Playing with Social Theory: Creative and Reflexive Methods for Teaching and Practice

What does good theorizing look like? And how can or should theorizing be taught? This article challenges the static and exegetic approaches to theorizing that have been normalized in university teaching by explicating a novel approach to theorizing through play. To develop this approach, we reflect critically on how we implemented play as a method for teaching social theory in an undergraduate classroom and analyze the theoretical outcomes our playful activities produced. In reflecting on these experiences, we argue that play can destabilize conventional scholarly approaches to social theorizing and foster more creative ways of generating and relating to it. We also discuss several challenges we encountered introducing play into our classrooms, showing how play can disrupt some of the normative dispositions that structure theoretical practice in the neoliberal university. In naming, analyzing, and arguing for the importance of those disruptions, we consider how play might enhance social theorizing within and beyond the classroom.