The International

Board Game Studies Association

An interdisciplinary group devoted to research on board games throughout the world

The BGSA is an international, interdisciplinary, and informal group of academics and field researchers devoted to the history and development of board games throughout the world. Its members meet and communicate regularly with one another, but there is no formal membership structure or subscription or central address. This unofficial BGSA page is part of the website of David Parlett, one of the associates (email: games at parlett dot eu)

The Association holds research seminars every year, usually in April, meeting each time in a different country. They are occasions on which scholars, academics, curators, and others involved in games research in the international community share thoughts and findings on various aspects of board games and their study. Participants include archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, psychologists, educationalists, authors, game inventors, collectors, and representatives of games publishers and manufacturers. Papers arising out of the colloquia are published in its journal "Board Game Studies". These events began as Board Games in Academia, following a preliminary gathering in 1990 in England hosted by Dr Irving Finkel, curator of the British Museum's Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities.

Past issues of BGS journal are now to be found in Associação Ludus.

(Above) Participants at the IX Colloquium held in Ouro Preto, Brazil, 2006

(Below) Recent and regular participants (hover over to identify)

(Below) Participants at the VIII Colloquium held at Oxford, 2005