medal, and the Rise of Naturalism, 1861-1864
• Radical Reconstruction in New Orleans, 1868-1876
• The Second Spanish Republic, 1931-1939

• Conclave 1492: The Election of a Renaissance Pope
• The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798
• A "Virtuous Woman"? The Abolition of Sati, India 1829
• London 1854: Cesspits, Cholera, and Conflict over the Broad Street Pump
• Newbie Workshop

Veterans can choose one game from each of these groups, and we suggest that newcomers to Reacting opt for our "Newbie Workshop" to best prepare you to run your own first game.

CONCURRENT SESSIONS

This year, we'll be offering more than a dozen different sessions on a variety of topics including Game Safety Mechanisms, Reacting to the Past and Generative AI, and Refining your Debrief. Each session is stand-alone, and you'll be able to attend as many as four during the conference. More information will be shared on these sessions as it becomes available.

PRELIMINARY SCHEDULE 

(ALL TIMES EASTERN AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE)

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4

THURSDAY, JUNE 5

FRIDAY, JUNE 6

SATURDAY, JUNE 7

SUNDAY, JUNE 8

PRICING

*These rates, while not in reach of all people, are below cost; higher rates for non-members subsidize participation for faculty-in-training.

Become a member to save money on your registration! Individual memberships start at just $25. 

FUNDED REGISTRATION FOR DEI ADVANCEMENT $0
The Reacting Consortium is committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, and belonging. We have funded registration for instructors who are members of historically underrepresented and marginalized identity groups, and/or for those teaching at minority-serving institutions (HBCUs, Tribal colleges and universities, AAPI- and Hispanic-serving institutions). If you are interested in applying for one of these spots, please send an email to reacting@barnard.edu with the subject line “Funded AI Spot” by May 1. Approved applicants will be able to register for free, but housing will not be included.  Please apply and share with colleagues!

THE DANA JOHNSON GORLIN FELLOWSHIP FUNDED REGISTRATION 
The Dana Johnson Gorlin Fellowship covers registration, travel, and housing for one instructor to attend the conference. Read more about Dana, the fellowship, previous recipients, and how to apply. Applications and nominations are due April 15. 

HOUSING

We will have approximately 124 rooms on floors 9-16 of Sulzberger Tower for our conference participants; beds can be booked at a rate of $95/night, with basic linens provided.  Reservations are available only for the nights of June 4-7, and all participants must be checked out by 2pm on June 8.

The Reacting Consortium Board, in its sole and absolute discretion, reserves the right to bar any person from the Reacting Faculty Lounge on Facebook and from participation in any Reacting Consortium event.