Mary Flanagan

|Professor
Academic Appointments
  • Professor of Film and Media Studies

  • Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities

  • Affiliated Faculty, The Institute of Arctic Studies, The John Sloan Dickey Center

  • Director, Tiltfactor Research Laboratory, http://www.tiltfactor.org

Connect with Us

Mary Flanagan, the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities at Dartmouth College, is a leading artist, innovator, educator and designer, whose works have included everything from game-inspired art, to commercial games that shift people's thinking about biases and stereotypes. Visit her personal website for her creative portfolio and links to talks and press coverage, http://www.maryflanagan.com.

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Contact

Visual Arts Center, Room 245
HB 6194

Department(s)

Film and Media Studies

Center(s)

The John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding

Education

  • B.A. University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee
  • M.A. University of Iowa
  • M.F.A. University of Iowa
  • Ph.D. Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts, London

Selected Publications

  • --SCHOLARLY BOOKS

    Mary Flanagan and Mikael Jakobbson. Playful Oppression. In production with MIT Press, anticipated 2022 publication date.

    Mary Flanagan and Helen Nissenbaum, Values at Play in Digital Games (MIT 2014)

    Mary Flanagan, Critical Play: Radical Game Design (MIT 2009)

    Mary Flanagan and Austin Booth, eds. re:Skin (MIT 2007)

    Mary Flanagan and Austin Booth, eds. Reload: Rethinking Women in Cyberculture (MIT 2002)

    ART BOOKS AND CREATIVE WRITING

    Mary  Flanagan, Mapscotch: A Book of Games. Stuttgart: Verlag für Handbücher. 2021

    Mary Flanagan,  Electric Philosophy: Grace[AI]. Under contract, TorqueTorque Press, London

    Mary Flanagan, Ghost Sentence. Austin: Atmosphere Press, 2017

     

  • --SELECTED ARTICLES/PROCEEDINGS
     

    Freedman G, Flanagan M, Kaufman G, Green MC (2021). "Using Comics and Tweets to Raise Awareness about Gender Biases in STEM."  Psychology of Popular Media https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000313

    Potter, S. J., Demers, J. M., Flanagan, M., Seidman, M., & Moschella, E. A. (2020). "Can video games help prevent violence? An evaluation of games promoting bystander intervention to combat sexual violence on college campuses." Psychology of Violence.  https://doi.org/10.1037/vio0000365

    Flanagan, Mary. "A path to our futures." ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories, inaugural issue (July 2019), http://romchip.org/index.php/romchip-journal/index

     

    Freedman G, Flanagan M, Kaufman G, Green MC (2018) "Obituaries Can Popularize Science and Health: Stephen Hawking and Interest in Cosmology and ALS," Psychology of Popular Media Culture.

     

    Potter, S.J., Flanagan, M., Seidman, M., Hodges, H., Stapleton, J., Vessels, L. (2018) "Developing and Piloting Video Games to Increase College and University Students' Awareness and Efficacy of the Bystander Role in Incidents of Sexual Violence," Games for Health Journal doi: 10.1089/g4h.2017.0172

    Freedman, G., Seidman, M., Flanagan, M., Kaufman, G., & Green, M. C. (2018) The impact of an "aha" moment on gender biases: Limited evidence for the efficacy of a game intervention that challenges gender assumptions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 72, 162-167. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2018.03.014. 

    Freedman G, Seidman M, Flanagan M, Kaufman G, Green MC (2018) Updating a classic: A new generation of vignette experiments involving iterative decision-making. Adv Methods Pract Psychol Sci.  doi: 10.1177/2515245917742982

    Freedman, G., Green, M. C., Flanagan, M., Fitzgerald, K., & Kaufman, G., (2018). The effect of gender on attributions for women's anxiety and doubt in a science narrative. Psychology of Women Quarterly, doi: 10.1177/0361684318754528

    Freedman, G., & Flanagan, M. (2017). From dictators to avatars: Furthering social and personality psychology through game methods. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, e12368. doi: 10.1111/spc3.12368. 

    Green, Melanie, Fitzgerald, Kaitlin, Kaufman, Geoff and Flanagan, Mary. (2017) "Self-Esteem and Public Self-Consciousness Moderate the Emotional Impact of Expressive Writing about Experiences with Bias." Personality and Individual Differences.

    Seidman, M. J., Flanagan, M., Rose-Sandler, T., Lichtenberg, M. "Are games a viable solution to crowdsourcing improvements to faulty OCR? - The Purposeful Gaming and BHL experience." Code4Lib Journal 2016

    Kaufman, Geoff and Flanagan, Mary. "Playing the System: Comparing the Efficacy and Impact of Digital and Non-digital Versions of a Collaborative Strategy Game." Proceedings of the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) 2016.

    Kaufman, Geoff, Mary Flanagan, & Sukdith Punjasthitkul, "Investigating the Impact of 'Emphasis Frames' and Social Loafing on Player Motivation and Performance in a Crowdsourcing Game," Proceedings of CHI 2016.

    Kaufman, Geoff, and Flanagan, Mary. "High-Low Split: Divergent Cognitive Construal Levels Triggered by Digital and Non-digital Platforms," Proceedings of CHI 2016.

    Kaufman, G., Flanagan, M.  "A Psychologically "Embedded" Approach to Designing Games for Prosocial Causes." Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, Special Issue on Videogames, 9(3), article 5. doi: 10.5817/CP2015-3-5

    Kaufman, G., Flanagan, M., Seidman, M., & Wien, S. "RePlay Health: An experiential role-playing sport for modeling health care decisions, policies, and outcomes."  Games for Health Journal.  (2015).

    Manzo, C., Kaufman, G., Punjasthitkul, S., and Flanagan, M. "Folksonomies to Libraries and Back Again: Assessing the Value of Crowdsourced, User-Generated Metadata," Digital Humanities Quarterly (2015).

    Kaufman, G. and Flanagan, M. "Lost in Translation:  Comparing the Impact of an Analog and Digital Version of a Public Health Game on Players' Perceptions, Attitudes, and Cognitions." Intnl Journal of Games & Computer Mediated Simulations 5(3) 2013, 1-9.

    Flanagan, M. & Carini, P. (2012). "How games can help us access and understand cultural artifacts." American Archivist 75(2), 514-37. 

  • --RECENT/FORTHCOMING EXHIBITIONS

    2021

    [Grace:AI] Daydreams (Feminist AI, video)

    "Much of a muchness, blurring the lines," International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC'21)  Exhibition, curated by Lila Lo Curto and Bill Outcault, Association for Computational Creativity September

    Mapscotch happening

    Organon 3 Handbook launch, Berlin Felldfünf 15 July 2021

    2020

    Colors of Remembrance (digital drawings)

    "Covid Memorial group virtual exhibition," Biennial of the Americas 15 June – 18 July

    The Archive to Come, Telematic Media Arts, San Francisco, curated by Carla Gannis and Clark Buckner, 22 October -17 December 2020.

     

    Confinementscotch (critical hopscotch)

    " 52 Artists 52 Actions " series, Artspace Sydney Australia July 2020

     

    [Grace:AI] Prometheus 2 (Feminist AI, prints on aluminum)

    "The Question of Intelligence," Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery, The New School New York City,  6 February –March 2020

     

     

    2019

    [pile of secrets] (8 videos)

    "Gameplay. Cultura dels videojocs," from 18 December 2019 to 3 May 2020 CENTRE DE CULTURA CONTEMPORÀNIA DE BARCELONA

     

    [topoesis] (electronic poetry software and works on paper)

    "REWIRED," Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design Gallery, University of Bergen 21-28 November

     

    [Grace:AI] Prometheus I (Feminist AI, works on paper)

    "Children of Prometheus" exhibition at the NeMe Arts Center, Cyprus 10th Oct - Dec 20th

     

    [mapscotch] (bombscotch) (Installation)

    Playmode, MAAT  | Museu de Arte, Arquitectura e Tecnologia  | Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology  Lisbon Portugal October

     

    WORDBOXES: Décomposition du Oui, Numéro 1, 2

    Art Contemporain à La Maison Dora Maar, Ménerbes France

    2018
    [help me know the truth]
    (software and installation)
    "Future Humanity ­­– Our Shared Planet," Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing 7 Nov – 28 Feb 2019

    [borders] (Video Installation)
    New Art Fest +18 Lisbon Portugal 9 Nov – 30 Nov 2018

    [help me know the truth] (software and installation)
    Ars Electronica Center Linz Austria October

    [mirror book] (computational poetry installation)
    Un lieu Une oeuvre galerie, Ménerbes France March 

    [help me know the truth] (software and installation)
    UCLA Art Sci Gallery Los Angeles March

    2017
    [borders]
    (Video Installation)
    Im Spielrausch: Von Drachentötern, Königinnen und Pixelmonstern (Intoxicating Play: Of dragon slayers, queens and pixel monsters) Museum of Fine Arts Cologne (MAKK) August 19, 2017 to February 4, 2018

    [borders] (Video Installation)
    ART GAMES DEMO #4 Frontières et Migration aux Subsistances à Lyon December 2017

    [domestic] (3D Computer Game Artwork)
    HACKING / MODDING / REMIXING as Feminist Protest, Curated by Angela Washko, Jan. 28 – Feb. 26, 2017 Miller Gallery Carnegie Mellon University

    [mapscotch] (bombscotch) (Installation)
    Push Play exhibition, Touring: January 12 - March 4 2017, Hedreen Gallery, Seattle 12 Oct - 31 Dec 2017, Vicki Myhren Gallery, University of Denver

    2016
    [Help Me Know The Truth]
    (software and installation)
    "Monsters in the Machine" exhibition, LABORAL arts center, Asturias Spain in November 2016

    [mapscotch] (bombscotch) (Installation) Free Play exhibition, Touring: Museum London in London, ON, Canada from January 30, 2016 - May 8, 2016; The Rooms, Provincial Art Gallery Division in St. John's, NL, Canada from May 27, 2016 - August 28, 2016; Parsons' Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at The New School in New York City, NY

    2015
    [borders] series 
    PLAYGROUNDS, Redline Collective Denver CO  July

    [mapscotch] (bombscotch) (Installation) Free Play exhibition, Touring:  College of Wooster Art Museum Curated by Melissa E. Feldman January 18, 2015 - March 6; Art Gallery of Greater Victoria in Victoria, BC, Canada from April 25, 2015 - August 3, 2015; Handwerker Gallery, Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY from Oct 1, 2015 - Nov 6, 2015

    2014
    Play Your Place: Play South Westminster
    (Public Art Video Game in collaboration with Ruth Catlow as Local Play UK) Tate Britain, British Folk Art Exhibition July 2014

    [borders] (Video Installation) FILE Machinima in FILE 2014 - Electronic Language International Festival, FIESP Cultural Center, São Paulo Aug 25 to Oct 05, 2014

    [map-puzzle 1: treasure island] (Puzzle) Dime Bag 4: exhibition at The End is Near, Brooklyn July

    [mapscotch] (Installation) Free Play exhibition at Arcadia University Art Gallery, Glenside PA Curated by Melissa E. Feldman

    [borders] (Video Installation) Digital Zoo exhibition UK (Touring 5 cities) Feb – July including London, Sunderland, Leeds

    [buffalo] (Board Game) Doing it on the Table: An Exhibition of Board Games by Digital Designers, Game Developers Conference, San Francisco March

    2013
    [pile of secrets]
    (Video Installation) ZKM_Gameplay Mobile, Representing of the State of Baden-Württemberg, Berlin Nov- Dec

    [borders] Series (video installation) Media Arts Dortmund, Cologne November

    [borders] Series (video installation) Machinigglitch, ARCADE, Festival Gamerz 9, Aix on Provence France

    Layoff (Computer Game) The Games of Art, Block Gallery Queensland Australia 23 July -2 August

    Play Your Place: Play Southend (Public Art Video Game in collaboration with Ruth Catlow as Local Play UK) Launching at the METAL Village Green Festival, UK July 2013

    [mapscotch] (Public Street Game) Free Play, ICI, Henry Gallery Seattle June

  • --SOME RECENT CHAPTERS

    Kaufman, Geoff, Flanagan, Mary, and Seidman, Max. "Creating Stealth Game Interventions for Attitude and Behavior Change: An 'Embedded Design' Model.'  Persuasive Gaming in Context. Eds de la Hera, Teresa, Jansz, Jeroen, Raessens, Joost and Schouten, Ben. Amsterdam : Amsterdam University Press, 2021, pp. 73-90. 

    Flanagan, Mary. "If you play it, do you believe it?" Narrative Mechanics: Strategies and Meanings in Games and Real Life, edited by Beat Suter, René Bauer, and Mela Kocher. Transcript: Bielefeld, Germany, forthcoming in 2021.

    Flanagan, Mary. "Feminist(AI)," The Love Makers, by Aifric Campbell. London: Goldsmiths Press (Distributed by MIT Press) 2021.

    Flanagan, Mary. "Enter the Dragon," The Infinite Playgrounds, by Bernie Dekoven with Holly Gramazio. Edited by Eric Zimmerman, Celia Pearce, and Holly Gramazio. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2020, pp. 136-139


    Flanagan, Mary. "Taking Binaries off the Table." Feminist War Games? Mechanisms of War, Feminist Values, and Interventional Games, eds. Jon Saklofske, Alyssa Arbuckle, Jon Bath. London: Routledge, 2019, pp. 195-201


    Flanagan, Mary. "A Playful Planet, Despite it all," Essay for the Playmode Exhibition Catalog, Museu de Arte, Arquitectura e Tecnologia, Lisbon, Portugal: FundaçãoEDP, Oct 2019, pp. 124-130.

    Flanagan, Mary. "Video Games and Gaming Culture." Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks: Gender: SPACE. Ed. Hedblad, Alan and Kooistra, Alja. New York: Macmillan, 2018.

    Flanagan, Mary. "Critical Play and Responsible Design." The Routledge Companion to Media Studies and Digital Humanities. Ed. Jentery Sayers. New York: Routledge 2018.

    Flanagan, Mary. "An Alternate History of Wargaming." Zones of Control. Pat Harrigan and Matthew Kirschenbaum, eds. (MIT Press 2016), pp 703-707.

    Flanagan, Mary. "Critical Play: The Productive Paradox." Blackwell Companion to Digital Art, ed. Christiane Paul New York: Blackwell, 2016, pp. 445-460.

    Flanagan, Mary. "The Ludification of Culture  & Playful Aesthetics." Gameful World, Ed. S. Walz and Sebastian Deterding. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2015.

    Flanagan, Mary. "The Bride Stripped Bare." Reprinted in: Feminist and Queer Information Studies Reader, edited by Patrick Keilty and Rebecca Dean. Sacramento, CA: Litwin Books, 2013.

    Flanagan, Mary. "Play, Participation, and Art: Blurring the Edges." Context Providers. Eds. Margot Lovejoy, Christiane Paul, Victoria Vesna. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press (Intellect Press), 2011.

Speaking Engagements

Recent featured Talks and Keynotes

2022  
"Artist Talk," Artists NOW, Peck School for the Arts, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 9 March 


2021  

"Love in the Glitch: Humanizing the Future," The Future of Humanity. Conference, June 19

"Game Design for prosocial causes," United Nations & Games Industry Joint Initiative - Playing for the Planet - Harnessing the Power of Games to Tackle Climate Change, talk to the Green Game Jam, 26 March

"Games as Social Transformation," Cornell Tech Digital Life Initiative, 18 Feb

"Linking Art Practice and Games," Columbus College of Art, 29 January

2020  

"Designing Transformative Games," Games for Impact Poland: International festival of games with a social impact, National Film Archive Warsaw 10 December  

2019   

"Dawn Chan and Mary Flanagan: On Power and Play in Virtual Worlds," Conversations on the Edge, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 18 April

 

2018  

"Interactive Narrative and Game Mechanics in Design and Culture," GameZ & RuleZ Symposium, Zurich 9 November

 

"Change right now," World Economic Forum Tech Pioneers Meeting in San Francisco 21 March

 

"Game Changers: Playing Gaming for Good," World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos Switzerland 25 January

 

2017  

"Games for Global Justice," Games to Inspire in Youth Work and Global Development Education, Tipperary Ireland

 

"Making Play Matter: Games for Social Good," Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence Symposium (IGGI), York UK September

 

"Evidence Based Design," Games for Change Festival, New York City, 31 July – 2 Aug

 

"VIVE la Révolution," 48th International Simulation and Gaming Association (ISAGA) conf Delft July

 

"Special Address: Playing Colonialism," Board Game Studies Colloquium, University of Copenhagen, Denmark 17-20 May  

 

"Othering Algorithms," Cornell's "Skin Practice": Society for the Humanities Fellows' Workshop 14 April

 

"Working Interventions," UCLA Art|Sci Leonardo Art Science Rendezvous (LASER) 23 February 

2016
"Connected Play," Oxford Internet Institute's Connected Life conference Oxford UK 21 June

"Critical Games," Berkeley Center for New Media's History and Theory of New Media Lecture Series March 

"Critical Play and Embedded Design," Carnegie Mellon February

"Identity in Gaming," Teacher's College at Columbia University, Sexuality Women and Gender project and the Office of Diversity Affairs at Teachers College February

2015    
"Games that Change the World:  What's Possible?" Bergen Norway Public Library, September

"Ludics Seminar," Department of the Classics, Harvard University September

"Embedded Design for Social Innovation," Segal Design Institute on December 2nd to give a talk in the Segal Seminar Series, December

"Creating a #CrowdCON," Engaging the Public: Best Practices for Crowdsourcing Across the Disciplines. University of Maryland 6-8 May

"The Psychology of Interventionist Design," School of Visual Arts, March

"Humanist Games: Playful Systems for Critical Thinking," Fordham Univ. Inaugural Digital Media Lecture Series March 

"Diversity in Audience, Diversity in Creators," IndieCade East Keynote Talk, American Museum of the Moving Image 15 Feb 
 

2014
"Values at Play in Smart Technologies," University of Toronto September

"Games as a Medium," Games and Gambits in Contemporary Art Panel, College Art Association NYC February  

"Freedom at Play in Digital Games," Keynote Talk at the Philosophy of Computer Games 2014 Istanbul 13-15 November

"Who Plays?" RE:Humanities'14: Play, Power, Production Keynote Talk Haverford College April 

"How to Think," Panel, Game Developer's Conference: Education Summit, San Francisco March

"Teaching Games with Games: Eight Exercises in Play," Panel, Game Developer's Conference: Education Summit, San Francisco March

"Games and Gender-Based Violence," Games for Change Conference NYC April 

"Games for Social Change 2.0," Games for Change Conference NYC April 

"Playing with your Metadata," WebWise, Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Innovation Conference, Baltimore February

"Making a Difference in and through Playful Design," Computer Supported Cooperative Work Annual Conference (ACM) Baltimore February

"Humanist Inquiry through Critical Play: Designing and Enacting our Enduring Questions, MIT Comparative Media Studies January

2013   
"Designing and Researching Games to Reduce Stereotypes and Biases: A Psychological Approach," Workshop at Games, Learning and Society Madison WI 13 June 2013

"The Psychology of Games For Change," Association of Professional Futurists Orlando

"Game Design Curriculum Deathmatch," Game Developer's Conference, Education Summit

"Playful Aesthetics," Video Games Panel, Modern Language Assn Annual Convention Boston

Works In Progress

Expert in games for creative expression and social impact using psychological methods. Exhibits at museums and festivals worldwide. Research includes novel ways to address public health, equity, and knowledge creation using games and related systems design. Developed the Values at Play design methodology featured in Values at Play in Digital Games (MIT 2014) with phlosopher Helen Nissenbaum. 

Selected Works & Activities

Noted commercial board game designer, see 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/50567/mary-flanagan

Find videos related to Professor Flanagan's work, including lectures, on her personal site.