In his lecture de Voogt will illustrate the potential of using game names and strategic terms based on contemporary examples of mancala and alquerque-type games found in the Indian Ocean region. He will address how more extensive lexicons for card games show the extent to which words have been borrowed from other languages or games and how this points to specific historical distributions of the games themselves.

Alex de Voogt is a Dutch board game scholar whose work sits at the very foundation of modern board game studies. De Voogt has a background in game psychology, but often collaborates across disciplines with researchers from archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, and elsewhere. He has published numerous books and articles and conducted extensive fieldwork in the Near East, on the African continent, and among island nations in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. He organized the first international Board Game Studies Colloquium in 1997 and co-founded the Board Game Studies Journal in 1998. They both continue to this day and have long since become prominent institutions in the field.

High Gravity Talks Lecture Series

The High Gravity Talks series organized by the Astral Sciences in Trans-Regional Asia (ASTRA) Research Group aims to foster interdisciplinary dialogue by bringing leading voices to the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG). Each year these public lectures attract a diverse audience of students, academics, and interested members of the public.