Transculturating Snakes and Ladders: Decoloniality and Boardgames
Date: 27 July 2025
Time: 5:30 - 7:00 pm
Venue: KCC Library
This July, join us at KCC Library for a fascinating talk by Dr. Souvik Mukherjee, associate professor in Cultural Studies at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. In this session, Dr. Mukherjee revisits the colonial histories of iconic boardgames like Snakes and Ladders and Ludo—games often dismissed as simple childhood pastimes.
Drawing from postcolonial and decolonial frameworks, and the concept of transculturation, the talk will uncover how games originally rooted in Indian philosophy and leisure practices—such as Moksha Patam and Pachisi—were rebranded and redefined under British colonial rule. Dr. Mukherjee will trace the transformation of these games into The Game of Life and Royal Ludo, revealing suppressed narratives of ethics, pedagogy, and cultural identity embedded within play.
A must-attend for scholars, designers, educators, gamers, and anyone curious about how everyday objects carry histories of power, resistance, and meaning.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dr. Souvik Mukherjee is Associate Professor in Cultural Studies at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. A pioneering scholar in Game Studies, his research explores videogames as storytelling media, with a focus on postcolonialism, identity, temporality, and game cultures in South and Southeast Asia.
He is the author of three major monographs: Videogames and Storytelling (2015), Videogames and Postcolonialism (2017), and Videogames in the Indian Subcontinent (2022). Currently, he is working on a book about Indian board games and colonialism.
His interests span Digital Humanities, Poststructuralist theory, Posthumanism, and Early Modern Literature. Dr. Mukherjee is also the creator of several open-access digital archives on heritage and history and has been recognized as a Distinguished Scholar by DiGRA and a fellow of the Higher Education Video Game Alliance.
