TASP conducts a scholarly conference each year. Meetings have been held throughout North America and in Europe, including in Paris and Salzburg. During its early years, TASP published proceedings of the meetings, but beginning in 1988, annual publications replaced the proceedings. Play & Culture and the Journal of Play Theory & Research preceded the current Play & Culture Studies.
Over the years, numerous prominent play scholars and leaders have served as president of the organization, and its leaders, members, and meetings have embodied the power and spirit of play in everyday life.
The History of the TAASP/TASP Logo
The drawing of a scholarly skeleton playing backgammon with an ape was drawn by David Frederick of the Audio-Visual Service of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, for the program of the combined meetings of the American Ethnological Society, the Central States Anthropological Society, and The Association for the Anthropological Study of Play, held in Detroit in Apr il 1975. This was the Second Annual Meeting of TAASP, at which B. Allan Tindall assumed the presidency from Michael A. Salter, Founding President. As president-elect, Phillips Stevens, Jr . , was Program Chair.
Allan Tindall presided at the Third Annual Meeting in Atlanta in 1976. Stevens edited the 1976 proceedings, and he requested David Frederick’s drawing from Miami University for what was intended as a tribute to Allan.
The Director of Audio-Visual Services, William L . King, freely gave TAASP the logo. It appeared on the cover of the 1976 Proceedings, Studies in the Anthropology of Play: Papers in Memory of B. Allan Tindall (Phillips Stevens, Jr . , Ed. West Point, NY.
The TAASP/TASP Logo first appeared in the Association’s Newsletter on Vol. 4, No. 1, Summer 1977, Brian Sutton-Smith, Editor. So, in 1975, three anthropological associations met together, and the drawing incorporates at least three of anthropology’s “ four-field” approach: archaeology, represented by the skeleton; primatology (a part of biological or physical anthropology), by the ape; and cultural anthropology, represented in the game. The mortarboard, the look of consternation on the skeleton, and the smug expression on the ape, might be seen as digs at the potential arrogance of scholars adopting a superior attitude toward their subject matter! The fourth sub-field, linguistic anthropology or language-and-culture, might be seen as implied in the drawing.
Phil Stevens
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