The Speculative Ludology Lab

Welcome to the Lab

Founded by Dr. Jerome P. Dent, Jr. (Communication and Africana Studies) and Jon Chambers (Digital Media Practices), the Speculative Ludology Lab (also referred to as the Ludic Research Lab) is an interdisciplinary research hub established at Tulane University within the Tilton Memorial Library. The lab bridges Game Studies, Game Making, Critical Race Theory, and Critical Digital Humanities to analyze how the mechanical and algorithmic architectures of video and tabletop games structure digital life, vulnerability, and agency.

At its core, the lab is directly aligned with Tulane’s foundational values of equity, inclusion, and accessibility. By housing hardware and software in Tulane’s Tilton Memorial Library and making equipment available for student checkout, the lab removes financial and institutional barriers. This ensures that all students, regardless of background, have equitable access to the primary tools needed to study, critique, and produce digital media.

Our Mission

While traditional Game Studies often prioritizes visual representation, avatar customization, and player demographics, our mission is to interrogate the underlying code, rulesets, and procedural rhetoric of digital and tabletop games to enable students to understand how these playable spaces can reflect real world issues. 

We investigate how fundamental game mechanics, such as permadeath, death loops, resource scarcity, and infinite respawning, etc. act as analogues to systemic inequity, structural constraint, and institutional power. Drawing on Critical Race Theory and an intersectional approach, the lab treats games and game mechanics as structured systems to examine how racial hierarchy, anti-Blackness, representation and queer theory are programmed into interactive environments that affect our lives. 

Central to this mission is democratizing access to technology within the university ecosystem. By partnering with Tilton Library to house proprietary consoles, retro multi-consoles, and curated software titles in a secure checkout system, the lab empowers students and emerging scholars to participate directly in critical digital humanities research.

Leadership, Team & Acknowledgments

Jon Chambers
(Co-founder, Collections Curator & Software Strategist) 
Professor of Practice, Digital Media Practices 

Library Integration & Cataloging Specialists

Lisa Hooper & Katherine Hicks
Spearheaded the archival cataloging, metadata architecture, and system integration within Tilton Memorial Library to enable student checkout and asset management.

Logistics & Administrative Support
Special thanks to Mrs. Ava L’Herisse and Mrs. Donnie Parham for their essential logistical, financial, and administrative support in establishing the lab’s operations and infrastructure.

Sponsors & Donors

The construction and launch of the Speculative Ludology Lab, along with its initial research initiatives and equipment acquisitions, have been generously supported by:

The Georges Lurcy Grant 

The Lavin-Bernick Faculty Grant 

Tulane University School of Liberal Arts