IAS Book Launch: Critical Games

ABOUT THE BOOK
In Critical Games, Tim Beasley-Murray explores the games we play (whether we know it or not), the ways we play them (for fun, but also to win, and to gain approval from others), and what happens when they get out of hand. He interrogates the theory of play and gaming, with a particular focus on the games played by literary authors and literary critics. Drawing on (often self-critical) autobiography, as well as readings in texts across a range of languages, Beasley-Murray plays with academic conventions to highlight what is at stake in them, turning to the Game of Literature, from Kafka to Carrère, to seek models and warnings of the outcomes of taking games too seriously, or not taking them seriously enough.

Critical games. On play and seriousness in academia, literature and life was published by Manchester University Press in June 2025. 

ABOUT THE EVENT
Tim Beasley-Murray will be in conversation with Abigail Williams, Professor of English Literature, Oxford University and incoming Dean of Arts and Humanities, King’s College London.