Volume 16, Number 2 & 3

Contributors

Vincent Berry is a professor at Sorbonne Paris North University in charge of the Game and Play Studies Master’s program. Grounded in the sociology of play and leisure, his research analyzes the evolution of contemporary playful practices and culture (toys, board games, video games, role-playing games, and similar play things), with a particular focus on the notion of experience. He examines the relationships between games, leisure, and learning. Annie Xiang is a research engineer at the EXPERICE laboratory. She manages the Board Game Heritage Collection, a collection housed at Sorbonne Paris North University consisting of twenty-three thousand board games and role-playing games dating from the midnineteenth century to the present day. Her work explores the evolution of the board game industry with an emphasis on materiality and authorship issues.

Anne Boyd is a PhD. candidate at Boston University in the American Studies Program. Her research examines race and the American cultural landscape, and her dissertation explores physical representations of the Lost Cause mythology in the twentieth century. She has presented her work at the American Studies Association, the American Historical Association, and the Heidelberg Center for American Studies.

Ozlem Cankaya is an Associate Professor of Early Childhood Curriculum Studies at MacEwan University, Edmonton, Canada. Cankaya’s research focuses on the interaction of four areas shaping cognitive competence: cultural artifacts, cognitive domains, interpersonal contexts, and individual factors, as observed in young children’s play. Her work aims to help educators and parents support children’s cognitive development and learning. Jamie Leach is an Assistant Professor in the Child and Youth Study Department at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada. Leach’s research involves children’s social communication during play, the influence of materials on children’s play, and the implementation of sustainable curriculum frameworks in early childhood education. Kadriye Akdemir is a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and an instructor at Concordia University of Edmonton. Her research and teaching have focused on young children’s play.

Rebecca Horrace is an educational researcher with nearly two decades of experience in children’s education. Her work focuses on integrating developmentally appropriate practices into toys, media, and technology. Horrace teaches educators, publishes on children’s play literacies, and presents at conferences on play-based education. Most recently, Horrace was appointed director of the nonprofit Let’s Play America.

James R. Pennell is professor emeritus of Sociology at the University of Indianapolis and former codirector of the Community Research Center there. He is the author of Local Vino: The Winery Boom in the Heartland, concerning the development of
the Midwest wine industry. His research examines teacher leadership, organizations and work, and community engagement.

Emilie St-Hilaire holds a PhD from the interdisciplinary humanities program at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. Her dissertation examines the phenomenon of reborn dolls from a feminist perspective. St-Hilaire has often been interviewed by journalists on the topic of reborn doll ownership, and her research has been cited in The Guardian (U.S.A.), Le Temps (Switzerland), Gehirn & Geist (Germany), Cosmopolitan (U.S.A.), and in radio interviews including NPR in the United States and CBC in Canada. St-Hilaire’s scholarly articles appear in RACAR (Canadian Art Review) and Le Journal International de Bioéthique.

Bhoomi K. Thakore is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Associate Director of Asian and Asian American Studies in the Department of Social and Critical Inquiry at the University of Connecticut. Her research covers social inequalities, media sociology, and the scholarship of teaching and learning— subjects about which she has published a variety of articles. Her forthcoming book will be a sociological analysis of YouTube that includes a historical examination of the platform from the perspectives of both consumers and creators.

Anne D. Williams is a professor emerita of economics at Bates College. She is the author of The Jigsaw Puzzle: Piecing Together A History, as well as two other books and dozens of articles about the history of jigsaw puzzles and their usage in the United States. She has curated several jigsaw puzzle exhibitions and is a charter member of the Association for Games & Puzzles International.