Tessa Diphoorn is an Associate Professor at the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University. Her research and teaching focuses on policing, security, violence, and authority in Kenya and South Africa. She is also an adamant supporter of interdisciplinarity in education and research and has engaged in numerous initiatives, such as this game. She is the co-host and co-founder of the podcast series Travelling Concepts on Air with Brianne McGonigle Leyh, where they explore the notion of travelling concepts in academia. For more information about her scholarly work, visit her UU employment page.

Q: Why am I excited about this game?

First and foremost, I want people to genuinely enjoy playing it and to discover that learning and personal development don’t have to feel like homework. On a more ambitious note, I’m on a mission to make education more playful, creative, and alive. Too often, when people picture universities or “science,” they still imagine a stern, old white man in a dusty cloak, either conducting obscure experiments or delivering endless lectures. That image is quite only outdated! With this game, I hope to show that thinking can be collaborative and imaginative, and that complex ideas can be explored through play. And if this game inspires few educators to experiment with more inventive, joyful ways of teaching, then it’s already doing more than I hoped for.

Tessa Diphoorn & Katharine Fortin are also co-coordinators of the interdisciplinary minor ‘Re-Imagining Security’ that includes courses from four different faculties. To learn more about their experiences and ideas on this minor, check this videoclip.