Board Games Studies Colloquia

In September 1990 Irving Finkel, curator and assyriologist for The British Museum, hosted a symposium on the study of board games “Board Games in the Ancient World”. This encouraged the regular gathering of minds, mainly thanks to Alex De Voogt, starting in 1995 first on a biennial basis, and since 2001 every year. The first conferences used the title “Board Games in Academia”.

Today this meeting is known as the Board Game Studies Colloquium and it is so far the only recurring event devoted solely to the study of non-digital board games hosted at various venues throughout the world. 

The Colloquium gathers a wide range of multidisciplinar scholars, curators, inventors, collectors and enthusiasts from all around the world. They present and discuss new research in the growing field of game studies. The focus has traditionally been on historical and pre-historical board games, but for many years the colloquium has included papers concerned with modern non-digital gaming. Today the BGS colloquia provide a vibrant research forum for the history, present and future of analog games.