NEWS AND Announcements 

Reacting Leadership Transitions
An Announcement from the Reacting Consortium Board

It is an important moment of change for the Reacting Consortium and its community.

Mark Carnes will step away from his role as founding Executive Director of the Reacting Consortium on July 1^st, 2022. Nick Proctor, founding Chair of the Reacting Editorial Board (REB) and an early member of the Reacting Consortium Board, will become the new Executive Director of Reacting. Kelly McFall, a member of both the Reacting Consortium Board and Reacting Editorial Board, has been selected as the Interim Chair of the Reacting Editorial Board with oversight of the development and review of games for publication.

Mark Carnes Founder; Outgoing Executive Director

Nick Proctor   Incoming Executive Director

Kelly McFall Incoming Chair of REB

The Reacting community owes a great debt to Mark and in fact wouldn’t exist but for his original vision for a new way to teach history in his Barnard classroom. From that moment of collaboration with his students about a new way to engage with classic texts in 1996, Mark went on to be a prolific author of Reacting games, grant-writer, fundraiser, recruiter, game-master, and encourager-in-chief to newcomers with fresh ideas about new topics and directions for Reacting. After this first experiment with a game set in Ming China, he went on to develop games about the Trial of Anne Hutchinson, the French Revolution, and India in 1945, making use of a FIPSE grant to enlist co-authors with disciplinary expertise in these areas. In 2001, he hosted the first Reacting workshop, inviting 40 colleagues from around the country. Having always served as Executive Director pro bono, Mark looks forward to being able to devote more time to writing and revising games and supporting others in the game development process.

Under Nick Proctor’s direction, the Reacting Editorial Board (REB) became a formal body that defined a “Reacting game,” established criteria for guiding its development, and set up a system of peer review to determine when games were ready for publication. As he steps into the role of Executive Director, Nick’s vision for the future focuses on continued expansion of the flagship library; deepening our relationship with high schools; figuring out the balance between in-person conferences and online programming going forward; and improving fiscal stability by growing existing income streams as well as increasing their number. As he notes, “We should also capitalize on the expertise that we have built with online programming. In addition to broadening the geographical and institutional scope of attendees, these can offer good opportunities to field test new games."

Kelly McFall’s goals for the REB include management of the process of soliciting, reviewing, and moving toward publication efficiently and effectively; continuing to grow our pool of game authors and game projects; working with the Game Development Conference to pilot and experiment with different structures and mechanisms; serving as an ambassador for Reacting and an effective liaison for game authors; and completing and executing a system for review of existing games that are moving into second editions.

The Reacting Consortium is deeply grateful to Mark Carnes for all of his years of creative and inspired leadership. We are glad that he will remain an active member of this community and look forward to supporting Nick and Kelly as they step into their new roles.

To read a tribute to Mark Carnes, check our blog.

Our Game Authors and Editorial Board and always working hard. We want to highlight some of the new Reacting Games Under Review recently added to our library, as well as updated materials.

Congressional AIDS Hearings 
New Files March 2022

Eyeball to Eyeball
New Files June 2022

Liberia 
New Game - June 2022

And in case you missed it...here's the most recent from Fall/Winter 2022 (also found in this announcement):

NEW GAMES

Japanese Exclusion in California, 1906-1915

Ending the Troubles: Religion, Nationalism, and the Search for Peace and Democracy in Northern Ireland, 1997-98

UPDATED FILES

Russian Literary Journals, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy in St. Petersburg, 1877 
Updated February 2022

1349: Plague Comes to Norwich
Updated January 2022

Bacon's Rebellion, 1676-1677: Race, Class, and Frontier Conflict in Colonial Virginia 
Updated October 2021

The Crisis of Catiline: Rome, 63 BCE 
Updated August 2021

Expanded and Modified Materials from the Community

Restoring the World, 1945: Security and Empire at Yalta 
March 2022 - this includes name tents, additional roles, etc

We want to keep you updated throughout our transition to our new publishers, UNC-Press (read more about that here and here).

Here is a spreadsheet with all our published titles and their new ISBN numbers. Details are also copied below.  You can preorder these titles NOW, and they will be available in July! 

BONUS: note the uniform, lower price point for paperbacks ($30), and the availability of e-books for a portion of the games, as well.

Our Game Authors and Editorial Board and always working hard. We want to highlight some of the new Reacting Games Under Review recently added to our library, as well as updated materials. 

NEW GAMES

Japanese Exclusion in California, 1906-1915

Ending the Troubles: Religion, Nationalism, and the Search for Peace and Democracy in Northern Ireland, 1997-98

UPDATED FILES

Russian Literary Journals, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy in St. Petersburg, 1877 (Updated February 2022)

1349: Plague Comes to Norwich (Updated January 2022)

Bacon's Rebellion, 1676-1677: Race, Class, and Frontier Conflict in Colonial Virginia (Updated October 2021)

The Crisis of Catiline: Rome, 63 BCE (Updated August 2021)

Expanded and Modified Materials from the Community

Restoring the World, 1945: Security and Empire at Yalta (March 2022 - this includes name tents, additional roles, etc)

We'll continue to update this list, and then start a new one for the spring. 

Major Press Release: 12/15/2021 

*Reacting Consortium and UNCP to partner in publishing all Reacting games.

The Reacting Consortium, Inc. is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement with the University of North Carolina Press to publish all Reacting to the Past games. Beginning in the summer and fall of 2022, UNCP will publish the thirty games currently published by W. W. Norton and the Reacting Consortium Press. UNCP will also publish, as regular imprints of the press, all future Reacting to the Past games. This will consolidate Reacting offerings and make it easier for instructors to find and use Reacting materials. It will also facilitate and simplify the process for developing and publishing Reacting games.

“The Consortium has long sought to bring all of its games under the broad umbrella of an outstanding university press,” declared Mark Carnes, Executive Director of the Reacting Consortium. “While we’re excited by this opportunity to expand and rationalize the Reacting pedagogy, we appreciate W. W. Norton, whose fine team did so much to promote and refine Reacting to the Past during its formative years.” The Reacting Consortium will continue to partner with W. W. Norton on the Flashpoints series of short games.

“This agreement was the culmination of countless hours of work by the Executive Committee of the Reacting Board, chaired sequentially by Anthony Crider (physicist, Elon University) and Gretchen Galbraith (Dean of Arts and Sciences, SUNY Potsdam), and including Publishing Director Jace Weaver (historian, University of Georgia) and Nick Proctor, chair of the Reacting Editorial Board (historian, Simpson College), along with Dr. Jenn Worth, Administrative Director, and Maddie Provo, Membership Director, of the Reacting Consortium staff,” Carnes added.

You can read more here on the blog of UNC Press. 

The Reacting Consortium, Inc., a not-for-profit 501 (c) 3 corporation, governs the Reacting to the Past pedagogy, in which students play complex games, set in the past, their roles informed by important texts. The Reacting pedagogy is used by over 500 colleges and universities in the United States—and also by several dozen universities elsewhere.

For further information: Mark Carnes mcarnes@barnard.edu
Jenn Worth jworth@barnard.edu
Gretchen Galbraith galbragr@potsdam.edu

The Reacting Consortium Board is seeking nominations for open positions on the Board beginning on July 1, 2022 and extending until June 30, 2025.

The first priority is for someone in a position to provide philanthropic support or experience in fundraising of the kind that RTTP needs to sustain itself and to grow. The second priority is for a Senior Administrator at the level of Dean or above (i.e., Provost, President, etc.) who will be situated to provide the Board with guidance on how to encourage and develop institutional support for Reacting to the Past. The third priority is for someone with experience in technological design who can contribute to the development of innovative pedagogical approaches to online workshops, virtual events, etc. Candidates with a variety of diverse backgrounds and experiences are especially encouraged.

Nominations (including contact information) should be sent to the Chair of the Nominations Committee, John Lucaites (lucaites@iu.edu), by December 1, 2021.

REACTING GAME DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE CALL FOR PROPOSALS

The Reacting to the Past Game Development Conference Executive Committee (a.k.a. “The Junta”) is pleased to issue a Call for Proposals for the 2021 GDC (held July 1-18) in two areas:

• Level 2 Games to be playtested, and
• Pitches for new games needing feedback and discussion by experienced Reacting instructors, gamers, and designers

The GDC is geared toward the development and enrichment of Reacting through an innovative program of cross-pollination and fruitful inquiry, and is appropriate for those with previous RTTP experience. For priority consideration, download the appropriate Google form below, complete it, and email it to rttpgdc@gmail.com by April 17, 2021.

MORE FROM KYLE LINCOLN
Notum sit omnibus tam presentibus quam futuris...
The Reacting to the Past Game Development Conference Executive Committee for the Benefit of the Consortium and the People (a.k.a. “The Junta”) is pleased to issue a “Call for Proposals” for the 2021 (unfortunately still synchronous and online) GDC. In accordance with the customs of our ancestors, we ask for proposals for L2 Games to be playtested and for “pitches” for new games that need group feedback and discussion. There is a modest amount of paperwork, which the GDCECBCP uses to inventory and vet the games proposed for playtesting. This year, we are able to offer fewer slots than in the traditional years, but our hope is that we can return to GDC customs fully next year. The “pitches” consist of short presentations from practitioners developing games that might benefit from the fertile ideas ecology of the GDC, where game ideas can be enhanced by the cross-usage of extant elements, addition of kinds of source questions, mechanical innovations, and the general insights of the experienced Reacting designer.

“The Junta” also offers a number of workshops, these year to be led by some of RttP’s luminaries, visionaries, and deplorables, for both the benefit and corruption of Reacting as an enterprise. The GDC is always geared toward the development and enrichment of Reacting through an innovative program of cross-pollination and fruitful inquiry, but is usually limited to those with previous experience in the pedagogy as a whole.

Let's take a quick look back at our summer 2020 events. 

SUMMER OF REACTING
NOTES FROM JENN WORTH
After so many of us were sent to work from home in March, we knew we had to figure out what to do in lieu of the Annual Institute--it was supposed to be the 20th, and a big celebration, at that. But, in true RTTP fashion: we planned our best, and then watched life unfold in front of us, heedless of our wishes.

So we did what Reactors do: we kept our Victory Objectives in mind, hustled, and came up with Plans B, C, D, and more! What we ended up with were eleven games offered over three months, both synchronously and asynchronously, for nearly 200 registrants: similar to what we’d aim for at an Institute. In addition to the games, we also offered training sessions on various software platforms for distance learning, Q& A panels with experienced faculty and students, and additional programs on emotional intelligence, adjusting game mechanisms, and specifics on how to adapt some of our most popular games.

We are incredibly grateful to all of our GMs, panelists, board members, and especially Board Chair Tony Crider, for the work they put in making this summer a learning experience worthy of the Reacting name.

GAME DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE
NOTES FROM KELLY McFALL
As with everything in 2020, this year’s Game Development Conference was different. A virtual GDC turned out to be simultaneously different and the same.

Instead of gathering at Cabrini, we met via zoom each Thursday of July. We still managed to playtest three terrific games: Japanese Exclusion in California, 1906-20, Grandsons of Genghis: The Mongol Qurultai of 1246, and Egypt’s Liberal Experiment, 1925-27. We also held several ‘pitch sessions’ where game designers talked about their ideas and received feedback.

Playing on zoom was simultaneously challenging and enlightening. Emma Eck, a student intern at Newman, played stage manager behind the scenes, moving people into and out of breakout rooms, managing polls and allowing designers to concentrate on learning from game play. Not only did we learn about the games we were playtesting, but we learned more about how games work in an online world. And, as usual, Mark Carnes again celebrated someone else’s victory.

Sparked by the decision to go virtual, Jeff Fortney and Amy Curry took on the task of leading a task force to identify best practices for designing games for the on-line environment. That task force made a preliminary report at an online session in August and continues to work.

The transition to virtual was challenging and rewarding at the same time. But we hope that next year we’ll return in our traditional conference format. Covid allowing, we hope to see many of you at Cabrini in July of 2021.

In an unrelenting year, the Reacting Editorial Board and Game Development Conference continue their unbelievable work. We're excited to share game development highlights: 

NEW FULL LENGTH GAMES 
WITH W.W. NORTON
Chicago, 1968: Policy and Protest at the Democratic National Convention
Japan, 1941: Between Pan-Asianism and the West

WITH REACTING CONSORTIUM PRESS
Europe on the Brink, 1914: The July Crisis
Restoring the World, 1945: Security and Empire at Yalta

FLASHPOINTS SERIES
WITH W. W. NORTON
Paterson, 1913: A Labor Strike in the Progressive Era
Raising the Eleventh Pillar: The Ratification Debate of 1788

OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE GAME 
WITH REACTING CONSORTIUM PRESS
Food Fight: Challenging the USDA Food Pyramid, 1991

LEVEL 3 GAMES
While the final changes are still being made to two of the games most recently approved for the Reacting Consortium Library, Mark Thompson's Physician-Assisted Suicide: Autonomy, Ethics, Morality, and the End of Life is available for members to download.